Drop The False Narratives And Create A Life Of Freedom

The basic thesis that I am going to make over the coming months here is that any profession that is based on the personality and work of one man or woman will eventually (and often rather quickly) turn into an ideology-based system.

What I mean by "ideology-based system" is that the unique experience of individual practitioners and students will be suppressed by the needs of the organization and the trainings will increasingly have a religious feel to them.

One of the primary ways that this happens is that followers of the teacher focus on his or her written words and spoken statements as a way of teaching. The problem is that neither the teachers nor the students have the same experiences as the founder. And even when they have similar experiences, it is only natural to express those experiences using one’s unique wording, phrasing, and understanding.

Add to that the fact that words can never completely express experiences. Words are labels. Labels pointing to experiences, yes, but they are not the experiences themselves.

Power And Organizational Dynamics

As focusing on the founder’s words continue, diverse views are shunned and the public actions and words of members tend towards repeating the ideas of the founder. 

A next step in understanding this phenomenon is to not only see this conflict between the words and experience but to also see the conflicts between an organization and its members.

For example, the conflicts between:

1) personal status in an organization
2) freedom and the ability to speak out publicly as you choose.

Moshe Feldenkrais did not have this conflict because stood outside of any professional organization. And he was willing to speak out in any way and on any topic that he chose (sometimes to negative effect in my opinion, but we will not go there just yet). 

His direct students have drastically limited their ability to be seen in public "as they are" by the organizational rules they created after his death. You could argue that Anat Baniel, Mia Segal, and several others avoided this trap. I would likely agree with some caveats. An essay on the topic is forthcoming. 

If this interests you, I invite you to join as a paid subscriber and to take a look below at my first approximation of the topics we will cover so that you can create a life of freedom.

But it is not for the faint of heart!

I go deep into topics that can make some people uncomfortable.

That can be a good thing if you can tough it out. As Joseph Campbell wrote in many different forms and phrases:

The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.

Even so, if you do not know something about me via my emails, Facebook group, website, or Feldenkrais-based downloads, then I recommend that you do not join me here. This is not the place to start.

And there is nothing here for “organization man” looking for salvation and the '“right” way and the “truth.”

But if you want to know the untold stories, and the secret dynamics that limit awareness, independence, and emergence in the somatics communities and beyond, this is the place to be.

I hold nothing back.

Here’s a small sample of what I will cover and what you will learn over the coming weeks and months if you choose to join me:

• The conflict between professional status and awareness.

  • How professional organizations actively work to limit individual freedom and responsibility.

  • Why these dynamics are so strong in the Feldenkrais Guild and other somatics organizations.

  • The difference between sovereignty and freedom and why the certified trainers of any method can never be free.

• The Certification Trap and how to avoid it.

  • ​​​​​​Certifications can be useful in certain contexts. But they can also be deadly to personal development. I will show you how to use them to get what you want.

  • What founders such as Feldenkrais, Rolf, Alexander, M.H. Erickson, and others had that virtually none of their students have. And how you can get what the founders had.

    • (I am not saying that you should do it. It is hard as hell and not many are willing to do the work, but it can be done).

• The Forbidden Keys To Awareness

  • How to avoid the problems and traps created by the students of dead gurus and how to both see and hear between the lines.

• What Feldenkrais got right and what he got wrong.

  • Why Moshe’s students do not talk about his errors and why you need to know them to be free of their often confused ideology.

• How To Create A Life Of Freedom

  • There is a huge difference between reactive problem-solving and creating. Creating is better in every way. I will teach you the basics of my process.

  • How to create and keep an independent practice. An independent practice is an independent life.

• And much, much more.

That is all for now. The post you are reading now is public. Feel free to share it if you would like. The next post - Feldenkrais Was Not A Certified Trainer - is behind a paywall and can be accessed at a very reasonable price.

New posts weekly until I decide to end the series and use the content in another form, most likely a book and an online course.

Click the subscribe button to see your options:

*By the way, I have literally thousands of pages of typed notes and references that I am pulling together for this series. It is overwhelming at times as this type of writing and publishing is a bit new to me. So there may be some small glitches and gaps in my writing from time to time. But if you are willing to give it a go and stick with me, I promise you that you will encounter ideas here that you have never encountered before. And they will be liberating.

There is a comment section for paid subscribers to ask questions and get me to clarify the ideas.

Peace!