The short:

When you are trying to move into a new space ie you want to go to a new space in terms of your life, your job, your whatever, and there are ‘blocks’ / impediments it might help to go move.

Or dance.  I did just that today.

The medium:

So today marked my first time ever of African dance. It had all the markings of new - I had no idea of the language, I couldn’t ’see’ the connection between what I was seeing the teacher do and what my body was meant to do, the movements were strange and it didn’t feel like my world. Better to go back where I felt safe? Rather than look the fool? Instead, I remembered I was there to learn and as I move into new spaces/help people through change as a consultant, this is what it must feel like. So I just put on a smile and accepted that today I would move around in this new space I hadn’t been before and attempt to be an African dancer and by the end I was certainly not there yet but I had a fun time and I did manage to do something new. The sound of the drums was AWESOME (though dancing like an idiot in front of them slightly less so).  And yes, I moved…so did some stuff in my head. In a good way!

The long:

As I explore the connection between physical movement and mental movement ie how do you move through stuck places I am seeing, feeling and learning about the strong relationship between physcially moving from one spot to another. Ie you move through space from one to another will help you move faster in your mind…it may even occur simultaneously.

This is not a new concept. Most of the concepts I am exploring at present are ancient ones, but the more we understand and ‘know’ the more these will come back with a new layer/level of understanding ie ancient ‘re-freshed’. Some examples include the Japanese sand gardens where you walk and rake;  massage; and dance.

The mind-body-spirit arguement has long floated around philosopher lunchrooms but I am sensing that as we try and see the world as a whole system and see ourselves as whole (holistic is one word, though you may prefer integrated, which is a term I use for business clients) these arguments will surface again. What I have learned most recently is the Hawaiin concept for body is the same as memory. This touches on a lot of other things I am thinking about, for instance the idea that our dna is a story. It has parts of the stories before us and we are all part of a shared story (this is the best way I have been able to describe collective and personal memory and the linkages). All I learned in psychology was that memory was an extremely malliable thing. And I have a theory (which my friend Kainer and I once sat in a cafe trying to work out how to test*) that negative memories go deeper than positive ones. I am wondering now whether positive ones move things less because of their elevatory nature…Which is a longer way to tell you that there is a connection between mind and body and as manifestations of the same whole a movement in one will change/manifest as a movement in another - so unblock one area in your body and you are likely getting unstuck on something in your head. [this is part of my fractal theory of everything...our lives, and our organisations. Change something on one level and your see it manifested on all other levels, though at present our organisations are structured in hierarchy so the fractal impact is greater when the change is from the top-down.]. It actually put something else into a new focus - rain dancing suddenly makes a lot of sense. A shaman had a greater connection with the earth, and the whole system (definately more than we do now as we have - attempted - to move ourselves from the system, forgetting we still live on earth). So a movement on earth for rain could well have manifested a movement at the greater system level ie rain.  

Back to me: There are quite a few new spaces I am moving towards and moving into and am in so I am playing with the idea of movement as helping me make positive changes and evolution! Today I went and danced! Please note: I did not, until today, do African dance!

You can read the rest of the story in ‘the medium’ but the point is, next time you are going through something that makes you feel unstuck and/or you want to move to a new place in your life it may help to go try a new movement, or do something in physical space to get you there.

Try it for yourself and let me know.

*The experiment: take some worms (that if you cut them in half make two living worms - yes yes I am not a biologist!) and give them a negative experience, a positive experience and a neutral experience. Cut them in half (and/or kill one half and feed it to the other half - we were trying to work inherited memory)…and I would like to add I am vegatarian and we were working in theory here…and then see whether the worm is able to remember the negative more…the challenge was what do worms remember in the first place…

This entry was posted on Monday, December 5th, 2005 at 9:39 am and is filed under change, fun, stories, walk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.