Have you been daydreaming in the last couple days?
I often find this happens during a change time. As one friend described it – we’re at that point just after high tide, when the heavy stillness reverses direction. Here, where there is no tide, I notice that the angle of light on the river is shifting and the cherry trees are dropping their leaves.
Last night after dinner, I was lucky enough to look up and watch in amazement as the night hawks flew overhead, beginning their trip back to South America. It got me thinking about dreaming and our hopes about where we want to go, who we want to be and what we want for the World.
Moshe Feldenkrais said “When you know what you’re doing, you can do what you want.” In other words, you have to know where you are now and what you are up to in order to know what is needed to change to get where you want to be. But there is even more to it than that…
Most of us have a dream of who we want to be or what we want the world to be and some idea of what we think will get us there. Something personal like – I want to lose weight. I am cutting out all sugar and carbs or I am going to start exercising regularly.
Or maybe the change you seek is on a larger scale – I want Equality and World Peace. So, I am going to find out where I can volunteer my time.
No matter the dream, it’s big. We can feel it in our bodies – the flutter if hope. We set our sight high and we leap.
And you know what that kind of mix between hopes, dreams and actions does?
It sets us up to fail.
3 months after not eating carbs, we are at a birthday party, and there is cake and chips and bread! We have some and feel crappy for breaking our resolution, so we quit all together. Or we get to our ideal weight and we start eating ‘normally’ again and we gain it all back.
If what we want is Equity and World Peace we either get so overwhelmed by the enormity of the problem that we work so hard toward it and burnout or we think that no matter what we have done, it is not enough.
We are addicted to the highs. The big fast wins. We are addicted to the dopamine. And frankly, we lack the ability to appreciate small sustainable changes that last.
But this is not how life works. It is not all big wins.
Long standing change happens bit by bit. If it didn’t, do you know what would happen?
If you and the world changed overnight as dramatically as you think you hope for – you would have a psychotic break. Really. Our image of our self, our sense of the world, of our reality, needs a certain amount of consistency, a certain thread woven throughout. For us to recognize and know anything, some part has to remain familiar.
I want to tell you about a student of mine. He had a terrible accident which caused a long-term issue with his brain. He needed a walker to get around. His new life was in pretty stark contrast to his years living as an athlete and a doctor. The drastic change in his self-image and ability did not cause a psychotic break, but it did cause depression.
When he arrived at my office 2 years after the accident and working hard to rehab, the doctors had told him they had done all they could. But, he still had hope, He wanted more. I was his last hope.
As we worked together, week in and week out, he was dedicated and diligent. It paid off. He made progress. He went from falling an average of 8 times day down to 3x a day. His eye glass prescription was decreased because double vision was lessening and his eyes were getting better.
He still was not satisfied – which is fine and even healthy. The problem was that he wanted his old life back. And as long as that is what he wanted, he was never going to see how far he had come or the wins he WAS making.
The accident had produced a dramatic change, no amount of work with me was going to be able to undo that. Hoping for that is like cracking a plate and gluing in back together and wanting it to be the same. I knew if we kept working together, and he kept doing lessons at home. He would continue to improve, but I also knew he would never have his old life back exactly how it was.
Here’s the real problem with that scenario –
if all you want to do is return to your prior state of how you used to feel or if you want to jump ahead to a whole new life – then there’s no room for growth or the continuum. Life is nothing, if not a continuum.
It became clear that part of what was going on was that he needed to accept the new him (“When you know what you’re doing, you can do what you want.’) Gradually coming to accept the changes in his life from the accident while not accepting defeat would be key.
He needed to find a way to be where he was on the continuum or he would never be willing to see the positive changes that were, in fact, happening. In other words – he would reject any win he made as not good enough. And who wants to live always feeling not good enough? Yet that is what most of us do!
I proposed something radical. He needed to figure out a way to say goodbye his old self. Why not hold a ceremony and say an official goodbye to the old him? When I said this, his whole face lit up. He got busy making plans.
In the months after that, he started to be able to look at himself more for where he was and for who he was and less at who he used to be. And knowing what he as Moshe would say “was doing” now, allowed him to see the progress he was making.
When I work with people, I have tremendous hope for what is possible, but I also understand that for change to happen and get integrated, it must be small and sustainable. For all of us, there’s this incredible balance between holding a big dream and the actionable steps that will get you there. And this takes us back to that dopamine hit….
If you want to get better at long term sustainable change, you must build your capacity to NOTICE the small wins, the small differences, the subtle changes of light on water.
The lessons I have shared with you are one of the best ways I have ever found to do this – to build your capacity for recognizing qualitative change.
I urge you to have a dream. And if you want to achieve it, think of 1% small sustainable change you can integrate into your life. They are the changes that last. The dopamine hits – the one where you lose 10 lbs. quickly – they don’t last.
That is why when you do a lesson – I urge you to do less than you can. Work in the range where it is easy. Build a sound structure you can slowly integrate. Build sustainably.
When I went to the first Women’s March in Washington DC, I was happily marching on behalf of what I believe in. I was in no way there to march against anyone. I was surprised to find many women older than me with signs reading “I can’t believe we are still marching for this!” There was a lot of anger and resentment expressed. Understandably. They had worked hard in the past. They had made change and carried us forward, but there was a mistake in thinking that the work was ever going to be done.
Improvements to ANY system will never be done. That’s good news! That means we are still alive. We are on the continuum – change is always available. Things can always get better.
What is it you dream of? What is one small step you want to take toward that dream? I’d love to hear from you! Email me.
Learning and improvement will continue each time you do an Awareness Through Movement lesson – even if you do the same one 20x. You will become more able to detect subtle changes, and subtle improvements. And that ability will give you much more contentment and greater satisfaction than chasing the dopamine. I promise.
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I believe in you,
Astra
