Creating Conditions

Dear Reader,

Around here, kids are going back to school, and we drivers need to remember to observe the speed limits in the school zones. There’s a different kind of buzz in the air. Excitement, anticipation—a mixture of eagerness and anxiety.

As I think about this time of year and my own ongoing teaching and learning experiences, I recall one of my favorite stories about Moshe Feldenkrais. At the beginning of one of his trainings he told the participants, “I can’t teach you anything. The only thing I can do is create the conditions for learning.”

So, what are the conditions for learning? Under what circumstances do we acquire new knowledge or understanding most easily? My guess is that safety, ease and trust are all useful. When we feel threatened in some way, we engage the sympathetic part of the autonomic nervous system—we become alert, ready for action. If the threat is strong enough, there are parts of the brain that don’t work so well. Decision making is different under these circumstances. It’s less thoughtful and more reactive. We don’t spend a lot of time getting creative or thinking more broadly. We’re reacting to a threat, whether it’s real or perceived. When there’s a threat, the nervous system wants us to act and act quickly.

When we feel safe, we can be more open—open to new ideas and possibilities, open to playing, open to trying new things without concern about the outcome. We can allow for different ways of thinking and experiencing. In other words, we’re learning.

Thomas Leonard, a pioneer in the field of coaching, talked about creating supportive conditions. Creating conditions that allow us to thrive, to learn and grow, to try new things, to expand our possibilities. In his view, those conditions could be anything in your environment that supported you and your growth.

What have you noticed that helps you learn and grow? What conditions have allowed for opening and expansion? What circumstances allow you to play with new ideas and possibilities?

Feldenkrais work, personal coaching, and felt-making all help me to create conditions for learning. What a pleasure it is to watch people emerge into fuller versions of who they really are, doing more of what they really want to do. If you’d like to play with those conditions, here are some possibilities:

For private sessions—Coaching, Feldenkrais, Coaching and Feldenkrais combined, or Felt-making—Book an Appointment, or reply to this email.

As usual, we have our Free/Pay as You Wish, Tuesday online Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lesson. It’s a gentle way to explore listening to yourself through movement.

Whatever condition your condition is in, have all the fun you can!