P2P Presentations ~ a selection

SCHOLARLY QUOTES

Scholarly springboards can be helpful as we practice tuning in and modulating the adaptive response when it is necessary to do so.

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“Entirely capable of taking care of yourself in a changing, hostile world.” –– Moshé Feldenkrais, talk ‘Sense of Inferiority’ in Amherst Training, Year 1, Week 9

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“In those moments when awareness succeeds in being at one with feeling, senses, movement, and thought, the carriage will speed along on the right road. Then man can make discoveries, invent, create, innovate, and know He grasps that his small world and the great world around are but one and that in this unity he is no longer alone.” –– Moshé Feldenkrais, page 54 Awareness through Movement. 1972, 1977

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“the fittest may also be the gentlest, because survival often requires mutual help and cooperation’’ (Dobzhansky, 1962) –– Theodosius Dobzhansky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodosius_Dobzhansky

“According to Dobzhansky, it is this capacity to cooperate that enabled the earliest mammalian species to survive in a hostile world dominated by physically larger and potentially aggressive reptiles. Although unaware of Dobzhansky’s major contributions, the publication that introduced Polyvagal Theory was titled “ORIENTING in a DEFENSIVE WORLD: Mammalian modifications of our evolutionary heritage. A Polyvagal Theory” (Porges, 1995). In retrospect, the title was a tribute to Dobzhansky’s insightful statement that “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution” (Dobzhansky, 1973).” (emphasis added KH)
–– Stephen W. Porges, page 135 in Porges, S. W. (2020). The COVID-19 Pandemic is a paradoxical challenge to our nervous system, a Polyvagal Perspective. Clinical Neuropsychiatry, 17(2),135-138. https://thinkinginmovement.ca/porges-dobzhansky/

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So Dobzhansky wrote in 1973. We see how reading something from earlier then develops into something new!  Gendlin’s ‘inter-affecting’ as the past within the present carries forward in its own way.

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“I have little interest in getting the CART and the HORSE mixed up as to which is in front. I don’t give a whit about how a lesson appears to me or where it comes from. The suspension of mental activity and the ENTRANCE into an IMPERTURBABLE LISTENING is what happens. Listening for it destroys it.” (emphasis added KH) – Jeff Haller, November 2013

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“A KINETIC INTELLIGENCE is forging its way in the world, shaping and being shaped by the developing dynamic patterns in which it is living. Thus again we see that possibilities at any given moment do not stand out as so many recourses of action; possibilities are ADUMBRATED [overshadowed] in the immediacy of the evolving situation itself, a situation that moment by moment opens up a certain world and certain kinetic ways of being in that world.” (emphasis added KH)
– Maxine Sheets-Johnstone. 1999, p. 489; 2011, p. 424. The Primacy of Movement (1st edition 1999, expanded 2nd edition 2011)

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We may marvel to hear our reading of intricate quotes from Theodosius Dobzhansky, Moshé Feldenkrais, and Jeff Haller. Stephen Porges and Maxine Sheets-Johnstone.

And we pause here at about half past the hour. We also do a little something at every quarter-hour. Today we will have a movement of ‘pum/pums’ to be our little anchor. Let’s do them standing.  Most of us know about first aligning the axis of our spines, maybe slowly beginning with the sternum and the back of your neck, with a hand at the back of the lumbar or on your belly. How do you like to bridge and align so that your axis is steady?

Then very lightly bouncing on the heels making the sound of the heartbeat ‘pum/pum’. Let’s take our cues from each other.  One person likes to interlace her fingers and another holds one hand in front and one behind the lumbar, ‘pum/pum’.  Some of you enjoy what children often do, swinging interlaced arms: ‘Oh oh, I can go where I want.’ This kind of happy-go-lucky sway can actually help align our axis.
You could perhaps walk around the chair or further, or even rest on the floor if you like, while some of us come back to talk about the process.

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“The simple movements that we just did bring me a nice sense of connection. I’ve never done any of that before; it is refreshing and simple.” –– a student

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So, we have ways. Everybody has ways of finding comfort. Now, let’s go back to the slide show.
We  noted some scholarly quotes, and we do have a few more. This one is so simple and timely:

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“We act in accordance with our self-image. This self-image—which, in turn, governs our every act—is conditioned in varying degree by three factors: heritage, education, and self-education.”
–– Moshé Feldenkrais, Preface to Awareness through Movement. 1972, 1977

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We could say our practice of the ‘pum/pums’ is a way of modulating what we’ve learned. We can honor our heritage while we develop our self-education. Self-education is what we continue with today. We looked at Dobzhansky, and some quotes. Now a quote from Jan Winhall.

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On Turning Competition into Co-regulation
“We live in a culture grounded in COMPETITION, EVALUATION and a RELENTLESS PURSUIT of grabbing more resources – money, power, status and stuff! Our bodies aren’t naturally equipped to thrive in this KIND of CLIMATE, and we often struggle with feeling truly safe and resourced enough; connected to ourselves and with each other; or we lack an authentic sense of really belonging here.

When we strip away most of what we see playing out within and around us, underneath it all, we all want and need the same thing – to feel “good enough” to be seen, included, valued, liked and even loved. In our lifelong quest to find this, we often get hurt, punished, told to be different, or act a certain, more “acceptable” way. We learn to blend in, cover up our authentic selves, detach from our feelings, or seek unhealthy solutions in an attempt to calm and soothe our unsettled, disconnected and overwhelmed bodies.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Let’s come together, MEET our BODIES WHERE THEY ARE, and explore how we can EFFECTIVELY NAVIGATE the CHALLENGES of this competitive, evaluative and unpredictably changing culture while nurturing our bodies with what we truly need to thrive – each other…. Let’s go!” (emphasis added KH)  – Jan Winhall, MSW, RSW, FOT

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