If you are the type of person who understands better with a story, here is an analogy for how Feldenkrais works.

Imagine that, when you were four years old, someone suggested you put on a pair of sunglasses, because they told you you would look better. So you did; you put them on, and you were quite surprised at the effect. Your entire world changed. It was harder to see at nighttime, but during the day, in the bright sun, your vision improved. What was even better, you found out that when you had your sunglasses on, it was harder for people to tell what you were thinking, and you liked the feeling of privacy or safety that they provided.

So, while still a child, you began to wear these sunglasses when you needed them. And you did need them, because your eyes were very sensitive, and your feelings were very sensitive, too, and these sunglasses seemed to take care of both. At first you put them on and took them off whenever you felt like it, but as time went by, you got in the habit of leaving them on all day, because you really liked how secure they made you feel. After a while, you started sleeping with them on, too. By the time you were six, you actually began to forget that you were wearing them. They became a part of you. You wiped them off in the shower, just like they were your eyes. You learned to lie a special way so that they wouldn’t bother you in bed. There were times when you remembered that you were actually wearing glasses that you didn’t used to wear, but it didn’t seem safe or necessary to remove them anymore.

By the time you were eight, you completely forgot that there had ever been a time when you didn’t have dark glasses over your eyes. The detail of having made a decision to put them on got lost in all the other memories. Now, as a mature person, you genuinely believe that these dark glasses are a part of your own eyes, and are, in fact, inseparable from the rest of you. And all the habits that you created to make life livable with these glasses has also become a part of you, something that you identify as “who you are.” You tend not to go out at night. You often hold back in conversations because people don’t seem to notice you unless you speak up. You don’t have a problem with any of these aspects of yourself, but you do wonder from time to time why other people don’t have problems seeing in dark rooms, and why some people seem to be able to make eye-contact with other people so easily. You assume these other people were simply born with these talents, and that you just weren’t as lucky as they are.

As you’ve gotten older, and your life has changed, you are beginning to experience some problems. As an adult, you’re out at night a lot, and you really are beginning to have trouble getting around. You can’t read signs outdoors in the dark, you injure yourself from time to time because you’re always bumping into things, and people look at you strangely. Even in the daytime, people are very distant with you until they get to know you better, and this makes you very lonely.

You develop certain skills to overcome these problems. You learn how to perform as an actor or a public speaker, because these skills seem to bring people to you. You learn how to walk in a convoluted way that keeps your back to all potentially dangerous objects that you might bump into. And when you need to go somewhere far away, you learn to manipulate people to drive you where you want to go.

These skills serve you very well for a long time, but certain problems come about as a result of them. You find it difficult to meet people unless you’re “acting,” which can be very unsatisfying, because you never know if they like the real you. This depresses you, and you start seeing a therapist.

You’ve developed some perpetually sore places on the places on your body where you continue to bump into walls, despite your best efforts. Sometimes you get so sore that you have to sit down for a few minutes. Other times, you’re so afraid of bumping into something that you just decide to stay home. Even when things go well, you find it’s increasingly exhausting to walk such a convoluted way. It makes your ankles hurt, and it tires you very quickly. You don’t understand how other people can walk so simply.

Your family and friends have begun avoiding you in the evenings because they’re tired of you manipulating them. You don’t mean them any harm, but you need their help and you don’t know another way to get around, so you find you have to strain your relationships to get your rides, or take rides from strangers.

Other problems that began cropping up in childhood have gotten worse. You find it difficult to sleep because you’re so uncomfortable. You don’t take showers anymore because your eyes are always covered with drops. You can tolerate baths, although you can never see in the tub and you’re terrified of slipping and hurting yourself.

On the occasion when people ask you about the sunglasses, you never really hear them. You’ve long-ago forgotten them. You focus on the parts of these conversations that you understand, overcoming pain and difficulty, changing your job, and so forth. Anything else you hear, you assume to be someone’s misconception. Even when you see someone else with sunglasses, you think of it as their issue, not yours.

Finally, you’ve come to a place in your life where something has to change. Your eyes are shot. They’re strained constantly. You’re having trouble reading, you have frequent headaches, and you have to stay in bed sometimes. You go to a doctor, who listens to your symptoms and creates a diagnosis based upon them. The typical approach based on the diagnosis is to offer flashlights which go on either side of your head and make the area in front of you brighter. It’s expensive, feels heavy on your head, and looks strange, but it does seem to help. Should you go on with it?

If you came to me with your symptoms, I as a Feldenkrais Practitioner, wouldn’t necessarily see the sunglasses either, and if I did, I wouldn’t automatically assume they were the problem. I’d want to know you a little bit better. I’d want to see what you wanted in your life.

You’d probably tell me you’d like to be rid of your pain. Upon further reflection, you’d tell me that you’d like to be able to sleep better. When pressed, you’d admit that you’d like to be able to read more easily.

Let’s assume I notice that you’re wearing the sunglasses after working with you a little while. I ask you about them, but I notice that you respond as if I’d asked a different question. I assume you don’t realize you’re wearing them.

I wouldn’t just take your sunglasses off. That would be terrible. Your eyes would hurt tremendously from the sudden inrush of light. You would contract your neck in a terrible way. You’d also feel very vulnerable in a way that you hadn’t felt for years, and you wouldn’t really have any skills to deal with that feeling. You’d probably curl up into a little ball, or even worse, you’d get up off the table and run out of the office, never to return. If you left your sunglasses behind, you’d find yourself completely unprepared to deal with a much brighter, much more present world.

What I would do is assess the degree to which you consider the glasses to be part of you. I would try to find out how you have learned to live your with your glasses. I’d see how you take care of yourself: how you manage to wash your dishes with the steam fogging your vision, how you avoid physical contact around your eyes and the sides of your throat, how you rely on your excellent hearing to get you through difficult situations.

Then I’d make sure you know what I know. I’d bring you to a state where you could pay better attention to yourself and notice things that you always took for granted. I’d make sure you understood that you are choosing to avoid physical contact around your eyes and the sides of your throat, even if you don’t understand why you’re making that choice. Perhaps after you became fully aware of your responses, you’d ask yourself why.

As we would continue with our sessions, you would become more and more aware of the habits you’ve formed over your life. I would show you other ways to be in the world that don’t involve your habits: I might help you increase the flexibility in your ankles so that you could do your odd walk more easily; I might show you three other ways to lie in bed that you hadn’t considered.

If things were really going well and you were at a place where you were comfortable making choices about things that previously had not been optional, I would begin to make you aware of the glasses themselves. We might get to a point where you would recognize them as a choice, and question their necessity. On the other hand, we might decide that this was an issue better left to a therapist or another professional.

In the event that you felt safe thinking about the glasses in our sessions, you might find yourself really noticing them for the first time, understanding what they are and how they affect what you can see and do. You might begin remembering how you came to put them on in the first place, memories which you might find painful, liberating, or both.

Eventually, you might choose to work with me on ways to begin removing the glasses safely and carefully. We might spend a number of sessions refining the “remove the glasses” movements, without actually completing the deed. We might work with the glasses in different positions. When the time came for you to see the world without the glasses, we could find a safe way to remove them, and then spend time learning how we relate to the world without them.

This part of the work might be very frightening, because you would be returning to a state you had not visited since you were four years old. You might find that you experience everything as a four-year old. You might discover that in some ways, your skills at dealing with the world are four-year old skills, a situation which you might find humiliating or even overwhelming. You could deal with these issues on a somatic level with me, or you could deal with them in other places such as therapy, peer-counseling, and so forth.

On the other hand, you might discover that you have the skills to survive in the world without these glasses after all, that you simply have been using them in other areas and never had a need to apply them to your vision and to your interpersonal life. You might find that once you start taking the glasses off in certain situations, that things are easier than they have ever been. You may find the experience pleasant, even exhilarating. You may wonder why you never noticed your glasses before, and you may decide you don’t want them ever again, because the difficulties of living without them are far preferable to the difficulties of living with them.

Of course, you always have the option of keeping your glasses with you, so that you can make a choice about wearing when you want them. This is, perhaps, the most powerful solution, and the simplest.

The story of the sunglasses is an analogy, and we have to stretch to believe every detail. But it illustrates what can happen to us when a habit ceases to be a choice. The initial habit generates more habits, and considerable harm can result from carrying on without awareness of it.

If you change the wearing of the sunglasses to a more likely habit, such as periodically walking in the wrong size shoes, trying to “stand up straight,” or trying to keep from making noise when we breathe, then you can begin to see how these habits can powerfully affect us over time. The Feldenkrais Method is one of the best ways to address this situation and, by extension, all of the symptoms that go with it.

The Practioner is not addressing the symptoms. The Practioner is bringing you into a greater state of awareness. This state, which we are already in to one degree, has many levels, each with its own usefulness. Through our work with the Feldenkrais Method, we learn different states and discover better and better ways to improve our own situations. Our bodies are already set up to do this self-correction. We only need to recognize how we interfere with that process, and begin to become attentive without being critical.