COVID-19 has changed our lives as we knew it. As John Lennon said, “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” When the pandemic was called last March it effectively derailed any and all plans we had made for the remainder of this year and likely for part of next year.
Now that the vaccine has been approved and immunizations will start soon, some sense of normality might return soon.
The pandemic and issues around COVID-19 have caused many of us stress in many aspects of our lives. How we’ve coped has varied from person to person and from time to time. Everyone I have been in contact with has, in the last 8 plus months, hit the wall at some point. We fall for a while and then hopefully pick ourselves up.
The ability to bounce back from illness, injury, trauma or stress is what Moshe Feldenkrais described as good health. For him health was not purely the absence of disease but included the amount of shock, distress or disequilibrium a person can take without his usual way of life being compromised. Most importantly he said, “health is the ability to realize our avowed and unavowed dreams.”
A dictionary search of “avowed” suggests the idea of openly acknowledging or declaring, of asserting to be true or real. We can declare our plans and dreams to others or set them as goals to ourselves. Conversely, “unavowed” dreams are those we haven’t yet mentioned, declared or affirmed, or perhaps don’t yet know that we might have.
During these difficult times, the ability to find and maintain health and to work toward our dreams can, at times, be challenging. Many of us are dreaming of a sunny getaway or a vacation anywhere. As a society we have been through tougher times, and we have rebounded, and we will again. It takes patience, which is often in short supply these days, and faith in ourselves and in our health care leaders.
Feldenkrais, and other health and healing modalities, are particularly effective in helping us navigate these stormy waters. They help us learn to slow down and listen, so that we can take care of ourselves and make meaningful changes. The focus in Feldenkrais is to learn how to make our every day movements and actions easier, more pleasurable and more effective.
Throughout these months I have been regularly offering Feldenkrais group Awareness Through Movement® classes virtually. We explore movement sequences; each new movement provides the opportunity to pay attention to different areas of our body and to discover how we respond to gentle, subtle shifts. We don’t strive to get to a goal or to be perfect, but to enjoy the journey and take in the surroundings we see on the path along the way.
Newcomers are always welcome. Please join a class at any time. Click here for the details.
