Shrutee Sharma
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Stress, Anxiety & Differentiation

9/11/2019

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What is all this stress about?
 
Is it some kind of bug that pervades the air we breathe these days? Something we just can’t escape, no matter where we go?!
 
It does seem to come in all shapes and forms… the utter discomfort and physical pain that clouds our ability to make an impact at work, that keeps us from really enjoying our recreation or sport and show up in the lives of those that matter to us.
 
… the helplessness and sadness from our deteriorating relationships with our spouse, our children not playing by our book, the predicaments of caring for aging parents.

…the resentment and exhaustion from a chronic, tough to crack illness.
 
When I’m hearing for the common thread that runs through them all, what I really hear is the feeling of being trapped by the circumstances of our life. Of feeling like we don’t really have a choice.
 
What I find fascinating is how we embody this feeling of lack of choice. It shows up in the way we take a step - this walk of resignation, as if we are literally having to drag our own weight.
 
The stiffness in our back and hips we feel when we get up or change positions. The expression of heaviness in our voice and breathing. The lack of aliveness in our eyes. Those energy sapped mornings.
 
We have experienced that aliveness and joy in our stride at other times in our lives. It was effortless then. We just can’t find the means within ourselves to access it as easily now.
 
I will say, that there are many practices out there that work with these circumstances. And it really is a matter of fit.
 
What I love about my practice is that it’s an embodied practice. What do I mean by EMBODIED, you ask?
 
By embodiment, I mean using movement as a means of communication and profound change within our nervous system. 

When I see someone get up at the end of a session and tell me, that they still had thoughts about their life, but that they didn’t perturb them anymore, I know that they have accessed within themselves a different place. A place that isn’t reactive, but where there is pause and expansiveness and spontaneity.   
 
They can sense the lightness in their everyday movements – their walk, the life in their eyes and the freedom in their jaw and their back. And from that freedom in their whole self, they know that they can access the freedom in their lives that they’ve wanted so badly.
 
They see more colors, more choices than the black and white of their circumstances, more creativity in their possibilities.
 
And that is the most satisfying thing in the whole world! To watch this unfolding of possibilities, to see them step into their power – it’s what I live for!
 
Are you asking, how does it work? Are you asking the ‘Tell me more’ question?
 
It definitely starts in a pre-verbal place, you know that place where we haven’t yet given words to our sensations and feelings. It’s the quality of touch that allows an opening of dialogue, a pre-verbal conversation with a nervous system that feels safe to tell its story.
 
It’s the safety of being heard, of being listened to, of being accepted unconditionally, sometimes for the first time!
 
From that listening, begins an opening of vistas, not seen before. It’s as if it was all there, only the curtains have been lifted for us to see that view from the top of the mountain.  
 
And it’s not woo-woo Shrutee. It starts to makes sense in our analytical brains. There is something very empowering about being able to make sense of our own healing in our logical, thinking minds.
 
Something you don’t have to place blind faith in. That you can question and expect a response that will meet your heart and your mind. It gives us the control, the confidence that we can access this ourselves. And that is empowering!
 
It is the difference between getting fixed and stepping into TRANSFORMATION! Something that begins to seep into all aspects of your life – your job, your parenting, your relationships, EVERYTHING!
 
How do I know if this is for me?
 
My work is definitely not for everyone.
 
If you’ve always known deep inside that there’s more INTELLIGENCE to healing than a diagnosis or a pill or blind trust in something beyond your grasp;
 
If you’re hungry for CHANGE and you want it NOW;
If you’re ready to step into the PRACTICE of becoming more of yourself;
 
YOU are READY for the practice of TRANSFORMATION! Lets chat more!
 

Write me at shrutee.sharma@gmail.com to set up a 20 minute phone conversation. 


Looking for social proof? 

Here are a few examples of what my clients have gotten from our work in their own words:

‘I feel like I am gliding.’
‘I feel light and more able to handle my life.’
‘I am calming down. I deal with stuff much better.’
‘My past hasn’t changed but the way I deal with it has.’
‘I feel like I have let go off so much that I have made way for something new and profound and light to come into my life.’ 
‘I sleep really well.’ 
'It's been a huge mental awakening and shows up in everything I do!'

Ready to take action
?
 Write me at shrutee.sharma@gmail.com. There is nothing more satisfying than knowing you took a step in the direction of what you want! 

P.S. Wondering what differentiation is and how it relates to stress management or stress riddance?! Ask me on our call. ;) Talk to you soon! 

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What I found out years later...

8/30/2019

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Much of the first year of my life, we lived in mud houses called ‘Bashas’. My dad was starting out his career in the army as a Captain.
 
My mom and I went to live with him at the field camp in the Himalayan foothills of Srinagar. The houses, as you can imagine, were pretty bare bones with a rough, handmade clay floor and a thatched roof.
 
So guess what that meant for me? Friction was defining my life!
 
The friction and the bruising of my knees against the floor meant that I didn’t crawl for the longest time. My mom was starting to get concerned if I was ever going to walk.
 
For my first birthday, my parents took me to visit our family in the hometown of Ajmer. In a matter of a few days, I crawled (briefly) and started walking!! Wohooo, right?!!!  NO!
 
Clearly, I had learned to roll over, get on my knees and was ready to move about for a while. But because of the constraint of the floor, I didn’t have as much freedom to practice, to continually refine and innovate in mobilizing myself to go places.  
 
It was only after my Feldenkrais training that I could relate my pain in adulthood, to the movement patterns I had developed in the first year of my life. 
 
It was as if my training had handed me a magnifying glass to zoom into those places, where I clearly had some glitches and work on resolving them. In the last few years, I have done the same for my clients.
 
I have been able to shine the light on patterns that are hidden and get in the way.  Together we use our discoveries to create more freedom in the body. When you feel that freedom in your body, there isn’t a doubt that you will feel more freedom in your life!
 
No matter how many times I’ve done it, I continue to be enchanted by the power of specificity – of getting to know oneself so specifically that it becomes the vehicle of creating the kind of change we want.
 
As babies, we depend on our environment for our survival. And sometimes the environment has constraints like I did. Sometimes, we’ve had to do things at the pace our parents wanted for us.  
 
Maybe you didn’t have a rough, clay floor. But is it possible, that you did tummy time before your spine was ready to support your head? 
 
Is it possible that your parents held your hands to practice standing and walking before your pelvis and back was ready to bear your body weight? 
 
Or maybe you found yourself in a walker or a bouncy?
 
What pain are you dealing with now, that you wish you didn’t have? What is that nagging discomfort that keeps coming back in spite of all the stretching, exercising and chiropractic adjustments you’ve been through.  
 
I know what you’re wondering! Here I am, connecting your pain with something that happened a long time ago! Right?! The truth is that you continue to deploy, quite reliably, what you learned wayyyy back then.
 
Why? Because that’s how you learned to walk. It worked and so you repeated it, reinforced it till you knew it in your bones. It was good enough, until it wasn't!
 
It is also possible that life happened and you forgot that smooth and efficient way of moving. You compensated and maybe adapted to your injuries and life circumstances. Those compensations worked well until they didn’t.
 
Bottom-line is - the first movements we make as a baby are some of the most powerful and most impactful things we do in our life!
 
You can’t be a baby again but you can leverage the power of those first movements to solve the riddle of your current situation, like you never have! You can bring back your curiosity and full attention to relearn those profound and complex movements of rolling, reaching, crawling, squatting, standing, walking.

And if you gave yourself the gift of doing just that, your body and you will never be the same again! To have that experience as an adult is TRANSFORMATIONAL!
 
Because really, these are the same functions you do today, you just do them in more adult activities like loading the dishwasher, gardening, bicycling, reaching for the coffee mug, running. And honestly, as adults, we’ve learned to do it the hard way.
 
Are you ready to find smooth and easy over difficult and full of strain?

Come, join me for my weekly fall series on First Movements for Lifelong Development. We will meet for 8 classes, Starting Thursday, Sept 12, 10:30am – noon. 
 
Are you ready to take it on? What will get in the way? How will you move past it because you know, someplace deeper, that you have wanted this all along? You always knew there was more intelligence to healing than repetition and dependence. Would you rather pursue that this fall? :)
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When I stopped waiting & hoping...

4/12/2019

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Aayansh was born with an inbuilt 5am alarm. I could never beat him to waking up in the morning. And so, I gave up my 1 hour of morning meditation and movement practice for 4 years.
 
I felt increasingly frustrated about not having the time I needed to feel good in my body and soul. I waited and hoped that he would learn to sleep in a bit longer. He didn’t. And so my practice didn’t happen.
 
Until one day I decided that I’d waited long enough and was going to wait no more. As I tried to sneak out of bed, sure enough, Aayansh called out. I lit up my meditation candle in the middle of our deep red living room carpet and we sat in front of it together.
 
His mission was to blow the candle. I told him that he was going to have to wait for 15 minutes until ‘mumma is done praying’.  That week his patience lasted 5 minutes but we kept going. 
 
In 2 weeks, Aayansh had learned to wait for the entire 15 minutes to blow the candle.
 
It’s been 5 months and my meditation time has extended to 45 minutes. On days I am lazy getting out of bed, he wakes me up whispering ‘mumma, get up, its prayer time!’
 
On some days, he joins me in my practice. On other days, he has learned to enjoy the quiet time with me or busy himself with some quiet play. It has become our cherished time together. 

I am so grateful I didn't wait for another 4 years to prioritize making time for myself! I am able to be more productive, less scattered. Those aches and pains, I used to feel from being out of touch with my body don't bother me as much.  I can feeI more connection and conviction about my actions.

I couldn't have gotten this far, had I waited for something to change by itself. Had I not taken ownership of what I really wanted. 

 
What are you waiting for? Are you waiting for some perfect time that you know is an elusive mirage? Or are you waiting to hit rock bottom – that state when you can’t not take action because the consequences are staring you in the face?
 
Are you ready to give yourself 15 minutes of IMPACT? 15 minutes of power time, that feeds your body & soul and sets the tone for the rest of your day.
 
We’re beginning next week. Sign Up Now to :
  • quit waiting and begin to make IMPACT with small chunks of consistent time for yourself
  • stop enduring your difficulty and build momentum to move beyond it
  • start believing in a higher possibility for yourself  

​Sound good to you
?  Sign Up here for $50 now and you can have ‘15 minutes of IMPACT’ for 3 months. This is TONs of value for this price! And I promise, it will only go up from here. 

'15 minutes of IMPACT' was born out of my 5 day Sit Comfortably Program.

Here is how participants have expressed the power of 15 minutes of that time:

"After I started Sit Comfortably Challenge, I noticed I am more open to listening to myself. Idiscovered discomfort is not dreaded place to endure but with timely attention and slight adjustment, I can accomplish things I want to do. I have learnt I can take my mind and body with me rather than being impulsive about completion, which adds or causes distress."                        - Harsha Ranjini

"For me, this challenge drew my focus away from "the thing I was trying to get done" and towards "the way I was trying to do it"... and in being interested, and willing, I was able to find far more comfortable and effective ways to get things done! It turned out that being more comfortable while I was busy meant that I was able to complete my task much more easily, and I felt better doing it.

Small changes made huge differences. It just takes a few minutes here and there in your day, and the reward is instant. You spend five minutes being gentle with yourself, and like magic, you feel better for the rest of the day! Who doesn't want that?"                                                         - Debbie


Here is what you get in "15 MINUTES OF IMPACT"!
  • a 15 minute video twice a week. We discuss a concept and then apply it in movement and your day to day
  • we do this for 3 months starting April 15
  • you get to keep the 24 recordings of mini explorations. Circle through them, listen while driving, walking, whatever you want!​

This is it
! Click the button below to Join Us on the inside. 

Yes, I want 15 minutes of IMPACT!
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How do you prepare for fun?

4/5/2019

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Has spring visited your neighborhood yet?!

Up here in Seattle, you know that spring is here when the cherry blossoms bloom. And if you dare take a walk in the woods this early, the brilliant white and yellow trilliums and crocuses will whisper to you, that summer is on its way. 

Here we can't help but get delighted with these bright dashes of color and the sprinkling of sunlight we've been getting. After all, we've had a long hibernation and a generous dose of snow this winter!

What I love most about spring is the opportunity for transition, to begin to prepare for the explosive activity of summer. I don't know about where you live, but Summer in Seattle is so fleeting, you've got to make the most of it before its gone. And so PREPARATION is key!

How are you preparing yourself for summer weekends? And I don't mean getting the dust off your camping gear or your tennis racket. Or perhaps showing up for your gym membership or taking some walks. 

I mean preparing yourself so that when you do go for that run or the camping trip or smash that racket - your calves, your back, your arms don't remind you of the loooo...ng neglect of yourself. :)

I mean, at the end of your work day, to have the energy to keep up with your children and the sun's high arc in the sky. I vividly remember those summer evenings, when my children tell me, with bright and sprightly eyes at 9pm that 'There is no nighty night mumma!' :O. Those black out curtains and summer camps only went so far. ;)

I mean, to have the springiness in your joints that allows you to have that bounce and feeling of lightness in your step. Contrast that with the feeling of being so locked up, that every step feels heavy like pounding. The adrenaline from a workout or stretch class only lasts so much.

I mean to have the motivation that comes from the expansiveness and lightness inside you. Not from motivational podcasts or speeches. And that nagging from your better half about bringing up the rear end on the hike or missing out on family time because you weren't up to the adventure never worked either. 

If you've had enough of the 'hoping for better' or the 'fake it till you make it', if you're really ready to make it a rockstar summer, I have something for you.

Block it off on your calendar - Sunday, May 5, 10am -3pm. I am teaching a workshop about 'How to Rock Your Spring-Summer Weekend'. You will learn 3 strategies to regain the energy, motivation and flexibility in your joints to show up for you weekend adventure like you've never before!

The best part is this. I am teaching this workshop with a very special, AMAZING Guest Teacher! More on him in next week's newsletter. ;)


Tickets will go for sale next weekend, Friday, April 12th.

For now, I will leave you with this thought. Imagine your perfect summer weekend? Dream it up. Paint it with all the details of color, activities, people and feeling.  :))

Until next week, Adios!
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Breaking the Rigmarole of Routine!

3/13/2019

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You know how things can happen suddenly in life? Things that rock our boat? They throw us out of balance. We don’t like most of them. They are undesirable, unpleasant disruptions. Some are big disruptions and some are small. Some are small but seem big.
 
Does all change have to be unpleasant or disruptive
? Or is it that we get so accustomed to coasting that even the slightest change is intolerable?
 
What if we initiated change instead of it happening to us? What would that do to cultivate flexible minds that can adapt and respond quickly to change?
 
I’ve been playing with this idea in areas that seem easy and not hugely disruptive to see what that does – this switching the rigmarole of everyday routine.
 
My children and I have been taking a different route back home from school. Today, I showed up at 7am for a networking meeting.
 
Aayansh and Radhika are discovering that there’s more than one way to get home! I wonder if this will expand their mind! Will they subtly get the idea that there could be many ways to get where he wants to? Or perhaps to solve a problem? Or perhaps less rigid and more responsive to whichever situation they find themselves in?
 
We have been able to be less robotic and more aware of what’s around us. We are having conversations about what turn we could take that would bring us closer to home without mapping it all out in advance. We are more relaxed and having more fun! 
 
We are finding and enjoying parks along the way that we haven’t visited in a while. All of a sudden, the library falls in our path and we stopped to pick up some books we hadn’t before because it wasn’t on our habitual route.
 
At the networking meeting, I met some very fun, new people. It helped me step out of routine but it also helped me open my mind to the possibility that this could be fun.
 
So, what would be the smallest way that you could break the routine? Would you be open to making one small change and finding out what that does? Or do you pre-meditate the outcome of trying something new in your mind?

I’d love to hear what you tried?! How did you respond to what came? 

 
On a similar, but slightly different note, have you tried an online program about How to Sit Comfortably that is not about ergonomic recommendations or pulling your shoulders back? ;)
 
The FREE, online program about How to Sit Comfortably begins next week, March 18. I’d love to see you there! If you haven't signed up yet, you can do it here: http://eepurl.com/gigOfL
 
Please feel free to spread the word among your colleagues and friends. They will be in for a completely new perspective on improving posture or physical discomfort! 

HERE'S HOW THIS IS GOING TO BE DIFFERENT!
 
STEP 1: Understanding your unique sitting posture.
This is a very important first step. We can only change what we know!
 
STEP 2: Discover the specific whole body implications of your particular sitting.
What does your sitting mean for your back, your neck, your shoulders?
 
STEP 3: Explore a sustainable basis for supporting your torso in sitting.
No pulling shoulders back or pushing chest out!
 
STEP 4: Playing to Expand Comfort Zone
Playing with strategies for subtle pattern interruptions.
 
STEP 5: Practical Cues to keep coming back to Comfortable Sitting!

Sign up here and get ready to detox from the habits that make you rigid! 
http://eepurl.com/gigOfL
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Is Sitting the New Smoking?!

3/7/2019

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Here is what the Mayo Clinic has to say about that.

“Research has linked sitting for long periods of time with a number of health concerns. An analysis of 13 studies of sitting time and activity levels found that those who sit for more than eight hours a day with no physical activity had a risk of dying similar to the risks of dying posed by obesity and smoking.”
 
James Levine, a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic, in an interview with the LA Times said, "Sitting is more dangerous than smoking, kills more people than HIV, and is more treacherous than parachuting. We are sitting ourselves to death." 



SO WHAT'S THE ALTERNATIVE?

Mayo Clinic lists some. I thought to include them with my comments. 
  • Take a break from sitting every 30 minutes.
Good Idea...changes the habitual muscular engagement, and gives your eyes a break among other things! 
  • Try a standing desk.    
Can be tiring for some. Especially if you’re having back, neck or shoulder pain sitting, it’s likely not going to go away just by standing. So there’s only so much we can stand our problems away! Besides, many standing desks are sit-stand desks so you do end up sitting some of the time. 

  • Walk with your colleagues for meetings rather than sitting in a conference room.
Changing activity and stepping outside can be very refreshing, no doubt. Can you fully avoid conference rooms though? Plus what if the weather is cold or we just don’t want to step out? 

  • Position your work surface above a treadmill — with a computer screen and keyboard on a stand or a specialized treadmill-ready vertical desk — so that you can be in motion throughout the day.  
Multi-tasking/Juggling work with work-out! Isn’t multi-tasking another one of those modern day diseases?  

Have we missed one of the MORE OBVIOUS SOLUTIONS?

Very often when something like sitting is recognized as perilous, we look for alternatives to that thing. Obviously avoiding sitting completely is neither possible nor pleasant.

In many cases, like back ache avoiding sitting doesn't solve the problem. Besides, wouldn't it be nice to have the freedom to work sitting, standing or however we want to, not by compulsion but by choice?

And what if we just want to knit or crochet or watch a movie or read a book or enjoy a cocktail with freinds?  

HOW ABOUT WE IMPROVE THE WAY YOU SIT WHEN YOU DO SIT?!
  • So you don’t hurt your back and neck?
  • So you can be comfortable while you get work done?
  • So you have more energy for the most important people in your life?!
  • So you have energy to be outside, when you’re NOT sitting?!!
 
Sound like a good idea ?! 
JOIN me for the FREE 'SIT COMFORTABLY' Program starting March 18! Click the link here: http://eepurl.com/gigOfL
Feel free to FORWARD this email to your colleagues and friends. 

HERE'S HOW WE ARE GOING TO DO IT

 
STEP 1: Understanding your unique sitting posture.
This is a very important first step. We can only change what we know!
 
STEP 2: Discover the specific whole body implications of your particular sitting.
What does your sitting mean for your back, your neck, your shoulders?
 
STEP 3: Explore a sustainable basis for supporting your torso in sitting.
No pulling shoulders back or pushing chest out!
 
STEP 4: Playing to Expand Comfort Zone
Playing with strategies for subtle pattern interruptions.
 
STEP 5: Practical Cues to keep coming back to Comfortable Sitting!

SIGN UP here: http://eepurl.com/gigOfL

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HIDDEN in Plain Sight!

3/3/2019

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When we talk about learning, we usually think of learning something new, something we don’t know how to do. For example, learning how to ski or learning how to swing dance or even how to cook dinner in another cuisine.
 
We don’t really think of learning something we already know how to do! For example, you already know how to get up from the floor or from a chair or from the bed in the morning.
 
These simple movements are so embedded in our daily life, that they are hidden in plain sight. We do them spontaneously or subconsciously every single day, some of them, many times a day. We’ve build a lot of mileage on these simple everyday movements.
 
But what if your back hurts so much, you can’t go for that hike or that dance class you so hate to miss? Or you can’t get work done without much anguish because you can’t find a way of sitting on the chair that feels comfortable? Or perhaps you’ve given up sitting on the floor because getting up isn’t as easy anymore? 
 
Wouldn’t you take a second look at what you are doing in these simple movements that is giving you that pain so now you can’t enjoy the stuff you like to do?
 
Do you? Do you look for the solutions to your body aches in your daily movements? After all, just because you do them all the time, doesn’t mean that you do them well.
 
And when we don’t do them well, we have a very reliable and not so pleasant indicator in the achiness and pain we are having.

As much as pain is very good at getting our attention, what we really want is a higher standard for the quality of our movement.
 
Wouldn’t it be nice to have some objective criteria or cues that give us a sense that we are moving well?
 
One of the criteria we use in a Feldenkrais class is EFFICIENCY. Are we organizing the movement to allow the ground reaction force to come up and through us or are we shearing across our joints creating wear and tear? This shows up in the feeling of lifting away from the floor versus falling into the floor.
 
Another one is REVERSIBILITY. Can we pause and change the direction of movement at any moment? Or are we relying on momentum to carry us through so that any pausing or changing direction would be physically jerky and emotionally perturbing?
 
ADAPTATION is another big one. It is about finding another way to do the same thing!
 
How would you like it, if you could do the same act, for example, the act of getting up and down from the floor in more than one way?
 
What if you had a knee injury skiing (like I did recently. You can read that post here: A Tale of Two knees?). And the one way you know how to get up was painful. Would it be meaningful to know of another way? 
 
Having many options to do the same simple thing was hugely liberating when I was recuperating from my injury. Watch me in this video adapting and finding another way to get up from the floor.

We will be investigating these themes of adaptation and quality in movement in my upcoming 8 week series on RESILIENCE. This class is SOLD OUT! 
 
So
, I have 2 resources for you:

1. From March 18 - 22, I am offering a FREE Program on how to SIT COMFORTABLY. If you'd like a fun and easy way to improve your sitting in ways that are beyond using a back rest or pulling your shoulders back, you can Sign UP for the Program by clicking here. 


2. The next time you get out of bed in the morning, would you consider paying attention to the quality of it? The REVERSIBILITY of the movement or perhaps just HOW you do it?

For example, is your head the first or last to leave the bed? Is it a dead weight that your neck has to pull behind itself? Can you find a leverage for your head?
 
Do you always get up the same way every morning? Can you FIND ANOTHER WAY?!

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Of Coconuts & Dreams

2/25/2019

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This blogpost comes to you from Antigua!

Aayansh loves coconuts. He always has. Since we landed in Antigua, he's been wanting to pick his own coconut from a tree. His physicality of 3.5 feet doesn't limit him in his mind. 
 
The intensity of his belief made me consider my response. Instead of grounding him to practical reality like we often do as parents, I decided to play along with his curiosity. I asked him questions about how he might get to have his dream.
 
I was amazed at his imagination and the emergence of possible solutions. 
 
Solution 1: He thought he just needed some throwing practice. So he practiced aiming empty coconut shells at smaller trees, before aiming for the tall one. After about 15 minutes of serious practice, he figured throwing wasn't going to work.
 
Solution 2: Learning how to climb. While he was working through his dream, we settled for quenching our thirst at a local shack.
 
He asked the guy, ‘Junior’, if he had picked the coconuts, from a tree! He found out that his dad Como picks them in the mornings. He asked if Como would show him how to climb.  
 
Como got called out of his cot. He made a date with Aayansh late afternoon of the following day. You can count on it that we showed up at the designated spot and time. J We watched in amazement as Como climbed up a 70-foot tree and got us a coconut each.  
 
Solution 3: Looking out for a short tree he could reach. So now, he started looking out for short coconut trees on our drives. He had to learn to find short trees that weren't in someone's yard and had coconuts that looked ripe. 

It became our favorite activity and we all were scouting for a tree that fit the bill. We found one outside Mt. Obama peak. He climbed up on my shoulders and tugged and twisted but couldn't get it. :O Perhaps it wasn’t ripe enough or we needed a special tool?
 
In the not living of this dream (yet), he (and we all) had some rich experiences and made some native friends. Aayansh shares a special connection with Junior and Como at the shack.
 
By not limiting Aayansh, we hope to have nurtured his belief that he can do what he wants. That he doesn’t have to limit himself by the reality of the moment. We hope that he got to explore his dream and learn more about it than he could have had I clipped his wings with my adult mindset.  
 
Our children’s dreams are often larger than their physical abilities and realities. In contrast to children, most of us adults limit ourselves in our mind, don’t we? We limit ourselves in the mind even more than our physical abilities allow it.
 
Where does it come from? This limitation mindset? Our Parents? Teachers? Culture? 
 
I’ve definitely had my moments of nurturing the limitation mindset as a protective parent. Are we being too protective? What is the trade-off for being practical? Are we clipping our children’s wings a bit too early?
 
What are ways that we clip our own wings every single day? Can we give ourselves the benefit of exploring our dreams in our minds so that perhaps we might explore the journey of having them in reality? And not be defeated before even starting?
 
What questions does this raise about the kind of children we want for the future? What will serve them long after we’re gone? Will they benefit from asking questions that haven’t been asked, pursuing dreams that haven’t been dreamed up yet?
 
These are definitely questions that I don’t pretend to know the answers to. I definitely find them worth introspecting and I hope you do too. 

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The Sweetest Valentine!

2/21/2019

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The Giving In Receiving!

School opened after ten days of snow closures. When I made it to school, I met a friend that lives a mile away from our home. They hadn't had electricity for 3 days!!! 

Their house was a freezing. They had been huddling by the fire to keep warm. On the second night, they had found a hotel for a night. I was surprised and couldn't comprehend why they hadn't reached out. 

They came over to our house later that day. Our children are the same age and they had the best time playing around, giggling, snuggling up together for bedtime. Our friends and us finally found the space to connect with each other and had some heartwarming conversations.

We all shared a Valentine's treat with heart chocolates and marzipan, my friend had brought for everybody! It was the most unconventional and sweetest Valentine celebration we had as two families!

I reflected back on why they hadn't reached out earlier. Was it the assumption of giving trouble to others? Was it that I hadn't occurred to her? Or the idea of help hadn't occurred to her? Or perhaps help is something we all reserve as the last resort for the worst survival kind of circumstances?

I reflected back on times when I've been so wrapped up in my troubles, it didn't even occur to ask for help. The atomistic lifestyle of 'being on my own' has showed up as a habit for me for sure. 

Is there an under the surface stigma associated with seeking help for you? Is there a connection between seeking help and opening oneself to being judged and not understood?

Does that make us a 'less than' and perhaps deprive us of the reward of not 'making it on our own'?  Has getting help become too much of a last resort for us?


Whatever it was, the reality of our mutual experience was far from that. As we opened our home to them, they gave us the opportunity to slow down, sit, talk, connect.

I used the opportunity to be a little imperfect. I welcomed them to my not perfectly clean house, a meal cooked with warmth and not perfection and a not so perfect guest bedroom, which my friend has named the 'Black Hole Suite' as an invitation to retrieve deep into a space so far away, it provided her the gift of sound sleep. 

My teacher Jeff Haller, says that a good Feldenkrias lesson is one in which the practitioner receives as s/he is giving to the client. He goes on to say that the hallmark of a good lesson is that both practitioner and client arrive at a place they have never been before.

They arrive there because they took the leap into the not knowing. The practitioner lets go off the idea of delivering perfectly known processes and outcomes. The practitioner embraces unpredictability and the lesson evolves from a mutual listening and quite conversation and trust between two nervous systems.

They both are intelligent givers and receivers. None is superior or better or the teacher. They both are students in this journey of giving and receiving at the same time. 

Would you be open to giving another, the opportunity to support you and receive at the same time? 

Do you have some beliefs about seeking help? What are they? Are they entrenched in past history that makes it hard to let go? What happens in your mind, as you even consider the suggestion of seeking support a bit earlier than you might have? Or perhaps, in areas that you might not have looked for support?

Warmly,
Shrutee

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Being the 'fairest one of all!' Why was that SO important?!

2/17/2019

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How's this 'snowed in' situation going for you? That is, if you're in Seattle! 

Thanks to school closures, we had to press pause on some things. What I didn't realize is that pressing pause on some 'important things' would open a whole new door of reflection on what's really important?

We've had a whole immersion of family time! My son and I were up early one morning. As I sat by the window gazing at the winter wonderland outside, my son brought me the SnowWhite book to read to him. 

So we were reading 'Snow-white' and I wondered to myself, "Whats up with this Queen? Why is she so obsessed with being the 'fairest of all'? She literally depends on it for her survival! In our version of the book, she dies at the end because she couldn't bear not being the fairest.

It got me thinking. What is it that I am so attached to that it defines my existence? What is it that is critical for my survival, mostly in my head? What are my deeply ingrained belief systems that are running my daily behaviors? 

I remembered my days in the college hostel. I was so attached to the idea of showering before heading out that on days I got up late and had just 5 minutes to get my breakfast before the cafeteria closed, I would go hungry because it would take me longer than 5 minutes to shower and make it in time.

Now you could dismiss this as a silly idiosyncrasy or perhaps a good habit taken too far.  As I continued to ponder about why this was so important to me, I remembered how being prim and proper was a big part of my growing up.

As much as I am grateful for the good habits and values I have inherited, somewhere along in my life, the good habit turned into a belief system about some kind of perfection that began to deplete my sense of caring for myself.

Because I had to be a certain way for the world, I would go all the way to host the perfect dinner or birthday party for my child that it didn't matter if my own back hurt like hell at the end of it. This was also the same belief that led me to vacuum the house two weeks after I gave birth to my daughter. 

You can see that I took to this behavior like a fish to water. After all, my mom, known to be the best hostess and someone I looked up to as a strong woman had demonstrated it scores of times. The bar was so high, I wasn't going to beat my sweet mom even in my dreams, but I was going to give it all I got.

Thats was the right thing to do! And the funny thing is I was doing it without even being aware that that was driving my daily behaviors. 

And here's the real kicker when it comes to relationships. When it was beyond my own capacity to live up to this perfection, I would recruit my husband, Anshul to fulfill my promise of perfection to the world. And that raises another question, Do I love Anshul more than the world? What is the world even comprised of? 

But of course, I love him more than anyone else. So then there another opportunity here isn't it?
The opportunity to examine my thoughts and beliefs. To have my thought and behavior be consistent with the beliefs that matter most to me.

So, what's REALLY IMPORTANT to you? Is that driving your everyday behavior? Or are you being run by some deep, deep, subconscious belief way back from your history? Your childhood, your teenage years?

Was it something that someone said to you, and you have taken it upon yourself to live up to or to defy beyond limits? Is this consistent with whats really important to you or are you running cross-motivations?


In Feldenkrais lessons, we study cross-motivations in the context of movement. A simple example would be that I want to lift my hand and bring it to the computer but I am doing everything else in my body to make my hand heavier and sink instead of lifting. One obvious of this  consequence could be that my shoulder or arm hurts.

When we take the time to examine these cross-motivations in the context of a movement lesson, we come to know ourselves deeply. We know how our movement habits are tied to our deeply held beliefs. We can see what was hidden in plain sight. As an example, we can see how our habit of extending in our spine is related to how we had to confront our life circumstances so that we would be ok. 

We can examine these habits and underlying beliefs and if they are causing us much pain, we can let go off them in safety. We can be unhinged and available to respond.  

We can move in any direction without hesitation! That is Moshe Feldenkrais's definition of biological fitness.

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