Here in America where we all have self-image problems, we’re always thinking about the shortcomings of our bodies

Volume 2, No. 6 – July, 2003

Quote from Moshe: “Subjective reality is as sound as our biological makeup...objective reality is only a part of subjective reality.” (The Elusive Obvious, pp.84-5)

The Self-Image Workout

Here in America where we all have self-image problems, we’re always thinking about the shortcomings of our bodies. We’re too fat, too thin, too tall, too round, our muscles aren’t big enough, our ears stick out. You’ve heard other people say it about themselves, and you’ve probably lived it your whole life.

I want to suggest that there’s a way out; Not necessarily a pill you can take which will either fix your body the way you want it or adjust your mind so you don’t care, but a process that will lead you on a path towards liking yourself more.

Oops. I said “self,” didn’t I? I meant “body.” Liking your body more...That’s what I meant, right? We want to like our bodies. Not our “selves.” There’s nothing wrong with our “selves.” They’re fine. They’re the beautiful people trapped in these awful bodies. If only we could get our bodies to look like our “selves” we’d be fine, happy, beautiful.

I believe everyone keeps an image of a beautiful self inside. We may not think anyone can see it, but we believe it’s in there. We expend a lot of energy to bring it out, show it to people. But our bodies seem to get in the way. Try as we might, we can’t get our bodies to look as beautiful as we imagine we are in our fondest dreams, perhaps the way we once thought of ourselves when we were children. Since our bodies are between our beautiful selves and the rest of the world, we’ll have to do something about them.

So what’s the process?

First we should take a look, or a listen or a feel, at what we know about our bodies. I don’t mean “know” like a doctor knows. I mean, what of our body we are aware of. To be more exact, let’s ask, “Which parts of my body am I more aware of and which parts am I less aware of?”

Most of us will find very quickly that we’re most aware of the part of us we hate. It’s in our awareness constantly. It’s our pot-belly, our nose, our lips, our feet. Maybe it’s our whole face, whatever that means. In our minds perhaps we are the part we hate, stuck on a pair of feet, like a Mr. Potatohead doll.

We don’t experience ourselves the way other people do. We’re only aware of a few parts, while they see a whole person. They aren’t looking at your nose, they’re looking at you, a person with a nose. The nose makes sense to them because it’s in the context of your face. The only time it will bother them is if you draw attention to it. Then they start to lose the context too. If you could create a more complete picture of yourself, you might the thing you hate the way other people do, as a part of a whole.

One way to increase this awareness of ourselves is, of course, The Feldenkrais Method®. We refine our understanding of how all of our parts connect. Sometimes we focus on moving parts, how the hips and shoulders rotate when we walk, how the ribs expand when we breathe, and so on. But there are other lessons in which we sharpen our picture of ourselves. We might spend time thinking about our face, better gauging the distance from our chin to the bridge of our nose, becoming familiar with the shape of the mouth cavity.

Imagine you’re a person who doesn’t like their nose. When you imagine your face, you might think of a nose with ears flapping on the side of it. That image can cause us problems. How are you to speak and chew with utmost ease without a sense of how your jaw connects into the picture? Lack of awareness of the construction of the face might prevent you from being able to smile easily and naturally. How do people react to us when we fail to smile?

Our self-images are not ourselves. They are the sum total of what we currently experience of ourselves. If we are lacking enough pieces of the picture, we may find ourselves relating to other people as the creature we feel we are. Our interactions are thus skewed and the feedback we receive from others only reinforces our worst fears. We can be hampered by our self-image emotionally and even physically.

Now imagine you have Cerebral Palsy. The condition will dramatically affect the way you can present yourself. When you imagine yourself, will you focus on the parts of you that work less effectively and may cause you embarrassment or shame? Most likely. You may find that when you envision yourself as a whole person you are more capable than when you think of yourself as a collection of faulty parts. If you can expand your awareness and generate a more complete picture of yourself, you may integrate your movement more elegantly. In this way, the question of self-image goes deeper than liking ourselves and has implications in our ability to act.

Once we realize the extent to which we can recognize and alter our self-image, we are empowered to make a change, not merely to our features or limbs, but to something more fundamental, our conscious self-understanding. With refined awareness, we can act as a human and not as a bodily characteristic or a diagnosis of a disability. Like a sculptor, we can add detail after detail to the rough block that we see as ourselves, and more and more reveal the beautiful person we know is there.