People often ask me how it is that habits become the thing we do, before we do the thing we want.
If you’ve ever lived in a place where it’s cold and dry in the winter, you may be familiar with what happens when you put on your coat and shoes, walk across your carpet, then go outside to get into your car. The first day when it’s that cold, you aren’t ready for the jolt that runs through your entire being as you touch the key to the door and all that collected energy gets discharged in a giant static shock!
The next day, you get zapped again.
By the third day, and for all succeeding days, you approach the car with key leading the charge at the end of your out-stretched arm, so that the electricity will “happen” as far away from you as possible!
As time goes on, your shoulders draw up around your ears, your legs tense, you feet grip the ground more seriously and your head sinks into your rib cage — all in the futile attempt to stop what you know is unavoidable.
Eventually, you don’t bother waiting for contact with the big metal object… you start getting ready for the whack as you walk down the steps to the street. Then Spring comes, and one day, you prepare but you don’t get zapped.
See how it works? You PREPARE whether you need to or not. That’s the habit. You do it because you do it. Not because you need to or want to, but because you DO.
The beauty is that you can stop doing it if you can become aware of it… that’s where Feldenkrais comes in. Our stock in trade is to help people figure out how to change what they’re doing so that they’re in control of their own lives, and that means you can live with the static, or without it– doesn’t matter, because the static isn’t in charge any more.
