Zen Body Being by Peter Ralston, (03) Feeling Awareness, Notes

Post date: May 30, 2016 2:14:39 PM

Zen Body Being by Peter Ralston

Chapter 3. Feeling Awareness

• • 1. Awareness is the place to start. Awareness is information.

       1. Without quality information, no movement can be directed accurately or effectively and no interaction will be acknowledged or related to appropriately.

          1. Body awareness is rooted in our ability to feel each sensation in the body. The experience of being alive is largely a feeling.

          2. Our skill level in most activities is determined, in large part, by how much we can feel our bodies.

          3. We must have precise control of our bodies to accomplish a task and for that we need (feeling-awareness) sensitivity.

             1. Any increase in sensitivity allows us to make fine distinctions in terms of movement and touch

                1. Sensations are the fastest way to move information from a cellular level to our awareness.

                2. Great physical ability often lies in our ability to use the body's vast communication system.

    2. Feeling is foremost-- do the following exercises :

• • • 1. Lift your left hand over head a few times while pondering the following

         1. How did you will your hand to go up?

         2. What actually gets the hand up?

            1. In order to lift a hand you generate a feeling.

         3. How do you know the hand is up once it is lifted?

• • • • • 1. Close your eyes and lift your hand.

• • • 2. Study this until you can feel the sensation, the sudden impulse that allows you to lift your hand. Also, isolate the sensation that allows you to feel your arm in space.

      3. With practice we become more aware of subtle sensations that give more awareness of the impulse and of our perception, and as a result develop greater control and mastery of action and awareness.

• • 3. Intent, Impulse and Feedback

• • • 1. When we move the body in any way, an impulse has occurred. The brain sends a signal through the nervous system, causing a muscle to contract, producing movement.

         1. How do we do it?

            1. Desire to move occurs--intent will be related to the moment and our relation to what is occurring.

            2. Intent to move is followed by a feeling.

         2. It is done so quick and easily, it is hardly noticed but intent is a distinct sensation from feeling. The feeling- impulse is the command. The feeling sensation is the perception of the hand going up.

• • • • • 1. Every movement, no matter how gross or subtle, begins with a feeling.

• • • 1. 3. Sensitivity to these feelings is an important beginning. It allows mastery of our bodies.

• • • • • 1. When learning a new skill, we must look to the feeling messages needed to perform those movements. Once accessed, the action can be performed subconsciously. New abilities require new feeling messages. The key to mastery movement is feeling.

• • 4. The goal is to become very attentive to feeling the whole body. Feeling awareness involves not just feeling sensations but being aware of these sensations.

• • • 1. Exercise:

         1. Put attention on the whole body at once

            1. What do you feel? Do you feel the whole body? Every part?

            2. Starting from the toes, try to feel every inch of the body all the way up to the head.

            3. You may miss parts. Repeated practice brings increased awareness.

            4. You should be able to feel the body a little more each time you repeat the exercise.

      2. The more the body is felt, the more life, vitality, circulation, sensitivity and sheer enjoyment will be generated. An ongoing adventure.

• • • • 1. We need to discover the ignored, constricted and traumatized areas.

        2. Discern patterns in movement, balance and structure.

        3. Address attitudes and clarify beliefs about the body.

        4. Focus on feeling and the rest will unfold naturally.

        5. Coming in touch with what is basic will facilitate the effectiveness of further investigation.

• • • 3. Body Being Basics

• • • • 1. The body is an object in space resting on the ground

        2. Feeling the body gives awareness to the entire object.

        3. Sensing the space around us gives us a three dimensional view of the body.

        4. Connecting to gravity helps keep the body in proper alignment.

           1. Object mass gravity and space should be experienced to be more effective and functional.

        5. Enhancing the depth of physical awareness begins the process of healing all the compensation caused by life’s traumas (physical and emotional.)

• • • • • 1. From a state of inclusive awareness, any malignment is noticed and can be adjusted.

          2. The human body can be healed--freed from habits and traumas if addressed intelligently.

          3. The body sends a constant stream of data regarding its state. Bringing this data to the conscious forefront can change ability on many fronts.

             1. “Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie.”--William Shakespeare

• • • 4. Opening a door - Five steps to transformation

• • • • 1. Question the way you currently view things.

        2. Look for assumptions, beliefs and fantasies that lie hidden from you in ‘plain’ view.

        3. Free yourself from your concepts. Set aside habits of thinking

        4. Not filling in the blanks is step four.

        5. Become conscious of something new

           1. Most of us are so dominated by our own thoughts and beliefs that we neglect our actual experience. Clarify our experiences of being a body by turning away from thoughts and emotions and focus on what’s true for us--what we actually feel and experience in our bodies at this moment.

           2. Our continuing task is to free the body-being from the overwhelming number of adaptations that we have taken on.

• • • 5. Enhancing feeling awareness: Can you feel your feet?

• • • • 1. A simple question like that increases awareness.

           1. Practice feeling the whole body continuously.

              1. Consistency. Increase in practice equals increase in awareness.

                 1. Feeling is feeling. Awareness is awareness. The trick is simply to turn our attention there.

        2. Barriers to feeling

• • • • • 1. Habit and laziness

             1. Feeling takes more energy than not feeling.

             2. We've become a head on wheels. We often get stuck in our stream of consciousness and pay little attention to the body in the moment.

             3. Takes very little feeling to accomplish familiar tasks.

          2. Past injuries and trauma

• • • • • • 1. Pain serves us when we are injured but when we are no longer injured, the inhibition may remain.

            2. The forgotten area can be reintegrated. How?

               1. Feel. Practice feeling every part of your body.

            3. A completely healthy body feels no pain, even after undergoing deep massage.

            4. Reclaiming the body becomes necessary when we’ve undergone some sort of trauma-major or minor, physical or psychological. In some cases we heal well and leave little residual effects. In others, we never seem to heal.

            5. By deliberately putting feeling attention on areas of pain or discomfort, our emotional response changes, we are able to relax that area. From there we can slowly introduce more functionality.

            6. Manual therapy may be necessary to increase feeling awareness when an area is seriously afflicted.

            7. The body is meant to function and be resilient. By being conscious of pain instead of avoiding it we give the body a chance to initiate the healing process.

            8. The more we withdraw from tight and restricted areas, the more tight and restricted they become. Less feeling means less use.

            9. Deliberately putting feeling attention on an area causes it to relax. As it relaxes, we are able to use that area more, setting up a positive spiral.

            10. The task of feeling awareness should be performed consistently over a significant period of time for the healing process to completely take hold.

• • • • • 3. Fantasies, Wishful Thinking, Hearsay

• • • • • • 1. When faced with the task of self improvement, people often want something newer or more magnificent. What we really need is simply deeper investigation into normal reality.

            2. A quality system should teach us to better understand our own experience.

            3. Discovery is the task--we must place ourselves in situations that allow us to figure it out for ourselves, not memorize the ideas of others.

            4. We must have open investigation, questioning our assumptions and beliefs, having no expectations.

            5. Myths and stories are exciting but we need to look into our own experience to find and control feeling awareness.

            6. What we believe and what we think are intimately related to our abilities, perceptions and our relationship to our body. Improving one improves the other.

            7. The key to becoming whole and free is conscious awareness.