Being an entrepreneur is a practice in the art of self-awareness — learning to manage your strengths and build on your weaknesses. Balancing your sense of self as you drive your business is an art. Learning to be present within yourself by staying balanced and grounded enables you to close deals and move the needle on your business forward effortlessly.
The Feldenkrais Method® (Feldenkrais) is a universal method for improving human life through better movement, sensation, posture and breathing. Neuroplasticity is central to the effectiveness of the Feldenkrais Method.
The way you interact with the world and communicate with those around you is an outward expression of your inner self. When stress rises in your body or you are tired, it shows on the outside. What’s on your mind shows through your physiological cues.
Why do entrepreneurs put self care on the bottom of their to do list?
The Feldenkrais Method’s approach to learning is about re-wiring our bodies awareness, getting out of our heads and into our movement. Bringing it back to the basics and re-learning the movement patterns we have forgotten, so we become more effective in all our choices both conscious and unconscious. Developing a new state of conscious awareness.
Coming from a dance background I look at sales similarly as performing on stage. The best dancers are able to improvise within a complex choreography and clearly express their desires and emotions.
Feldenkrais enables you to break through the physiological manifestations of your inner emotional perspective. Learning to breathe easier reduces stress, and lessens the tension held throughout your body. Creating shifts in your attitude, focus, and building a greater awareness of self. Helping you to perform the choreography of business with more efficiency and less effort.
In our modern world everything gets escalated; thinking bigger-bolder-brighter is better. The faster and harder we exert ourselves, the less sensitive we are to subtle changes, to the loud and the soft, to light and shade.
How does Feldenkrais break through this noise?
Let me explain: “The law of the least amount of effort”. If carrying a piano and a fly lands on the piano you won’t feel the difference. Alternatively, carrying a feather and a fly lands on it, you will feel it. Feldenkrais allows you to sense subtle differences in your system.
We each have the power to choose. Let’s take a look at some choices you might want to think about and implement as strategies to start to begin to be more aware of what you are doing:
Let’s start with one of the most fundamental ideas when implementing this method. This has to do with pace, how fast or slow you work. Moving at the speed of sound doesn’t necessarily mean you will be successful. Moving too fast may mean your personal wellbeing suffers. Know when your self requires a slower pace and when you have the momentum to move a little quicker.
Learn your way of doing things. Just because the strategy worked for someone else doesn’t mean it’s the right way for you. Learn from those before you but remember everything is in a state of change. What worked one time for them may not work for you, the environmental conditions may have changed.
Eliminating unnecessary distractions allows you to attend to the entire situation, your body, your surroundings, becoming aware of any change of difference, to be able to notice the important things.
By doing one task at a time, have one tab open at a time, answer one email at a time. Sit comfortable with shoulders dropped, breathe….Resist opening another tab until the work in the tab open is complete. Commit completely to finishing the first task, you will soon notice how you get more done in less time. Because you’re not content switching and your body will be more relaxed and in flow.
Those are 3 of the basic Fundamentals to the Feldenkrais method when you are starting to build awareness:
Check your pace; move slowly with attention on what you are doing.
Find your way of performing your movement.
Eliminating parasitic action; actions that don’t need to happen to perform the task you are working on.
Let’s look at a few steps you can take everyday towards building your awareness.
Observe yourself in your work environment.
Do you always stand the same way?
Do you turn the same way to get things on your desk, like answering the phone?
Change things around in your environment to give yourself some variety.
Observe your breathing.
Do you notice you hold your breath when doing something difficult?
How deeply do you breathe?
Where do you feel your breath, in your belly or chest?
Notice where your shoulders are:
Reach up with your right arm then extend it down the back of your neck. How far can you reach?
Now reach around behind your back with your left arm towards your right arm. How far can your fingers go up your back? Can your hands reach each other?
Do this at least once a day and see how your shoulders become free.
Remember self-awareness is a skill it is something we continue to develop, not a state we arrive at. Learning to navigate the complexities of life with emotional intelligence is an art. Feldenkrais offers you a way to move effortless, calm your system and build your awareness so your emotional state can glide through challenges that life throws at us.
