Thank you so much for all the messages I'm receiving after our Book Club sessions! There is a beautiful reflection shared by one of the attendees after Body Scan, where I was guiding us to notice ourselves, without immediately changing what we feel.
I learned that from my teachers and mentors. Joseph Kramer was teaching us to invite the person into the body during bodywork by asking “What do you notice?”
It’s Betty Martin's “Notice, trust, value”.
It’s a “blending” method I learned from Strozzi Somatics.
As I'm writing this, I can hear the voice of Jess - my guide into Hanna Somatics - whenever I share my noticing with her, she would respond “It’s interesting, isn’t it?”
All of these methods convey (to me, at least) the same message.
It’s the act of noticing that matters.
So, why not try to change?
First of all, it’s something about being kind with ourselves. Let’s say we have an issue, a complicated situation, a struggle, and we share it with a friend… What we are looking for, when sharing, normally, is being heard. Seen. Understood. Normally, no one wants to hear „Reiß dich zusammen!“ (The German expression is so telling, for English speakers, just google it. It’s about disciplining yourself, regaining self-control and composure. “Pull yourself together” / “Suck it up” just doesn’t grasp the depth of pathology).
Why do we share in the first place? In scientific terms, because we are not closed circuits, and we are looking to regulate ourselves through limbic resonance with other human beings. In simple terms, we are looking for compassion. Most of the time, we are not even looking for advice. We want simply to be held for a moment and for our struggle to be recognized and acknowldged. The problems won't go away, but the moment of just leaning our head on someones’ shoulder can be very soothing.
Similarly, when we are attending to our bodies, the much needed first thing is a simple acnowledgement of the situation. Tension in our shoulders, restricted shallow breath, tight belly, anxiety - we always have very good and real reasons to be this way. Being our own friend, we first like to see and hear them out and to attend to the voice of our body - with kindness. And take time doing it.
When we jump to fixing ourselves, it’s the same old judgement just in a new gift wrap. It’s the same third-person view of relating to ourselves and others that keeps us at a short distance from our bodies. We are not attending for real, because we cannot tolerate what we feel…
Also it normally doesn’t work.
This kind of intentional change (from A to B) normally leads to perpetuating the pattern. It will snap back as soon as we stop trying. That’s why most of the self-development and coaching methods bring so litle results.
The pathway to change goes through recognizing what is. Attending to all of it. Holding ourselves with love - whilst it hurts. Embracing the totality of our human experience, that envelops both good days and bad days.
Awareness brings in choice.
I strongly prefer to think of “more choice”. It’s softer than “chahge”. When we speak of a change, this is already too intentional, we are too fixated on the outcome. Like in Kinbaku - there is already an end shape in mind.
More choice means there are more possibilities for us than our current reality. It’s opening, not closing, without immediate outcome. It acknowledges that we are somewhere and that this is our reality right now. And that this is not the end…
Thank you E. for this beautiful reflection <3
Join the Book Club, if you like. It’s free. We talk and we do somatic practice - practice of noticing and compassion. One thing I'm quite sure about, we all can have more noticing and more compassion.