Limiting beliefs make a deeply fulfilled, healthy life very difficult if not impossible.
My first definition of health is somebody who is capable of realizing his or her un-avowed dreams.”
In a lecture Moshe Feldenkrais gave called “Self-fulfillment Through Organic Learning”, Feldenkrais did what he always did — he made abstract notions concrete. In speaking to the theme of self-fulfillment and looking to make it less abstract he started to clarify what the term “self-fulfillment” might mean.
In the process he spoke about self-fulfillment as being connected to limitations. That what makes a person feel self-fulfilled will have to do with being free of the limitations that would keep them from living their un-avowed dreams.
What are “un-avowed” dreams? Those dreams that were squashed, usually when you were very young, and/or those dreams that you won’t even acknowledge to yourself.
Feldenkrais goes on to say that there is not a healthy person who does not “…find the means within themselves in which they can learn to realize what their un-avowed dream is, actually delve into it and find that they achieve also the means in themselves to perform it, to realize it.” (Embodied Wisdom: The Collected Papers of Moshe Feldenkrais).
Self-fulfillment is a personal matter and unique to each individual. What will create a sense of fulfillment for you isn’t going to be the same for me.
So Feldenkrais realized that it is only through limitations that he can understand, in a concrete way, what self-fulfillment is. He asks, “HOW are you limited? HOW do limitations come about?” Because in order to help someone become more self-fulfilled, the role he can play is in helping them overcome self-limiting habits while helping them learn how to learn better for themselves.
How to keep yourself from fulfilling your dreams…
Quite a few years ago, a fitness instructor referred a woman with chronic sciatica to me.
Rosa was in her late 50’s and told me about her low back issues and the right sided sciatica that was pretty much constant over the past several years. She was still active, attended fitness classes, walked and was active in the community. So although the pain was constant, it wasn’t debilitating. (Names and other details changed to protect her identity).
I watched Rosa walk and investigated other movements, learning exactly how she organized the shifting of her weight from one leg to the other, how she turned right and left, how she transmitted forces through her skeleton — typical FeldenkraisⓇ explorations.
It was clear that Rosa didn’t have much clarity of her right hip joint and that she wasn’t very stable in her pelvis. This wasn’t for lack of strength as she was diligent about her exercise programs…
It was in HOW she moved herself.
To make a long story short, after directing her attention to particular parts of herself so she could feel the subtle differences in her movements when comparing her left hip to her right, I asked her to lie on her back on the Feldenkrais table and we worked together for about an hour. In Feldenkrais language, I gave Rosa a Functional IntegrationⓇ lesson.
When Rosa stood at the end of the lesson, she was completely amazed (and I have to confess, so was I ;-), being relatively new to the work and all).
“I can’t believe it!” Rosa exclaimed, “I don’t have any pain. I don’t have any pain! How could something so gentle have relieved me of the pain I’ve had for years?”
To help her understand what had changed, we explored the same movements we had done at the beginning of the lesson (shifting weight and so forth). She could feel that her movements were very different — freer, clearer and more stable, let alone more comfortable.
“What’s changed is how you organize yourself” I told her. “What’s changed is the way you’re co-ordinating your movements. That’s a change primarily in your brain. Making changes in your brain does not require a lot of force. It’s about learning. And learning requires a particular use of attention, a sensitivity to notice differences and awareness of what you’re actually doing, not just what you think you’re doing”.
Rosa asked, “What can I do to keep this?”
“Do you remember, about half way through the lesson, the difference you felt in the way your leg moved when I invited you to shift your attention from where you thought your hip joint was compared to when you moved your attention to your hip as being where it actually is?”, I asked her.
“Yes”, she said, “It was so much freer and lighter. It was such a shock that just moving my attention could make such a difference.”
“And remember how that little shift also changed the way a push through the sole of your foot felt?”
“Ya, that was amazing too. I felt stronger and I wasn’t scared of my back hurting when you pushed through my foot then.”
“Exactly. Okay. So now, as you stand here, what happens if you start to think of your hip as being where you used to think it was, and shift your weight onto your leg as though that’s where the weight is to be taken?” As she did that, I added, “Now take a little walk like that — thinking and moving as though that’s where your hip joint is.”
“Oh! The pain is back!”
“Ok — so just stand again, and get really clear in your minds eye, and in your actual sensations about where your hip actually is.” After a few moments, I could see her re-organizing her self slightly. Then said, “Now walk again with this sensation — with a knowing and a feeling that your hip is deep to the centre of your groin, and that you can transmit load through your skeleton. How do you feel now?”
“That’s incredilbe… My pain is gone again!”
“Great! So that’s your homework. As many times as you need to, take the time drop into your sensations and re-define for yourself, in sensation, just where that hip joint is.”
And we ended the lesson on that note. She was pain-free and was able to reproduce the pain, and re-organize herself to be pain-free again on her own.
In my naivety I was thinking to myself, “Awesome. I gave a really good lesson, and now a woman is on her way to being pain free.” And, “Wow. This work is so amazing. Feldenkrais really knew what he was talking about.”
Hmmph! True – the work is amazing. But boy did I have a lot to learn….
The Shocking Truth
A few weeks later, I got some news that was rather shocking and was the source of some great learning for me.
And it’s the reason I’m sharing this story with you here.
Because the fitness instructor who’d referred Rosa told me about what’d happened after she left my studio….
Rosa had told her fitness instructor that when she went home, her husband asked her how her appointment with me went. She told him that her pain went away and that I’d given her this simple little thing of moving her attention a few inches in and down to where her hip joint actually was instead of where she’d thought it was so she could move better and without pain.
His reaction? Let’s just say — its wasn’t exactly positive… Apparently, it went something like: “You paid money to have someone tell you to shift your attention a couple inches over? That’s it?!”
Rosa made the same comment to her fitness instructor the next time she saw her. She couldn’t believe she’d paid money to have someone (me) tell her simply to shift her attention over a couple inches.
Somehow, its seems the entire rest of the hour I’d spent with Rosa doing hands-on work, learning, exploring, discovering more options for movement, providing the means by which she could make finer distinctions about her self and guiding her in learning how and what to pay attention to were completely forgotten.
The fitness instructor told me Rosa’s pain was back, and things were back to how they’d always been.
Rosa never came back for another lesson, and according to her fitness instructor had stopped practicing the shift in attention and self-organization that had made such a remarkable difference for her.
There are so many lessons in this story, not the least of which was a lesson I’m still learning today: How to become such a good teacher that the student feels as though they come upon the solution to whatever issue they’re having themselves. That they become their own best teacher. It’s a work in progress….
Self-Limiting Beliefs
But another great lesson, and the reason for sharing this particular story here is about the power of beliefs.
I could never say what Rosa and/or her husband’s beliefs were. But they might have been something like:
- Getting rid of pain is hard.
- Chronic pain is chronic. There’s nothing you can do about it. If you have a bad back — you have a bad back!
- If it costs money, it better require a lot of blood, sweat and tears on someone’s part.
- Change is always hard.
- Attention has no power. What you attend to makes no difference. You have to do something and it has be very substantial to have any effect or power. Managing your attention is nothing — it’s not doing anything.
- You can’t trust your sensations — if it doesn’t make sense to you intellectually — it can’t be right or true.
We all have limiting beliefs.
Limiting beliefs keep us from living our potential. And they can be very sneaky, lying so deep within us that we don’t even realize we have them.
Limiting beliefs can deaden curiosity. And when we no longer allow ourselves to live with curiosity, the zest for life wanes. We don’t engage in life with vitality and interest. Learning becomes a chore instead of a joy. We close ourselves off from creativity and the world of possibility.
I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a pretty unfulfilling way to go through life!
It can feel safer to live this way — to keep yourself from wanting something, striving for something, doing something that’s challenging, trying something new and opening to curiosity. Because going for your dream, trying something new, being curious, open and vulnerable can feel risky.
What if you discover something that doesn’t fit your current understanding of yourself, another or the world? What might have to change? What if you fail?
This is often the crux of the matter isn’t it. Self-limiting beliefs are usually maintained by fear. Fear of failure. Fear of being wrong. Fear of change. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of not being lovable…
But is protecting ourselves from facing these fears worth sacrificing living a deeply fulfilling life?
Health and well-being, as Moshe Feldenkrais said, is about living our dreams. Living a deeply fulfilling life, just maybe, is about living our dreams.
So my questions to you are these:
What dream(s) do you have for yourself, your life, that you’ve been afraid to admit, even to yourself?
And…
What are you afraid of?
I invite you to “…delve into that…” as Feldenkrais says. If you journal, write it down. Or simply spend some quiet time for yourself this week contemplating these questions.
In the next post, I’ll give an example of how the Feldenkrais MethodⓇ can be used to help us with all this.
But first, to warm things up a bit, knowing how hard it can be to talk about our dreams and fears, I’ll start things off and share one of my dreams and what I’m afraid of in the first comment below.
Even if you’re not up to sharing your dreams or fears, you might still have a comment. I’d love to hear about your feelings, and thoughts on the subject.
For more tips and guidance, check out my Face Book profile.
If you like journaling, check out this article for another way to approach self-limiting beliefs:
Trapped by your Mind? Learn This Five Step Process for Releasing Limiting Beliefs
Gisele St. Hilaire says
I’ve dreamed of being a published author of a “real” book. A good book. Wow! There, I’ve said it.
My self-limiting beliefs include things like:
I can’t write.
I’m a terrible writer.
I’m not good at communicating in words, and certainly not the written word!
My writing sucks.
Who am I to think I could write a book? I don’t have anything worthwhile to say.
I’ll never actually do this thing I dream of so why bother dreaming it.
Even if I do get a book published, it’ll totally suck.
My fears include:
People will laugh and scoff at my attempts at writing.
Everyone will see what a fraud I am.
They’ll think I’m stupid.
No one will be affected positively by what I write.
I’ll be misunderstood.
My friends and family will be embarrassed by my writing.
I’ll lose the respect I have of friends, family, colleagues, and clients.
And so on and so forth…
Happily, I’m “…delving into it….and finding the means to….” making my dream a reality. In tiny steps, I put myself out here and share these blog posts knowing full well that some will like them and others will hate them — and mostly — I’m fine with that.
But I’ve got a ways to go to living the whole “book author” thingy!
angie says
Hi Gisele,
How about a book that shares the story of your journey to wellness? Having read your blogs, I know you can write. Especially when you share your heartfelt experiences.
When I was just a young girl I started a book. Life with its fears and limitations got in the way. The book fizzled into nothingness, but the dream persisted.
Lately I’ve taken the first steps to manifesting this book and the fears and limitations are presenting themselves to be lived and examined. The difference now is that I have the experience and awareness to start to recognize and face them. Perhaps the book will never be published, but I’m recognizing that it is the process of writing that is important. Whatever growth I experience from this process will benefit those around me. The unwritten pages are calling me to action. What more could I ask of life?
Thank you for inspiring me to share this.
Gisele St. Hilaire says
Angie,
Thank you!
You are inspiring me.
How wonderful it is to discover that sharing our process and learning we help each other. It seems our strength so often comes from our willingness to be vulnerable.
So very cool!
Martin Strauss says
A retired doctor once told me that he was “trained”, in pre-medicare days, to cause pain when giving an injection in order to ensure that the patient “felt” that s/he was receiving a dollar-value treatment.
Gisele St. Hilaire says
Isn’t human nature something…
Buffy Owens says
Gisele,
Thank you for this eye-opening and inspiring post! I enjoyed every bit of it. I especially enjoyed reading your comment at the end of the post. I too, am a Feldenkrais Practitioner that longs to write a book (or two). Reading your raw confessions had me nodding and literally saying out loud, “Yes. Me too.”
Somehow knowing that I’m not alone is beyond comforting. Thank you.
-Buffy
Gisele St. Hilaire says
Thanks Buffy,
I’ve read a post or two of yours. The last one, (the one I remember), was truly b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l! Go for it good woman! Write the book! 😀
Kathie Josephson says
Hi Giselle,,
Your blog posts are terrific and most inspiring. 2 kinds of people I have heard -people who write and people who want to write. You are both. I think your book is in the making.
One of my dreams is to do creative work consistently because it makes me feel alive. I have done visual art, writing and bodywork with self and others throughout my adult life. All feel like the best answer to all of life’s struggles and yet I often backburner these expressions. Still searching for an answer to that one.
I think that often it is pain on one level or another that blocks me and I lose the flow that I need for consistency in my creative practices. Feldenkrais said(I think) that we all have habits on many levels that keep ourselves in pain. I am trying to renew my curiosity around my habits. Your Feldenkrais lessons are just the thing to help me with that. Thank you so much for these.I believe that it is very helpful to read your blogs along with the exercises themselves. It creates a nice focus Trying to be consistent with these too!!
Gisele St. Hilaire says
Hey Kathie,
I remember when my health was such that I simply had no energy, a number of years after the whole mononucleosis challenge. Things had gotten quite bad. Not only could I not run to and through the park from where I was living (core, central part of the city — concrete all around), I couldn’t even take a short walk in the park without feeling exhausted.
I started to take stock of what I loved. Yes, I’d loved being active and running…but I also loved being outdoors in green space and reading. I’d realised I wasn’t spending time outdoors as much because I wasn’t running as much (actually, not at all those days). I realised that there was really nothing stopping me from spending time in green spaces other than my limited point of view and my habits around how I’d get out there and what I’d do once out there. Just because I wasn’t running or being active in some way didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy the outdoors.
So…I kept a blanket in my car, and I started driving to the park with a book and laying on that blanket out on the grass. I usually read for about 15 minutes before sleepiness took hold, and I’d doze. At first, it felt a bit lame and I felt a titch guilty about d-r-i-v-i-n-g to the park. But I managed to work through that. I just so enjoyed being out there.
If I remember correctly, after some weeks of getting myself to the park a few times a week to just be in green space, I also started doing little moves there on my blanket. Maybe some stretches and some little bits of Feldenkrais lessons. That was many years ago…
Now I cycle regularly including regular hard interval training once or twice a week. I run a little. I walk every day. I’m pretty active and work fairly hard. I have to be mindful not to push myself too hard, or I start to notice the fatigue again (it’s a constant learning for me 😉 ).
I guess what I’m trying to say is that — as evident as it may be —- the shift to thinking about what I do love and what I CAN do in regards to what I want/love to do has made a huge difference in my life. Perhaps I’m using overly Feldenkrais ways of writing about this, but getting better oriented and moving/acting with greater clarity in orientation can change a person’s life.
Where do you want to go? Get oriented. Move in that direction in whatever way you can, with whatever clarity and quality you can today. The size of the movement in that direction makes no difference. And you can always decide to change direction if you decide to go in another direction.
Little things can make a big difference. Little moves, no matter how small, in service of your intentions are still moving you in the direction and manner you wish to live.
It’s all a constant learning…
Feldenkrais said something like:
“Life is a process. Improve the quality of the process and you improve the quality of life.”