How I Restored Myself with The Feldenkrais Method®
In 2015, I had moved from Denver to Washington, DC to be with someone with whom I had fallen in love. But within weeks of arriving, red flags began to appear. I made excuses for each thing because I loved this man and believed he was the person with whom I would spend the rest of my life.
In 2015, I had moved from Denver to Washington, DC to be with someone with whom I had fallen in love. But within weeks of arriving, red flags began to appear. I made excuses for each thing that happened because I really believed he was the person with whom I would spend the rest of my life. I'd jumped through hoops to make this move — I'd sold my home, left my friends, and heartbroken, left my son who had decided last minute to take a gap year before college. I'd started a new business in this new city and I believed we could make it work.
But within a couple of months of relocating, it became clear to me I was in a toxic, abusive relationship. I felt anxious and fearful that anything I might say or do would set off my partner into a rage — putting flatware in the dishwasher facing the wrong direction, hanging pots on the pot hanger in the wrong order, leaving my water bottle on the dining room table.
Essentially, my nervous system was responding as if I was living in a war zone, waiting for the next surprise attack of yelling and name calling or silent treatment.
My attention was not on myself, but on my environment, my partner's facial expressions, constantly scanning for clues of what was to come, being hypervigilant to say and do things "right" — to not cause an outburst. It was as if I was like living in a minefield and existing in the ancient limbic part of my brain — in survival.
On April 13, 2017, while riding on the back of his motorcycle at Joshua Tree National Park— a "vacation" my intuition warned me to avoid, we T-boned a car that was doing a U-turn in the middle of the road.
It was as if I was literally stopped in my tracks.
And although the accident resulted in me breaking my foot, a finger, and a rib, it was this accident that also saved my life.
I spent the next few days at my ex’s friend’s house in Palm Springs on pain meds before flying back to DC. When I returned, I cleared my work schedule. My abusive partner was suddenly attentive, kind and loving and I was all too ready to forget the past and believe he’d had a change of heart. I allowed myself to enjoy his attention and trust him… for two glorious weeks, until the abusive behavior started again.
We were getting ready to go to his country house in Virginia for the weekend and he asked me to pack the cooler while he took care of some business. I did my best with limited use of my arms and foot, and in the hurry to beat rush hour traffic, I forgot to pack the milk. And he was enraged. I forgot to pack the milk and now we’d have to stop on the way. He couldn’t count on me for anything — everything is always on his shoulders. He raged for miles and then refused to talk to me, and I felt myself afraid again. I was confused — was he right about me? Was everything always on his shoulders?
The cognitive dissonance and confusion and brain fog was muddying my ability to see clearly. The anxiety and depression from feeling that I couldn’t trust my own gut was back with a vengeance. Read this article for more symptoms of narcissistic abuse.
My recovery
When we returned to the city, I scheduled two Feldenkrais® sessions each week with a nearby practitioner for the next 3 months. I knew I needed to become physically self-sufficient as quickly as possible, to get solidly back on my feet and not be dependent on him. To learn more about how The Feldenkrais Method® works, click here.
Some sessions were almost magical — I felt such increased mobility and lack of pain that I had to pinch myself to believe the improvement I felt was possible. Each session was different from the one before, and I had varying results. But cumulatively, the improvements steadily continued.
By the end of July I was no longer in pain and had recovered much of my flexibility and function. Gradually, I was able to see my usual client load. I continued with weekly sessons and for another month and I kept improving physically.
the most surprising effect
But the most surprising effect was that I no longer felt I was completely focused outside of myself, scanning the horizon for danger every moment. I had embarked on Feldenkrais® sessions in order to improve my physical function and release pain. How could release of mental and emotional tension be a result of a this method as well?
Regardless of whether I understood mentally what was happening or whether I believed it was possible, the thing I knew for sure was that it was happening. I was feeling physically stronger and better and I was mentally and emotionally clearer, calmer and more grounded.
I felt connected to my own body. I could breath normally. I could sleep, after months of insomnia. I was developing the ability to feel myself, and the clarity to trust my thoughts and to leave a situation that would certainly have killed me.
If you or someone you know have experienced a relentless experience that has left you with physical symptoms of stress, anxiety and overwhelm, please consider The Feldenkrais Method® to help you find relief physical and nervous system relief. To learn more about the physical symptoms of stress and anxiety, click here.
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How the Feldenkrais Method® Helps to Alleviate Stress and Chronic Pain
The Feldenkrais method is a process that helps a person shift out of old patterns for good. It helps you identify and change habits that might be causing you pain and discomfort in exchange for long-term healing and relief.
The Feldenkrais method
When a person has experienced a stressful life event that has left them holding relentless tension in their body, chronic musculoskeletal pain and chronic anxiety often result. We think the only way to relieve this tension is to stretch or get deep massage. What we don’t understand is that the brain is responsible for directing all bodily functions, including directing our muscles to tense and “hold” our bones when it perceives instability or a lack of mobility.
In addition, when we’re in a sympathetic state of fight, flight or freeze, our nervous system dysregulates and we might feel constant anxiety and/or disconnect from our body. We try to meditate or rest as we’re told to do, but it’s almost painful to be still. We lose connection with ourselves, physically and mentally and our emotions can be all over the place.
Emotional tension = physical tension.
The Feldenkrais method is a process that helps a person reconnect to themself by identifying and changing chronic tension patterns, and shift out of them for good. To learn more about Feldenkrais®, click here.
This method helps a person identify and change habits that might be causing pain and discomfort in exchange for long-term healing and relief.
Feldenkrais® is a method of "learning" for the brain and nervous system that uses physical movement to help identify and then permanently change a person's musculoskeletal patterns or biases that cause chronic discomfort or pain.
This allows permanent relief for chronic pain and tension so that a person can move more freely and with ease, breathe more deeply, and regulate emotionally when stress arises. Feldenkrais gives a person back her life so that she can begin to participate in activities that she thought were out of reach and that make life worth living!
There are two aspects to the Feldenkrais method:
group classes
"Awareness Through Movement®” (ATM) classes are practiced in a room or on Zoom with other participants, similar to a yoga class, often lying on a mat while led through a series of movements by the instructor. These classes are cost effective and help empower individuals by giving them tools they can apply in their every day lives to make changes little by little.
Unlike other types of activities most of us are used to, in these classes students do the movements very slowly, make them very small, and avoid any and all discomfort. There is no stretching, forcing, straining or doing lots of repetitions. In fact, improvements happen after only two or three movements done with focused attention on ones’ own comfort. It’s a paradox — the smoother and easier a person makes a movement, even if they’re barely moving, the quicker and bigger transformation they experience!
Private in-person sessions
The other aspect of Feldenkrais is private sessions (called "Functional Integration"), that are done on a table, similar to a massage table. But that’s where the similarity to massage ends!
During these sessions, the practitioner moves the client very slowly into movement patterns that have been intelligently sequenced based on human physical development. We never force, stretch or impose any agenda on a person. In fact, as patterns of tension emerge in each person, we follow their body, and in a sense, do the work of their muscles for them so that these chronic unconscious musculoskeletal patterns of stress and tension unwind on their own.
I often suggest beginning with one session to see if it’s a good fit, and then move on to a series of ten sessions done fairly closely together so that the unwinding of these unconscious habitual muscular patterns and the creation of new, healthier neural pathways can be reinforced. Each person responds differently, which is why each person will have a unique treatment plan for the desired outcome. For more information about how to determine how often to schedule sessions, click here.