Weeding and clearing

In everything I do I think about about the connections to Feldenkrais movements and how I am using my body.

This weekend, one of the things on my to do list was to tackle the overgrowth and weeds in my garden. Many visitors and clients remark on my nice garden which looks like an English garden with plants growing together. But every couple of years things get a bit overgrown and I try to clean it up.

While I was weeding, pulling, cutting and clearing, I was thinking of how to support each action with my skeleton and I continually changed my activities so that I wasn’t repeating the same action for very long. So, aside from some scrapes and scratches from the branches, I did not feel achy or tired afterwards.

I managed to clear out a small section so that now there is some soil and demarcation between plants. Now I am able to see what I have, at least in that section, and what I want to do to clear out more to shape the garden. It might take me until the end of the summer, but  that is okay. I feel better knowing I did a little bit and I plan to do a little bit more each day. I can literally see “the forest for the trees”.

Making change slowly and in a stepwise fashion makes it easier to achieve goals, doesn’t make you crazy thinking you have to do it all at once, and lets you enjoy the journey and the digging, rather than thinking only of the far off goal.

That is how we make changes in Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement® classes and in private Functional Integration® sessions. We pay attention to the small things we need to do to make each action smoother, easier and more achievable. Slow change is easier to achieve and usually easier to sustain.

If you have recurrent neck, back or shoulder pain and are still trying to learn how to do what you want to do pain free, contact me today to see how I can help you achieve your goals, one branch at a time.