Quote from Moshe: “’A fool cannot feel,’ said the Hebrew sages. If a man does not feel he cannot sense differences, and of course he will not be able to distinguish between one action and another.” Awareness Through Movement, p. 59
Does the way we move have anything to do with our feelings? Is there more than a linguistic connection between motions and emotions, something easily overlooked by therapists, counselors, even artists? Sure, we cry with our eyes, hide our heads in fear, shake when we laugh, furrow our brow when we‘re angry. Because emotions are foremost in our sensation, we tend to believe that the movements that accompany them have little importance in and of themselves.
The work of the Feldenkrais Method suggests otherwise. Emotions and human movements are not in a cause-and-effect relationship, but an interrelationship. Yes, we slouch when we are down, go into a protective posture when we feel emotionally vulnerable. But we can also affect this posture under other circumstances and bring about an emotional response that was not there before.
Is it really possible to isolate the emotions from human posture? There are those who physically display great happiness while keeping anger and sadness inside. What do we really see in such people? Overexuberance? More bodily motion than we would expect? Or perhaps a stillness that is not calmness but restraint, without which they cannot keep that tight smile in its place. Surely there is a difference between the theatrics of these movements and the demeanor of a genuinely happy person.
In Feldenkrais we have a goal: One should be able to move in any direction without preparation, going just as easily from sitting to standing as one would from sitting to lying down. A healthy emotional system will provide the same freedom. We do not consider a person who is exuberant to be necessarily healthy unless that person could move easily into a state of great sadness or anger without preparation or difficulty. If we imagine the outwardly ecstatic person who hides a great deal of pain inside, we recognize that they will avoid such states, in public anyway, and will expend a great deal of energy to circumvent them, much of which will be manifested in vigorous physical movement. Similarly the calm, quiet smiling person is likely frozen in his or her emotional state and is unable or unwilling to move either in the direction of joy or anger.
Why do such people avoid moving into other states? Because they fear that, once there, they will be as unable to get out of them as they were unwilling to get in. So to avoid confinement in one set of emotions they keep themselves locked in a certain posture with another.
Feldenkrais Instructors are not therapists. We do not work specifically with emotional states, nor with the details of the traumas behind them. However, clients who arrive very stiff or hindered in their movement may cry or laugh or get angry once a Feldenkrais teacher brings them to a place where they can lie comfortably and where they can breathe and move freely. So we must deal with the emotional relationship of our clients to their physical way of being.
Why should a client cry on my table? Perhaps they longed to express their grief but found they could not because the postures in which they express their great sadness were forbidden to them. They were never allowed to hunch their shoulders, curl into a ball, or breathe deeply; instead they were required by their family and friends, or by their own fear, to maintain a posture of strength, of stability. Having no mechanism for getting into postures of grief, they find that they cannot express their sadness anymore. The tears simply do not come. They are blocked against the very will of the person who desires them.
When I teach a person how to curl into a ball, they may cry simply out of relief for the ability to do so. Crying takes a certain amount of freedom in the body; one must be able to move the ribs, to breathe, to contort the face, to howl. When these activities are no longer constrained, the emotional response may follow.
Yes, people still feel their emotions even while standing stiff, but a their inability to express those emotions will create a conflict between their public and private selves. If they are conscious of this conflict, they may choose to withstand it, but if they are unaware and are acting out of habit, it may wreak havoc over the long term. The stiffness, the poor use of the self, the sense of danger one may incur when undertaking activities that encroach “forbidden postures,” can create trauma and even agitate injury over months or years.
Feldenkrais lessons may bring people into a realization of their grief or anger as it makes them aware of their bodies. They may also find a way to a fuller expression of joy. True exuberance can also be hindered in a posture that allows no movement. If one has been taught that it is inappropriate to throw one’s head back, open the mouth and let the eyes roll, one may be unable to truly laugh for joy or hilarity. Can a person live without experiencing true joy? Of course. Will the lack of a means of expressing joy take its toll on a person? Of course.
If I discovered a client had buried a trauma and was keeping it under control, I would most likely refer that person to a therapist of some kind so that they could adequately understand the trauma on a conscious level. But I may be of use to this person further down the road when they wish to regain their sense of well-being. Often we may recover from a trauma, but find that we are still unable to return to our prior state of peace despite years of therapy. In fact, we may be carrying the protective movement patterns of that trauma long after they have served their purpose. We may wish to be more trusting and less protective in our minds but find we are unable.
The Feldenkrais teacher will offer a person a greater awareness of the connection between their emotional state and their physical state. The process may be an entirely nonverbal one, in which the person realizes through the gentle movement of the Feldenkrais lessons that the posture of grief or anger or joy is a safe one, and that they may move back and forth between protection and expression as they desire. Our goal as Feldenkrais teachers is to encourage a person to recognize a whole self, one in which they are free to act fully without constraints and so discover things in their lives which were previously inaccessible to them.
See you there!
© 2003 Adam Cole