I drew this back in 2005’ish during my Feldenkrais training.
It was a concept Moshe Feldenkrais was talking about in a lecture; around the fact that our nervous system is the centre of the human universe and how it connects to the entire System…the entire human system, but also to the entire universe. The more I do this work, the more I know this to be the truth!
It (the nervous system) impacts how ALL our body systems work and how we interact with others, ourselves, and the environment. And while it often gets left out of the picture when it comes to healing and self-development, this attention to our environment and the space around us, plus the people in it, is essential if we want to create the biggest kind of change possible.
If you think about it for a moment – we develop, learn, grow, experience love and heartache, plus ALL the hurts and harmful situations we’ve ever encountered all in context to different environmental (life) circumstances. This means, to fully shift and heal, we MUST bring how we connect to the outside world (the environment) into the picture.
With each sphere of muscle, heart, mind, people…it is how we relate to these that is essential to understand.
For example, we can improve the strength of our leg muscles with a very specific movement pattern at the gym but if we can’t activate that strength when we are in unfamiliar and varying situations then that strength is only good for the gym. Meaning, that change is not functional or integrated into our life.
Another example: we can go to a retreat and practice loving kindness but if we get back home and snap at our kids, the dog, or our partner, then what actually *changed* in our nervous system? Did anything change? Or did we just experience a different behaviour for a period of time while in a different setting, only to revert to our old survival-based ways once we were back in our day-to-day life?
So part of our learning here, the core of our healing approach, is starting with the nervous system and ensuring it is not always living in constant survival mode (ensuring it can come down from the up and if need be, up from the down).
If we take a symptom-focused approach and just try to improve our muscles, diet, relationships, or living situation, those changes will be short lived. But when the foundational system, the nervous system, gets healthier, that improvement ripples out in ways that positively affect all the other spheres in an integrated and lasting way.
When we can do this and do it often: daily, by the minute, by each second, in different environments and relationships, we truly change how we are and how we live and breathe. We start to move out of living from a place of stress and survival and into a place where our healing DNA gets turned on more and more – a place where we have greater and more consistent access to creativity and potential.
If you’d like to learn how to better interact with both your nervous system and your environment be sure to join me for one of my many offerings in 2019.
Here are a few ways you can do this:
