Clasp your hands together with interlocked fingers. Do you have left-over-right thumbs or right-over-left?
Whichever it is, now unclasp your hands and re-clasp them the other way. Notice what you feel, what that makes you feel and where you feel that particular feeling. Plus - how do you describe that feeling?
Responses tend to go from "nothing" to "horrible", with a mid point somewhere around the range from "different" to "weird".
How we measure up to the "unfamiliar" is something I like to invite everyone I work with to explore. The thing is - how we describe it through re-presentation gives quite a clue as to the way we confront sensations and feelings that are "different".
For us to accept "change" we have to be comfortable with the embodied feelings. If we want to step out of one behaviour, or way of thinking, into another then we have to totally embrace change for that step to be effective. Leaving a comfort zone is one of the hardest things for us to do, even if that comfort zone is populated by a behaviour we want to stop. Its in the very nature of what comfort is for us. Comfort is familiar, warm, reassuring, a "now" moment of pleasure, there's a certainty to it that 'all is well' - even though intellectually we know that may not necessarily be the case.
Noticing what we are telling ourselves
In order to be comfortable with change then we need to begin to look at how that impacts upon us in terms of embodiment. And this is where the clasped fingers play their part.
For the lady whose answer to what it felt like was "horrible", I took her on an exploration of what her language was (and wasn't) doing for her.
"So if that's horrible," I said, "then how would you describe cutting one of those fingers with a knife?" She smiled and realised what she was doing here. I went on, "Horrible is quite a powerful word, like Hate. Look at the way children use 'Hate', especially towards a parent or loved one. If they really DID hate them, then they'd find it hard to express themselves because their inappropriate usage of the word has devalued the real meaning of it."
The other thing for the lady who used "horrible", is that by associating anything different or unfamiliar with such a word, for her (internally) there is an undoubted link between CHANGE and HORRIBLE. She was, for sure, comfortable with the notion and process of No-CHANGE. And so if she can be guided to recognise a variety of softer ways to describe the unfamiliar, then she can enter a state of readiness to understand what Change can feel like.
For most of us, through becoming familiar with something new or different we eventually place it into a new comfort zone - it becomes habitual. The other thing is - the more we embrace change, the more we develop a curiosity for it as well. And curiosity has a tendency also to replace anxiety.
So there's a frame of mind, a mind-set, around the whole area of change, that is bound up with noticing what our bodies are telling us AND processing what we notice in the most useful way for us to take forward into the rest of our lives.
Spatial significance in embodied feelings
Moving on from the clasped fingers, once we are comfortable with the unfamiliar its really useful to start to notice the power of spatial location in terms of our own conscious-unconscious dialogue.
One of the most curious notions geographically is that of the person standing at the South Pole who is told to "Go North". It doesn't matter which way he steps, because every step will take him North.
Now the parallel I want to bring in here is that whatever changes anyone wants to make in their lives then this, too, will involve moving away from where they are NOW. The thing is we also have an embodied spatial sense of TIME, where the future and the past may be in front/behind us or off to the sides at some particular angle. This means that in terms of Change and moving on then we will, ideally, orient ourselves towards the future.
However, if we see ourselves at the South Pole, then there is something else we need to bring into play so that we "know" that when we take that step to go north we ARE actually oriented towards where we perceive our future is!
The Power of Geography
When I'm talking with clients about their making changes, unburdening themselves, or leaving certain things behind, then there is an enhanced effect upon the work we are doing when I also make changes in their geographical location in the room.
Ideally I would have a room containing a number of chairs, and when they come in I'd invite them to "take a moment to allow your body to consider where now might be the right place for you to sit in order for you to feel comfortable right now."
This can be as revealing as the clasped fingers - plus it calls upon them to search for their embodied feelings of comfort in a distracted current state.
At some stage in our session I would get them to walk around the room and stop at some representative point where they'd know and feel comfortable with all the changes they're wanting to make. Their body would give them the sign, through a feeling, maybe a 'stickiness' in the feet, maybe an inner word, maybe a 'flashed' vision, that this was the right place. It may be that there is the need to do this several times - meaning that each place needs to be marked and then they would need to make a final choice between those marked places. Everyone's perceptions are different - and they intuitively know which is THE right place.
Once our bodies know where our future comfort zone is, then the journey of change comes into view in a multi-dimensional way, and with a clearer understanding of what things we need to take on that journey and what we need to leave behind. And I will explore in the next part just how we might arrive at best judging what those things can be.
Conclusion
The journey from NOW to ME can be as short as the time it takes to unclasp and then re-clasp our fingers, or step towards north from the South Pole. Its all a matter of becoming comfortable with the unfamiliar, and first recognising the unfamiliar from the horrible. We are what we think and say to ourselves, and therein ourselves lie all the seeds for our change.
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