Qigong Classes –What, Why and When

Qigong is Chinese self-healing that aims to improve health and vitality through the stimulation of the body’s own healing and regulatory capabilities.  With roots in Taoism, martial arts, and Chinese medicine, Qigong is used as a method of health maintenance, a means to enhance artistic creativity and a path of spiritual growth. There are many aspects of Qigong ranging from meditative to exuberant and martial. Its applications are almost endless.

Body mechanics and movement lay the foundation of a powerful Qigong practice. As such, we will draw upon the Feldenkrais Method to study breath, movement and alignment in order to encourage the body to move with freedom and ease. Through this focus, there is a profound experience of returning to the support of the body and visceral experience of trust and well-being is cultivated.

With this foundation the body’s energetic aspect naturally comes alive and begins to pump and move stagnant fluids, bringing a youthful and light feeling to the body.  When the energetic system opens, the body’s innate desire for homeostasis is ignited. Deep meditation and states of profound calm can be cultivated, pain and confusion drop away, while clarity and awareness flourish. Increasingly subtle states become perceptible, cultivating a sense of connectedness to oneself and the world around.

Explore the various aspects of Qigong:

Meditation and Centering

Self-Healing

Biomechanics and Ease

Martial Arts

Energetics, Qi, and Meridians

Sarah Kowalski, J.D. brings a novel approach to her Qigong classes by combining her 8 years of Qigong study with her training as a Feldenkrais practitioner to directly address the link between body mechanics, posture, emotions and health. She also draws upon her training as certified Integral Coach from New Ventures West, to help her clients translate embodied experiences into potent action.  By cultivating the ability to return to a sense of “home” or rest in the body, she helps people develop an embodied sense of intuition and wisdom from which people can begin to engage in life more fully.

Weekly Qigong class at A.Muse

Monday evenings 6:30-8pm, $15 drop-ins, $12 class card (5 classes for $60)

Wear loose comfortable clothing and layers.

Bring a mat or blanket to lie on for Feldenkrais exercises if you wish.

In Pursuit of Dreams: How the Feldenkrais Method Cultivates Resilience and Maturity

I’ve been thinking a lot about resilience these days as I prepare to teach a class with my Feldenkrais and coaching colleague Cliff Smyth on Embodied Resilience. Last weekend, I accompanied a friend while she was at a conference for adolescent health.  She was totally inspired by the idea of how to develop resilience in her teenage clients, as well as in herself while she tries to stay afloat in an extremely stressful job.  Someone else to geek out with about resilience—perfect!! Because of my own bias, I was eager to talk about how to embody resilience. If you don’t feel resilient, will efforts to develop resilience be lost?

My friend was curious why I thought the Feldenkrais Method was specifically focused, more than other somatic modalities such as yoga, on building resilience.  Moshe Feldenkrais, creator of the Feldenkrais Method, developed a rich method to give people an experience of abstract ideas so that they could move from a theoretical idea to an embodied experience. He looked at several different physical phenomenon and explained the emotional and cognitive effect of these physical experiences on the psyche.

Core to all of Moshe Feldenkrais’s teachings is the idea that all emotional and intellectual ideas have physical correlates that are experienced through the body’s contractions, sensations, bio-chemistry etc. Thus, to cultivate resilience, one must cultivate a felt sense of it in addition to the emotional and cognitive skills. Within this framework, Feldenkrais explained that many different phenomenon such as balance, neutrality, “acture” (as opposed to posture), as well as biomechanical and environmental support, contribute to one’s sense of themselves in relation to the world. More importantly, each of these components plays a critical role in creating the visceral experience of resilience.  Or put it simply, unless the body experiences stability and support, is it possible to experience resilience?

Health

Moshe Feldenkrais saw health not as the absence of disease, but rather that health is more akin to maturity. He proposed that health, on one level, is the ability to recover from illness and injury – in a word resilience. On deeper level, he felt that a healthy person is able to realize their ‘avowed dreams’ (their plans, hopes and visions for themselves) and their ‘unavowed dreams’ (the things we don’t dare to dream, dreams we have given up and our potential). A healthy person is able to bounce back, to recover physically, emotionally, in all ways – and continue to move toward their aims in life.

Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement Lessons are a presented as a set of movement puzzles that are solved through awareness of how you are doing an action, while challenging yourself to develop a sense of ease in the action instead of just powering through unaware and with strain. This awareness and lack of strain provides profound transformation, making you can feel more comfortable, relaxed, poised, and stronger.

Below are some core teachings of the Feldenkrais Method that are specifically addressed through the method, both in theory and practice.  These concepts when embodied through the lessons, lead to a profound experience of greater resilience.

Balance.

Being able to rebound and rebalance oneself is an integral part of mental, emotional and physical well-being and is at the core of resilience.   From an embodied perspective, balance is a physical experience of being able to stand up and move around without falling over.  What most people don’t think about, however, is that balance is not being rigidly fixated to a certain position, but rather entails falling off center and recovering as quickly as possible.  For example, even in a simple activity like walking, we throw ourselves off balance and fall down for a moment until we catch ourselves with the leg swinging forward. The idea of being “centered” or “grounded” is all the rage these days.  The great masters in the martial arts context appear not to move or lose center, but they admit that they lose center but they are able to recover so quickly that one never notices that they were ever off balance.

The Feldenkrais Method of Awareness Through Movement Lessons highlight the experience of falling off center and recovering.  They bring awareness to the experience of balance as the absence of rigidity by constructing movement sequences in which students are called to catch oneself, steady and move on. Because of the type of awareness cultivated, students can also realize where they have mental and emotional rigidities that cause them to fixate in one place and fall down.  When students can develop more optimal physical balance with detailed awareness of its sensations and components, it translates into more cognitive and emotional balance.

Parasitic Contractions

This is one of my favorite concepts that Moshe Feldenkrais developed.  Parasitic contractions are contractions in the muscular system that are either not necessary to or actually in opposition to the intended action.  Think about when you are stressed.  Do you find yourself clenching your jaw or holding your breath?  Have you noticed that your shoulders creep up towards your neck?  These are parasitic contractions and they have a toll on the overall sense of well-being in the system.  As a result, most people have an ambient tension in the body that is not necessary for the intended action.  This constant clenching sends signals to the body that there is danger or distress.  With this constant noise, it’s hard for the mind to feel calm.  In short, it prevents a sense of resilience.

What’s worse, however, is that parasitic contractions can actually oppose the intended action.  For example, when you are holding your breath and tightening your chest, it’s harder to bend the torso.  Many people do things in their bodies that actually inhibit forward movement or even walking—e.g. tightening their stomach muscles or back.  On a subtler level, when people try to do a task that they are dreading, many subtle parasitic contractions show up in the body.  These counter intentions literally show up in the body.  If you can learn to sense them, you can try to soften these contractions and you stop fighting yourself to do the intended action.

Neutral

A related concept highlighted by the Feldenkrais Method is that of finding neutral — a sense in the body of minimal strain in the muscles in which the joints are not at their extremes.  In other words, only those muscles that are necessary to the intended action are contracted and only the appropriate amount of effort is being expended through the musculature.  Being able to sense neutral in your body, allows you to feel any increase in demand on your system. When you lose neutral, you are either over or under “efforting.”  It is a clue that the demand is too much for your system and has triggered an extreme, or unproductive, reaction – rather than an appropriate response. Some things in life take some effort and force, but using more force than necessary can be injurious to ourselves or others. Not to mention that it is exhausting mentally.  Neutral in this sense is not emotionally blank or disengaged, but involves a comfortable sense of ‘home’ in the body which allows an appropriate response to demands.

‘Acture’

Acture is another flagship concept coined by Moshe Feldenkrais.  It is related to the idea of having a sense of neutral, relaxed readiness for action. For Feldenkrais ‘acture’ is the ability to move in any direction without any additional preparation for action.  In contrast, “posture” is usually an idea of how we should hold ourselves that is influenced by different trends and cultures.  If you look back over time and across cultures, you will see different postures that are popular which have little relation to what is functional and prepares one for a state of readiness.  For example, being able to jump and avoid danger without having to do all sorts of things such as bending, leaning forward etc to prepare to jump.

In life acture creates the ability to respond appropriately to whatever challenges come into our lives without needing to do a lot of preparation or being thrown off balance. It is also a powerful way of about being “centered.” When we embody acture we are able to respond with fluidity and grace– able to go in any directions as needed, with the appropriate amount of effort.

A central theme in Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lessons is how to develop a sense of acture.  Many times parasitic contractions need to be reduced in order to attain acture.

Support: In Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lessons one of the things we explore is how to use the support from the environment (usually the floor, sometimes a chair or the wall) to facilitate effective movement. In the rest of life too we need to take support from our environment – our friends, family, groups, professionals, books, ideas – to deal with challenges. More importantly, in Awareness Through Movement lessons we also develop to rest on the structure of our skeleton in order to develop a visceral sense of trust and support.  With a visceral experience of support, we are better able to deal with life challenges.  From a solid base of support, wellsprings of resilience can manifest.

You can see that these visceral concepts are core to developing resilience.  The Feldenkrais Method, targets the development of this type of awareness.  By embodying these ideas, you can develop the maturity to pursue your ‘avowed’ and ‘unavowed dreams.’

Willpower? Does it Help or Hinder

Will power is a topic of many a coaching conversation.  How do we get ourselves to undertake lifestyle changes and tasks that are difficult?  Many of us believe it’s simply a matter of putting our heads down and pushing through—using willpower to force our way through.  But in my experience, this approach leads to eventual burnout.  It does not lead to sustainable change because our ability to bully ourselves into action will eventually cease.   But how else can we move to take on new behaviors or tasks?

Moshe Feldenkrais, a physicist and judo master, spent years studying how people learn.  He developed a system of movement education based on increasing one’s awareness of how one moves.  He believed that it is possible to create conditions for success that allow people move to action without forcing it through willpower.

In our society, effort is rewarded.  In many instances, finding the path of least resistance is somehow less admirable.  Feldenkrais points out that if one can do something without the sensation of effort, it is not good enough.

“From early childhood we are taught to strain ourselves.  Parents and teachers seem to receive sadistic satisfaction from compelling children to make an effort.  If the child can do what is demanded of him with no apparent forcing of himself they will put him in a more advanced class or add something to his duty just to make sure the poor thing learns “what life really means.’… [O]ne is not supposed to be satisfied unless one really feels the strain of pushing the limits.” (Moshe Feldenkrais, The Potent Self p. xii, 1985)

If something falls into place easily, we often assume it a fluke.  We may even repeat the act just to make sure we strain ourselves the second time and thus feel like we have accomplished something. This type of behavior is glorified as sign of great willpower.

But, as Feldenkrais notes, “….willpower is necessary only where the ability to do is lacking.” (The Potent Self p. xii).   In learning new ways of directing oneself, it is essential to bring about optimal conditions for success.  When you ask someone else to do something for you, there are ways of asking that make it more likely that the person will oblige.  When you bully or nag the person, they are less likely to want to help you. No one responds graciously or willingly to nagging.  So, just as there are ways to ask someone else to do something that are more or less objectionable, there is the same distinction when we are asking ourselves to do something. Nagging oneself is as bad as nagging another.  If you direct yourself rudely—blaming yourself for being lazy, weak, clumsy—you can rarely oblige willingly. (The Potent Self p. xii)

Much of the time when we direct ourselves to do something, we bully or nag ourselves to do it and then we call it “willpower.”  Willpower is tantamount to nagging oneself to do an action by bullying or nagging oneself.  But it is much easier to get yourself to do something without tension or bullying yourself.  And, more importantly, the body responds to willpower by becoming more rigid and stiff in body and manner. (The Potent Self p. xi)

Feldenkrais further notes that we need to employ willpower, when we need to overcome something that inhibits us from acting. We are not able to perform the action because the “desire” to do does not lead to action because it is outweighed by contradictory motivations of equal intensity.  For example, you want to clean out the garage but you do not do so.  Moshe Feldenkrais explains the inability as follows:

“In all cases of inability to do, there is a feeling of “ought to” which is more pronounced than “want to.”  “Ought to” already contains the element of “I do not want to” so it is inhibitory of any action.  Many times we are unable to enact certain motives because we want them vaguely; ‘we feel the sensation of ‘ought to’ instead of ‘want to.’” (The Potent Self p. 4)

In other words, one does not need to bully or force oneself into action.  Instead, in order to move towards a goal or an action, the key is to limit cross-motivations that interfere with the intended action in order to form clear motivations and intentions. When you have a clear intention and motivation to act, there is no reason to use willpower.  In the words of Moshe Feldenkrais, “[l]earning as I see it, is not the training of willpower but the acquisition of the skill to inhibit parasitic action (cross-motivations) and the ability to direct clear motivations (minimize counter-intentions) as a result of self-knowledge.” (The Potent Self p. xii)

Although this all makes logical sense, you may be asking yourself how to move towards clear intention and clear action.  This is where somatic coaching provides a potent method for dealing with counter-intentions and cross-motivations.  The body provides a gateway into changing the inability to act.  Feldenkrais explained that all thoughts, emotions, and actions have corresponding muscular contractions associated with them.  There is a flood of the nervous system that creates an emotion, and/or thought as well as a set of muscular contractions.  They become hard-wired together.  Therefore, if you want to change the thought or behavior, you can remove or alter the physical contraction.  When the physical anchor to a thought is removed, the nervous system cannot respond in its habitual manner.  A new possibility for action is born.

How does this level of detail relate to willpower?  The bottom line is that anytime you bully or nag yourself into taking an action, there will be a set of parasitic contractions that occur in the body—as simple as holding your breath or clenching your teeth.  Many more may be much more subtle.  They take away from the action and intention because they are not necessary and in many instances actual contrary to the movement.  For example, imagine trying to sit up at your desk.  Sitting requires much less muscular effort than many of us realize.  Think about a baby—they sit bolt upright, without any tension in their body.  They are a soft and mushy.  But many of us, have many parasitic contractions that develop related to sitting such as holding one’s breath and tightening the chest wall, both of which cause the muscles in the front of the body to contract and pull the chest down.  To compensate, we work harder in the back to hold ourselves up than necessary.  So, holding your breath is counter to the action of sitting up straight.  It is a parasitic contraction and runs counter to the intention to sit up straight.   We have numerous and ever more subtle counter-intentions that arise both mentally and physically.  Since every thought has a corresponding set of muscle contractions, every time you nag or bully yourself it is expressed through the body in the form of parasitic contractions.

So, for example, you have the feeling that you “ought to” clean out the garage.  This thought is accompanied by a sinking in the chest, tightening of the diaphragm and chest wall and subsequent shallowing of the breath. These habitual contractions are not necessary for the intended action and in fact are counter to the intended action.  Thus, now that you are bullying yourself, you have to work extra hard physically and psychologically to overcome the counter-intentions of the body and cross-motivations of the mind.

Most of us are completely unaware of the counter-intention/cross-motivations on a physical and sometimes even a mental level.  The Feldenkrais Method can be used to help you can gain awareness of the thought and the corresponding physical contractions.  After you have gained awareness of the contraction, you can do something to alter or prevent the habitual physical response.  This causes the nervous system to be taken out of its habitual pattern, allowing a moment in which another choice can arise. The counter-intention that arises on the physical level has been unseated.  Action in the intended direction has a chance.

Learning to sense oneself to the point of noticing parasitic contractions and counter-intentions can take time and practice.  But, Feldenkrais lessons are specifically designed to help you learn to sense your body in this way.  Awareness Through Movement (or “ATM”) classes guide you through a series of movements with the goal of gaining awareness of how you move in order to create choice about how you move.  Feldenkrais eloquently states it as follows:

“if we do not know what we are actually enacting then we cannot possibly do what we want….An obvious solution is to preoccupy ourselves not with what we do but how we do it.  The ‘how’ is the hallmark of our individuality; it is an inquiry into the process of acting.  If we look at how we do things, we might find an alternative way of doing them, i.e. have some free choice.  For if we have no alternative, we have not choice at all.” (Feldenkrais, Moshe, The Elusive Obvious p. xi- xii, 1981)

Therefore, the goal of ATM lessons is to gain clarity and understanding about how you move.  In doing so, you can notice many things about how you do things, such as:

• When do you hold your breath?

• How do you hold your breath when something is difficult?

• What do you do when you get frustrated? Where do you tighten?  What are you thoughts at that moment?  Do you try harder? Or do you make it simpler and do less?

• What is your relationship to ambition?  Can you do something for the sake of it feeling good or easy or are you compelled to accomplish or attain a goal?

• Can you notice parasitic contractions in any movement or action you try to make?  Can you notice the parasitic contractions that arise, just at the thought of doing something you do not want to do?

As you begin to notice at this level, you can make a choice to do something differently.  Until you notice that you even hold your breath when needing to do something, you can’t start to untangle the web to clearer action.

Putting It Into Practice

Let’s look at a practical example of how you can begin to shift from bullying yourself into action towards motivating from a clear intention with minimal counter-intentions.

Mental Level: Noticing the Thought “Ought To” and “Should”

Look at your To Do list for the coming week or day.  Try to switch as many things on your To Do List to an affirmative choice to do it or not to do it. Each day, review your To Do List and note next to as many items as possible “I chose to do this” or “I chose not to do it.”  See if you can notice a shift in your being, body and attitude when you make a clear choice that is not motivated by the thought “I ought to” or “I should.”

Physical/Somatic Level: Noticing Parasitic Contractions

These examples require you to have a high degree of somatic awareness.  If you do not already have a high degree of awareness, you may want to commit to going to an ATM class to develop the skill to sense yourself in this way or you may want to take on this exploration within to context of an ATM lesson.

Notice when you tell yourself that you ought to do something.  Notice what muscle contractions are associated with the thought of doing the action.  Can you sense yourself holding your breath, tightening your diaphragm, or clenching your jaw either when doing the actual action or when you nag yourself to do the action?

This is not an easy exercise, so give yourself time to learn to sense your body in this way. At first you may only sense this level of detail when you are doing an ATM lesson.  You can take on the practice of doing ATM lessons with the intention of noticing when you feel like you ought to attain some part of the action.  At the moment you notice the thought, pay attention to what is happening in your body.  With time, you will be able to catch yourself in life as well.

Conversely, try to pay attention to those times you find yourself making excessive effort or parasitic contractions in the body, such as holding your breath, tightening your diaphragm, clenching your jaw or holding your hands rigid.  (You may find other ways that you hold excess tension—pay attention for your unique way).  At the moment that you find yourself doing some sort of “parasitic contraction,” note what you were thinking and feeling just before you noticed the parasitic contraction.  Then try to soften the contraction.  As you begin to catch yourself more and more frequently, you will start to untie the habitual contraction from the thought, action or feeling and a new possibility will arise.

A Completely Different Way: Waiting for Inspiration

Finally, there’s another approach that for many of you will seem impossible at first glance.  But, for the right situation it can work well. It involves taking a break from all that you are trying to talk yourself or bully yourself into doing.  Be lazy if necessary.  Do nothing.  Lie on the couch for a few days.  A point will come when you will have to act but it will be from a clear motivation and inspiration.  To be successful at this approach, you must commit to not acting until you are truly motivated.  For many of you who compulsively act and get stuff done, this will be very difficult.  However, it can be very powerful and can radically alter how you motivate yourself in many areas of your life.

I used this approach when I was getting an overwhelming amount of input and ideas from others about how I should market my business. My head was spinning with the list of marketing angles and articles I should write.  There were many things I “should” have done.  And, many of them were logical, but did not feel right for me or my values.  I did not want to fall into the trap of doing what I should do, instead of what my heart wanted to do because I knew that it would otherwise not be sustainable.  When I stopped to ignore all the input and do nothing for a few days, I was eventually moved to action from a place of inspiration.  The cross-motivations were gone and I could act clearly and decisively.

At first it was scary to “do nothing.”  I worried about never getting off the couch.   But in the end I found that it brought me much greater clarity and motivation. My actions arose because the direction felt aligned with my values and goals.  I didn’t have to muscle myself into action–instead I freely and clearly took action.  It’s much more fun and, in the end, I get a lot more done.  After doing this exercise a few times, it is much easier for me to sense what is internally motivating me so I don’t have to stop everything in order to find inspiration.  I can tap into a place of internal motivation and shut out the nagging voice that tries to bully me into action.  When I notice the bullying voice, I stop to take stock of the situation.

It’s important to pick the right type of activity for this exercise.  Obviously, there are many life situations that may not work with this approach.  For me, I usually have to bully myself to pay bills.  I don’t think I will ever be internally motivated or inspired to pay them. Since its not advisable to ignore them, it’s not advisable to wait and see if I get inspired.  However, there are many areas in which this approach will work.  I recommend choosing an area of your life where there are many options, lots of outside input and room to act from your heart. Over time, acting from this place will get easier.

Summary

Feldenkrais beautifully states, “I believe that knowing oneself is the most important thing a human being can do for himself.  How can one know oneself?  By learning to act, not as one should, but as one does.” (Feldenkrais, Moshe; The Elusive Obvious, p. xi, 1981).  These are fine words to live by.  Because forcing, bullying or nagging oneself into action is not sustainable and over time it will pull you away from who you are and what you truly want.  By learning to reduce counter-intentions at the physical and mental level, you can take actions that have a clear intention and are therefore, much more sustainable.

Do As You Want, Not As You Should

“Your trouble and mine is that we are trying to behave correctly, as one should, at the cost of quenching, with our own consent, our individuality.  In the end, we do not know what we want, to the point of believing that what we are doing is what we really want to do; moreover the annoying status quo becomes more attractive to us that what we believe or say we want.” (Moshe Feldenkrais, The Elusive Obvious, p. xii, 1981)

So Moshe Feldenkrais advises you to stop trying to behave correctly and instead understand how you do something.  Unless you know how you do something, you have no alternatives because there is no choice.  Thus, you are simply acting compulsively and  this lacks individuality as well as consent.  Conversely, if you learn how you do something, you will be able to generate alternatives and thus choice.  And you escape your compulsions and the status quo. You will uncover your individuality and be able to act accordingly. If instead, you are simply trying to behave correctly or as one should, you will lose connection yourself, your desires and your dreams.  So, Feldenkrais advices, do as you want, not as you should.

Practice:

Chose one action in your upcoming week and decide to do it as you want, not as you should.  For example, do not go to a party that you don’t really want to go to.  Don’t go to the gym because you should.  Notice how you chose what to do–what events or obligations to partake in.  Chose an alternative action (something that you want to do) and notice how you do it. How did you make the choice?  What did it feel like in your body to make a choice to do something you want as opposed to should? When you did the action, how did you do it?

What’s My Body Got to Do With It?: What’s the Role of the Body in Coaching

Making a cognitive shift or gaining new insight is only part of the picture when trying to change habits, attitudes, beliefs or work styles. After all, our actions are produced in our physical structure.  Just as we cannot learn tennis by reading a good book about tennis, neither can we become effective leaders and individuals by simply gaining insights about our habits and goals.  Thus to make lasting and sustainable changes, the physical body must incorporate the cognitive learning. Sarah has developed a unique approach that is systematic and innovative, uniting Integral Coaching with the wisdom of Somatic body practices.

Somatics — What’s this?
“Somatics is a Greek word that literally means “the living body in its wholeness” –which includes the emotional, physical, linguistic and ontological aspects of each individual.  Somatic theorists, such as Moshe Feldenkrais, examined how learning occurs through the mind, physical structure, language, emotions etc.  Thus, in order to learn new behaviors, the body, and not just the mind must be “rewired.”  By incorporating more than just the mind, people can achieve a depth of learning that academic or cognitive learning alone cannot achieve.

Why Incorporate the Body?
In the technological age of increasing efficiency, we have lost connection to ourselves as embodied beings.  We have become increasingly disconnected from the wisdom or our bodies and the physiological reality of our emotions.  Our bodies have become the mechanism to haul our brains from meeting to meeting.  As people become alienated from their physical experience and emotions, life becomes abstract, theoretical, and one-dimensional.  It becomes more difficult to evaluate decision-making factors because they are lost in an endless list of pros and cons without a felt sense of the right course of action.  Often times, people lose their passion, as life becomes mechanistic and automatic.  There are increasing concerns around work/life balance, burnout, and productivity.
The body, in the somatic sense, expresses our commitments, disappointments, triumphs, integrity, identity, roles, moral strength, moods, and aspirations. Because we experience and express life through our physical body, if we want to change who we are, how we are perceived, and the impact we make in the world, we need to change how we physically move through the world.   We are all familiar with how body language impacts our actions and impressions.  For example, when we stand with our arms crossed and our shoulders hunched we are giving a message to ourselves and others that we are intimidated, scared, and/or closed off to possibilities.
Somatic coaching reconnects us to our bodies so life becomes rich with emotions, desires and physical, as well as, intellectual experiences.  As we develop awareness of our physical body, physical qualities of leadership, clarity, balance, stability and strength can develop. Our beliefs and perceptions start to shift in accordance with the physical body and we become great leaders and effective individuals. Trustworthiness, which is predicated not only on what we say, but also portrayed through subtle mannerisms and body language, begins to grow as the physical structure and body language shifts.

What Skills Can I Develop?
When the Body or Soma is incorporated back into life, you can:
·        Become centered so that you can be present with others while staying firmly grounded in what matters most to you
·        Improve your management style by developing the ability to remain responsive and receptive to negative feedback and challenging situations.
·        Reconnect to your ability to naturally “re-source” yourself so that you remain resilient during stress and maintain a healthy work/life balance.
·        Take actions from deep within that are aligned with your beliefs and goals
·        Increase relationship building and communication skills by being authentic and present with clients, team members, employees etc.
·        Deliver presentations with presence and clarity
·        Increase your intuition and decision-making skills
·        Develop more clarity
·        Increase your trustworthiness.

Specific Somatic Modalities: Feldenkrais and Qigong
A somatic approach allows people to make more than a cognitive shifts; it invites people to “embody” new schemas to produce sustainable results.  Thus, Sarah incorporates somatic practices, when appropriate, through the principles and theories of the Feldenkrais Method and various types of Qigong practice.
The Feldenkrais Method is a somatic method with a rich philosophy addressing how individuals learn.  It is designed to develop physical awareness so that one can make choices about how to be physically present in this world.  It uses the body to develop a laboratory in which you can explore how you approach life.  For example, how do you respond when you do not know the answer or feel frustrated?  How does excessive and unnecessary physical or mental effort hinder the desired result?

Qigong is a Chinese self-healing method that also provides a laboratory to study your reactions and ways of approaching difficulties.  It builds awareness, mental clarity and physical stability while deeply exploring the mind/body connection. It is concerned with how we connect to others and how to harmonize with the environment to find a smooth direction rather than constantly resisting and struggling.
Using principles and practices from the Feldenkrais Method and Qigong, Sarah helps her clients make lasting changes by addressing underlying habits, attitudes and beliefs that are evidenced by ones outward posture/body image and internal body image.  Her clients not only intellectually grasp what it means to be a leader, they come to feel like a leader as they develop the physical attributes, body language, posture, and behavior of confidence, balance, presence, strength and stability.

An Embodied Approach to Work/Life Balance and Stress Management

I remember my days of practicing law.  The stress was constant and very intense. I found it hard to make time to go to the gym, see friends, or go to an art gallery. My productivity at work suffered. I felt constantly behind the eight ball.  Over time, I became so frazzled that I was often too tired to connect with people and loved ones when I finally left work.  My life felt more and more out of whack as I let the pressure of practicing law slowly pull me away from myself and what was most important to me.  Ultimately I the balance became so lop-sided in favor of work that  I had to leave the practice of law because I was burnt out mentally, physically and emotionally.

Increasingly, law firms are paying attention to issues of work/life balance because of the critical role it plays in the retention of talented attorneys.   Much of the current work-life balance discussion centers on firm policies that support flex-time, part-time, compressed work weeks and virtual workplaces.  However, while the firm’s policies are important, it could be a long time for policies catch up to the needs of working attorneys.

At its core, the concept of work/life balance is the result of the perception that you can complete your work and still have enough energy to connect to the people and things you love outside of work.  You, as an individual, play an enormous role in feeling like you can finish your work, avoid burnout, prevent stress-related illnesses and stay engaged and connected to your loved ones and hobbies. Surprisingly to some your BODY is the key!

Anxiety and stress bombard you all day, but you are probably largely unaware of their on your body.  Consider the following scenario:
You are driving to work and get stuck in traffic or delayed on public transport.  The whole way, you worry about not arriving on time for an important client meeting.  You tightly grip the steering wheel, clench your jaw and hold your breath.  You arrive at work to find out that your assistant is out sick and a quiet case has “heated up“ requiring lots of immediate work.  You hold your breath and literally brace yourself for a hard day by tightening your chest as you head into your client meeting 10 minutes late.  The meeting goes well, but you now have a mountain of work ahead of you.  Again, your breathing becomes more shallow because your diaphragm is rigid from holding it together and your blood pressure is increased.  By noon, your shoulders are creeping up towards your ears from all the tension and holding.  You run out for a power work out at the gym, but you are rushing so much to and from that it hardly gives you a break from the tension of your day. You don’t even notice that you were clenching your jaw the whole time and held onto the stair master with a grip that could strangle a small animal.  When you return to the office you have received an unexpected motion for discovery from opposing counsel and just about “lose it” as your heart rate and blood pressure increases.  But you hold it together by again contracting your stomach and chest, holding your breath while your shoulders continue to creep up so that you finally resemble a headless horseman.  Just as you are about to leave for the evening, you get a nasty and contentious call from opposing counsel.  You definitely feel shaken as your heart rate and blood pressure shoot up dramatically. You have a headache and pain and tension in your neck and hands.   You rush home to spend time with your spouse and kids but you are exhausted and would rather tune out by watching TV.

For most of you, this is a common day.  Your body is constantly responding to day-to-day stressors—getting more and more wound up each day without you really noticing.  And, if you do notice, you tell yourself to grin and bear it or tough it out.

Most people in corporate America view the body as the mechanism to haul their brain from meeting to meeting and ignore the critical role the body plays in coping with stress. We rarely consider how our own self-image and ability to perform at our best is affected by our own posture, breathing, and muscle tension etc. In reality, the body and mind are far more integrated than we could ever imagine.   It may be surprising to learn that your body, posture, muscle tensions, and facial expressions actually affect your ability to think clearly, perform at your best, regulate your emotions and mood, and your ability to renew and rejuvenate.  The intimate link between the shape of the body and our ability to perform is understood more clearly everyday because of exciting new research in the field of neuroscience.  And, it’s why the field of Somatic Coaching, which works with the body as well as the mind to develop great leaders, is continuing to gain momentum.

The bottom line is by paying attention to the subtle changes in you body and learning to leverage the wisdom of your body you can perform at your best and feel a sense of balance—whether that means a high conflict situation with opposing counsel, the day to day stress of work, or simply connecting to your loved ones after work.  Let’s look at why and how focusing on your body can make this happen.

We are Embodied Beings:
The Link Between Thought, Emotion, and Muscular Contraction

Moshe Feldenkrais was a pioneer in the human potential movement and revolutionized the way we view movement, expression and self-image.  His philosophy that developed in the 1950’s –1970’s was at the forefront of in changing reductionist views of the body and mind.  He explained that our moods, emotions and thoughts are expressed through our body language, posture, gestures, and facial expressions.  In other words, every thought or feeling has a corresponding set of muscle contractions associated with it.   So the thought, “there is no way I can get all this work finished” and the subsequent overwhelmed feeling have a corresponding set of muscular contractions. Over time, patterns of muscle contraction develop and get hard-wired for each emotion and thought.  In this way, certain thoughts patterns or emotions have a physical shape.  In many ways, these patterns are predictable and thus, body language experts can read a person’s physical cues and analyze what that person is thinking and feeling.  Some external manifestations, such as crossed arms, may be obvious; while others, such as touching an ear, are more subtle; yet others, such as a change in breathing pattern, are subtler still.

Most of us think that thought and emotion occur in the brain and cause the body to respond.  But, the remarkable thing is that the opposite is also true.   The brain receives information from the body that affects your emotions and moods.  Because the muscle contraction or shape is hard-wired with the thought or the emotion, the shape of the body, such as being slumped, causes the neuro-chemical reaction associated with sadness.  For example, a scientific study showed that bringing the face and mouth into the shape of a smile actually causes a rush of endorphins and other biochemical changes associated with smiling.   Conversely, making an angry face creates the biochemistry of anger.

Ultimately, your posture reflects your moods and thoughts but your body and its posture also send information back to the brain that generates thoughts and feelings.  In fact, your posture is so powerful that studies have shown that slumping actually makes it more difficult to recall positive thoughts. You are literally happier and smarter when you sit up straight.

The Posture of Anxiety and Stress
Feldenkrais studied the shape of anxiety and stress because he thought its presence drastically limited people in realizing their potential.  He discovered that all humans have the same response to stress—contraction of the flexors, (especially in the abdominal region), inhibition of the extensors (which keep us upright), a halt in breathing, followed by a whole series of vasomotor disturbances, such as accelerated pulse, and increased blood pressure.

Recall the previous description of a typical day: throughout the day, you respond to stress by clenching your jaw, holding your breath, making the diaphragm rigid etc.  The problem is that muscles only have an on/off mode.  They are meant to contract and release again. But when you are under constant stress, even seemingly “low-level stress.” the muscles rarely return to their fully released (“off”) state.  And over time the muscular contractions associated with stress become hard-wired into the body, so that even when the external stimulus is gone, your shoulders are still up at your ears, your breath rarely fills the whole lungs, and your jaw remains clenched. Your body is thus in a constant posture of anxiety and stress—continually giving feedback to your brain that you are stressed.

The good news is that because the physical contraction is so closely tied to emotions or thoughts, you can dramatically alter a thought, emotion, or response to stress by changing the pattern of muscular contraction and shape of the body. By interrupting the habitual muscle tension associated with stress, a new possibility of calm, strength, potency and clarity can arise.  Conversely, if you remain stuck in a physical pattern of anxiety you will continue to feel stressed and it is difficult, if not impossible, to have different thoughts, emotions and actions. So, if you continue to sit at your desk (hunched over, jaw clenched, breathing shallow) you will continue to feel overwhelmed and think that the task at hand is impossible.  If, instead, you can restore your breathing, unclench your jaw, and sit upright without increased muscular tension, your heartbeat will slow down, your mood will improve, you’ll have increased mental clarity and more things will seem possible.

Stress and Clarity
Another important reason to gain control over you body as a stress regulator is that stress impairs your ability to think clearly. Remember that we evolved from cavemen.  Therefore, when you perceive an incoming threat, (even just your angry boss or opposing counsel getting nasty), your body responds with a rush of chemicals and neurological impulses that prepare you for fight or flight.  These include increased heart rate, blood pressure, dilated pupils, a rush cortisol and other hormones etc. The irony is that you have nowhere to run and, if you want to keep your job, you probably shouldn’t fight back.

With these hormones and chemicals coursing through your veins, you need to stay calm and focused.  But to add insult to injury, the preparation for flight or fight diverts the resources used for higher cognitive function to survival responses. So, it’s harder to think clearly and remain calm and collected.  By leveraging the body—(controlling your breathing with long out breaths, and reducing the muscle contractions associated with incoming stimulus), you can engage what is called the “relaxation response” and literally reverse the stress response and reengage enhanced cognitive function.

Reversing the Stress Response with Calm Readiness
Because of the intimate link between the body and mind, a state that I like to call “calm readiness,” translates into clarity and improved performance.  Calm Readiness can be cultivated by an exercise, called “Balancing on the Skeleton” that I learned from Chris Fernie, a Qigong master who ingeniously incorporates the theory of Feldenkrais into his teachings.   The practice reduces excess muscle contraction and tension caused by stress and anxiety, thus engaging the relaxation response and changing the body’s shape to one that is associated with calm readiness.

Basic Practice for Calm Readiness
The practice entails standing while systematically going through areas of the body to listen closely to how moving that part affects other parts of the body—while constantly searching for the feeling of less effort and work.

Stand with the feet shoulder width apart and as close to parallel as is comfortable.
1) Feet: Begin by rolling the  feet onto the inside edge and outside edge — slowly and gently, while noticing its affect on the low back, pelvis, chest and neck. Look for the placement of the feet that causes everything in the chain to work as little as possible.  Slowly make the movement smaller and smaller as you get more precise about the correct angle of the feet.  Continue up the body:
2) Knees: what happens when you bend and straighten the knees.  How does it affect the low back, chest, and other parts of the body.
3) Pelvis: tuck the tailbone under slightly, causing the low back to bend, then bring the tailbone away, arching the low back.  Notice how this movement, affects the whole chain, but in particular the low-back, chest and neck.  Search for the place where the low back feels free and hangs towards the floor.  As you get closer to this, make the movement smaller and smaller, getting more and more precise.
4) Chest: Exhale softly and deeply, allowing the chest to soften as much as possible without effort.  Notice how this lessens the feeling that you need to brace yourself or hold yourself up.
5) Shoulders: Begin to take the shoulder forwards and backwards—slowly and gently.  Do not force it or make a big effort.  A small movement is just as valid as a big movement.  There is a placement of the shoulders that causes the arm to feel heavy and long.  Rather than feeling the need to pull the shoulders backward or hunch them forward, they can balance on the shoulder girdle with minimum effort.
6) Head and Neck:  slowly move the head forward and back as if you are chicken pecking.  Notice when you feel tension in the neck vs. when it feels as though the head is being supported by the spine effortlessly.
7) Jaw: Bring your attention to your jaw and any tension there.  Gently open your jaw to allow the bottom jaw to hang open slightly.  Gently and slowly take the bottom jaw left and right.  Do a much smaller movement than you are at first inclined.  Try to let go of as much work and tension in the jaw as possible.  After a while of doing this, slowly close the jaw to a comfortable place.
8) Stand for a few moments to take it this new posture. Revisit previous places briefly to make sure they are still in alignment.  Follow a few long exhales as they travel down through your body.

You are now closer to being balanced on the skeleton.  The muscles are doing as little excess work as possible and the structure of the skeleton is doing more to hold you up.  It will not be your habitual way of standing and it will cause changes in your nervous system that bring a degree of freedom and possibility for new ways of being and responding in the world.

The practical result when you alleviate the excess muscular contraction associated with stress, is that you have initiated the relaxation response — a sense of relief will permeate the body and mind. Because the entire nervous system is calmer and not fighting a perceived threat, your mind can quiet and become more clear.

Time for Renewal:
Renewal isn’t just a 7 letter-word. It’s proven that renewal is the key to high performance and burn out avoidance. Jim Loehr and Toney Schwartz, the authors of The Power of Full Engagement, have coached several world-class athletes such as Monica Seles and Dan Jansen, defining precisely what it takes to perform consistently at the highest levels under intense competitive pressures.  They discovered that the key to gaining the winning edge in high-level sports has little to do with skill.  Instead, their clients gained the winning edge by learning to manage their emotional, physical, cognitive and spiritual energy through adequate rest and renewal.  Muscle fibers and the brain grow best when they are challenged slightly beyond their limits and then given a period of rest and recovery. Likewise, the best way to deal with emotional and cognitive stress is to recover between sessions of high demand so that you are renewed and refreshed the next time you are required to push your personal limits. Loehr and Schwartz have applied their findings to the corporate world, teaching that instead of managing time, the key to performance is in managing emotional, cognitive, physical and spiritual energy reserves.

As previously discussed, when you are in a state of constant low-level anxiety, the system is always being taxed. It’s like riding the brakes of a car.  Eventually, they get exhausted and burn out.  The neuro-chemical changes, muscular contractions, impaired breathing, and increased levels of stress hormones such as cortisol eventually burn out the system. Therefore, it is critical to give the body and mind a rest.  Without breaks, the system simply cannot continue.  Fatigue and illness creep into the system.  Regular breaks “reset the system” and return you to a calm readiness so that you are refreshed and ready to engage on all levels with people and activities that you love.

While there are many ways to promote renewal, the most powerful renewal includes both the body and mind, and occurs by taking the body out of the physical pattern associated with anxiety and stress and placing it into the opposite pattern. Once the physical pattern is shifted, the emotions and thoughts shift, the relaxation response is engaged and the system is restored to a calm readiness. The constant chatter about all the things you need to do, quiets down.  You stop worrying about the last meeting.  You breathe a big sigh of relief.  The experience is one of returning to oneself—you  will glimpse the person that you are without the stress and chaos of life.  And, most importantly, you will be able to be present and enthusiastic in your connection with loved ones, friends, family, and hobbies.

The Basic Practice for Calm Readiness previously outlined is a potent form of renewal because it takes the body out of the physical pattern of stress.  However, you can also seek out forms of renewal that allow your system to rest and do nothing. A work out at the gym, while having some important effects on the body, still taxes the system and is viewed by the body as a form of stress.  Therefore, to cultivate renewal, you want to find activities that initiate the relaxation response.  Anything that requires deep, purposeful breathing, such as yoga (if it is not too athletic), Feldenkrais, body scans, meditation, walking on the beach, or taking a bath, can provide that renewal.  And, for those times when you feel you don’t have time for a long break, simply stopping to take three long exhales will provide a tremendous sense of relief.

Summary
Work/life balance the perception that you can complete your work and still connect with those things you value outside of work. While advocating for policies that support flex-time and compacted work weeks are an important aspect of the equation, you can also take control of your own life by learning to develop a calm readiness that allows you to control your own mental state, improve your performance and ready yourself for meaningful connection with other people and things.   Learning to pay attention to your body will have an immediate affect on your ability to focus, perform and renew! More importantly, when you return home you won’t be exhausted from the continual stress of you day and you will be better able to connect with family and friends.

Cultivating Embodied Clarity: Why Coming Home to the Body is Key

Most people spend their lives chronically over scheduling themselves and getting further and further away from what brings them joy, clarity and feeling truly settled. They view their body as the mechanism to haul their brain from meeting to meeting or place to place. They run from place to place in constant motion, ignoring the state of their body and mind, yet, wonder why they are completely exhausted at the end of they day even though their jobs are not physically taxing. They are caught off guard when they have emotional outbursts. They feel unfulfilled, unconnected and out of touch with their loved ones and personal pursuits. They have lost their internal compass and don’t know how to reconnect to themselves or their lives.

As time goes on, the solution may look like it is to be solved by pushing harder, getting more advice, or chasing after some new solution. The problem is that trying to solve problems when you are in a confused, agitated or always on the go will yield chaotic, confused solutions. But the good news is that you don’t need to do anything. All you really need to do is come home to yourself. You learn to quiet the constant hum and chatter of your mind and body by quieting the nervous system and returning to a sense of home in the body.

Coming home in the body starts by reducing the excess noise in the nervous system by settling onto the natural support of your skeletal system. When you are truly supported and calm, “down to your marrow” a new sense of calm and clarity can arise from which new possibilities can arise. I call this state Embodied Clarity. This place of calm readiness brings a completely new way to be in the world that is easy, joyful, and clear. Developing a calm, supported nervous system, provides a powerful, potent foundation from which you can uncover your innate wisdom, regain a sense of possibility and nurture your creative nature. Your internal compass and intuition can emerge once again to lead you powerfully into a fulfilling direction.

The practical result is that as a leader, partner, parent, business owner, creative genius, or student of self-development you are able to quiet the excess noise in the system so that Embodied Clarity arises from which you can begin to look at life’s big questions. You generate the ability to sense what you want and respond appropriately to life’s challenges. And, even though you may have some difficult choices, you feel confident in and supported in your inner strength and resilience.