Last Saturday evening at TEDxBoulder, an improv performance artist spoke to the late night crowd with this message: “If you want to change your thoughts, change your body.” He related how your body language makes you think and feel, and how you can affect positive changes by becoming aware of these postures and adapting a stance that suits the outcome that you desire.
I feel this works on the flip side, too: that if you change your thoughts, you can change your body. Ah, the beauty of Neuroplasticity - or, the ability of the human brain to change as a result of one’s experience.
With what I’ve learned via the Franklin Method, changing how you envision the functionality of your body will directly affect how you feel and will change how you are thinking about your physical beingness in that moment. “You are the result of your practice,” Eric would say.
Ask yourself how you feel today. What words do you use to describe the experience of your body in this moment? Are they fluid and buoyant and happy? Or are they riddled with exhaustion and stress and tightness? If it’s the latter, you’re bound to experience just that: tired, stressed, and tight. At the workshop I went to in June, Eric challenged us to tell ourselves that the experience of our body was blissful/exuberant/light for one day (or 3) and see what a difference we feel in our daily space.
As a percipient perceptible, with proprioceptors connecting us to the otherness beyond our physical boundary, the body is how we know the world. It also lets you know what turns it on with electric excitement for life. When we become stuck physically, we can become stuck mentally, or visa versa. An open, fully functioning body will experience a full range of movement in the body/mind/spirit. And, perhaps the most beautiful of all is that an open body is like a clear channel not holding on to the past, nor anxious about the future.
Here is a little sample exercise led by Eric Franklin on relaxing the shoulders.
[...] teacher training, I will become certified in the 3 levels of the Franklin Method, first. Promise. This practice re-imagines what ever image you feel is the operating stressor in your body-space to shift your [...]