It has been another amazing week full of insights.
Thanks to Sarah’s nutritionist from years gone by (and now a friend), I started tracking how many ounces of fluid both girls consume in a day and it is at best half or 2/3 of what they should be getting. EGAD! This is awesome to know!!! We can work on this. I love it when goals can become so clear. This also may be a simple explanation for why each had been so backed up. In practice it is proving quite difficult to get to the goal amounts. Sarah got to the goal on one day and has been close on a couple others. Amy is routinely at half of the goal, and that is with me working diligently to hand her a drink frequently.
I’ve been wondering if there is a connection between Sarah unearthing memories of books she used to love when she was very young or trips that we went on 3 years ago and her clearing her backlog of poop. There is no way to prove anything and we know that Sarah’s memory is amazing and her sense to linear time is rather fluid, but I do like the concept.
Sarah went to school every day this week and had good days except for Friday, which was harder for her. She cried more and had many more verbal ism moments, which are quite distracting in a class setting and mean that she is feeling stressed. I am so grateful to Sonia for being there every day, just outside the room and largely unneeded most of the time. The times when she is needed it is priceless to have her able to give Sarah the time and space she needs, beyond what a school setting allows.
As I continue to receive neuromuscular work and do my Alexander Technique constructive rest I continue to be ever more aware of all the layers of tightening I have/do. It is so exciting and amazing to be discovering it. I am able to notice it more quickly when I start tightening in many situations and then I can let it go more quickly. The most effective letting go happens in constructive rest when I really have nothing else I am doing except letting go. This all feels quite life changing and ever more hopeful. I am also excited about the possibilities of helping other people with what I am learning. In the past I had thought AT could help me with the headaches if I could just free my neck during a headache. It turns out, in the midst of severe pain that wasn’t something I could really do. Now I understand that it is something to practice and practice and practice so that free and easy muscles become my new norm.
When I give Alexander Technique lessons or massages I have it clearly in my thinking that my hands are issuing an invitation to the body they are contacting. It is an invitation towards more ease. The way to issue the clearest invitation is to have an easy supported connection from my feet up through my hands and to also consciously invite my own muscles to release. If I am working with a neck muscle then I am asking my own same neck muscle to release. According to what my hands perceive, this seems to work quite well. Tuesday morning I realized that I could think of my interactions with my kids in the same way, that I am issuing an invitation with my being for their beings to be at ease. This echoes wise statements from all wise people about being the change we want to see, etc, but this is in my language and I know the experience in my body in a clearer way so it feels easier to do it. When I feel resistance in the girls, I aim at releasing and loosening my own resistance to the situation. My resistance is usually felt muscularly. Astonishingly (how did I not think of this before?!?!?), this all actually seems to make a difference in how the kids relate to me!
After 4 days of amazing easeful experiences, yesterday I totally didn’t have it at all. It truly felt like I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, which is possibly called 5:45am. The harder things felt then the more upset I became because I was so frustrated with myself. When Carl and I were on our way to a party that had the theme of celebration, I felt like a big fraud because I originally thought I was celebrating my new parenting insights but I felt like I had lost them. He asked me if there was a different framework with which to view the situation, perhaps in language relating to the Alexander Technique. He asked what I would tell a client who was having trouble maintaining the ease they found in a lesson. Aha! Then I would say that it isn’t about reaching an end point and having it all figured out forever. It is a process of noticing when you aren’t how you want to be and moving into how you do want to be. It is something to be renewed repeatedly. It may feel different each time. It is good when things go “wrong” because then we can see our habits more clearly.
Easy support and supported ease to all of you.
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