The Movement Practice Process

My “secret” project

Well, its been a while since I posted anything on this here blog, but not for lack of writing anything new. In fact, the opposite is true. There is way too much coming out of my brain to organize succinctly into blog posts, so I’ve given up trying.

I’ve also started working on a “secret” project. Except I’m going to tell you about it in this blog post, so not really a secret.

The “secret project” entails three main things:

1. I will no longer be posting the completed ongoing work I am doing with my Movement Practice essay series. Not here anyway. It will be available for exclusively for readers who are genuinely interested, but via direct sharing, not on this blog. More on that if you email me (because its kind of a secret right now…). I’ll post partial work here on this blog when it strikes me.
2. I am designing a process to accompany the Movement Practice essay series that aims to systematically put into action its key learnings and philosophies.
3. I am looking for a few people who would like to join in the fun and give the Movement Practice Process a test drive while it is still in its infancy to help me develop and perfect it before I make it available to a broader audience.

The following blog post is the first draft of the introduction to The Movement Practice Process. After reading this, if you feel that this process would be valuable to you, see point 3 above, and shoot me an email. I’ll fill you in on all the “secret” details (before May 15th 2019 please).

Enjoy 🙂

How to design a meaningful, enjoyable, sustainable, and healthy movement practice

“Mere slogans without teaching skills and putting systems in place are a half-assed attempt at normalizing.” ~Brené Brown, from Dare to Lead

Slogans are the gospel of the congregation of Good-Intenders. The gospel of half-assery from those who preach from the side-lines.

You’ve probably heard some of the following slogans from the Good-Intenders: “just move daily”, “eat healthier”, “start exercising more”, “get your stress under control”, “you’ve got to sleep more”.

Maybe you’ve heard these from authorities like your doctor. Or from your personal trainer friend. Your know-it-all friend. Your Mom. Maybe you’ve said them yourself thinking they are great and practical pieces of advice. But how often do they result in action in your life? And how often do you get shown how?

Slogans are great, but they will remain in the illusory realm of nice ideas that slip through your fingers like grains of sand without systems in place to capture them. Holding these notions of “things will be better when…”, without having guidance on what exact steps to take, sets you up for failure and disappointment as your goals continue to elude you. This is why it is important to have processes and systems in place to help us do the work in the areas of our lives we wish to take action.

I have created a process, The Movement Practice Process, which focuses on transforming the slogans, “move daily”, “exercise more”, “get in shape”, “start lifting weights”, etc. into action, and investigating what they mean for you.

I’d like to explain what the Movement Practice Process is all about.

THE 7 AREAS OF LIFE

I first heard the concept of the 7 Areas of Life from the transformational coach and speaker Dr. John Demartini. He described these 7 areas that our decisions and behaviours fall within:

• Spiritual
• Mental
• Vocational
• Financial
• Family
• Social
• Physical

While I am probably the the last person you should consult with on most of these areas, I have dedicated an obscene amount of time to the physical (which makes me quite unbalanced, albeit in a way that I see more people could benefit from). In particular, I’ve spent years exploring movement as a vehicle for creating health, feelings of self-empowerment, and developing a meaningful connection and peace with myself.

Fascinatingly (and fortunately) because we are whole, integrated beings who cannot live as our separate parts, when we start to investigate and change the physical area of our life, the effect isn’t isolated to the body. The benefits spill over into other seemingly unrelated areas.

PROTOCOL vs. PROCESS

“Expert” as I may be (only by virtue of making nearly all possible mistakes in my realm), I am not here to tell you what to do.

I do not have a protocol of “if this then that”. A protocol focuses on an outcome. A protocol does not require much critical thinking and creativity, only that you be a good little instruction follower. In fact, in following a protocol, the less you think for yourself the better. If you think too hard, you might deviate. A process, on the other hand, encourages critical thinking, creativity, and deviations, and is much more interested in the journey.

The Movement Practice Process may not be linear for you, and you may end up somewhere completely unexpected. For the exercise-addict coming into the process seeking more control, their ultimate realization might be that they will be healthier and happier by letting go of exercise as a defining part of their identity, and doing much less.

On the opposite side of the coin, the sedentary Indoorsman (an archetype we will define in section one), overwhelmed by the options, dogmas, and polarized ideologies around movement and exercise might come into this process with the expectation that it can tell them exactly what to do. But this is far from the truth. I can only hand you the torch to light the way, but you must walk the path yourself. Be open to where it might lead.

As Joseph Campbell wrote, “If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know its not your path. Your own path you make up with every step you take”.

INNER WISDOM

This process was born from a fundamental truth that I have learned on my own path: You are the only person who can truly know what’s best for your body. Developing the skill of tapping into that wisdom is the primary objective of this process.

We all have an inner wisdom inherent to us, held within the very cells of our body. Call it cellular memory. Call it epigenetics. Call it “energy”, intuition, or God. However you choose to conceptualize your inner wisdom, this process is designed to train your ability to reconnect with it.

I came to this understanding through my own messy process, for which I had no map or guide. I learned through necessity that there was no one else on the planet that could or would ever be more invested in my physical state of affairs than I was.

I became disappointed when I went to see therapists who could not show me how to change the way I moved to improve my physical state, and when I did meet a practitioner who showed me just one exercise that I could feel was of value, I committed myself to it fully.

A chiropractor once showed me a single exercise that changed and challenged me. I made a promise to myself that would do it everyday for a year and just see what happened, with no further expectation. I had to commit out of necessity because at the time I had no money to pay for further services from him, but I knew the movement he showed me was of great utility for me and I sought to understand the mechanism behind why it made my body feel so much better. This promise changed my life.

Rather than feel victimized by my circumstance (poor, in pain, and ignorant), I made it my mission to explore the movements that worked, understand why they did, and follow the breadcrumbs wherever they led.

I adopted the mindset that it was 100% my responsibility to learn how to take care of my body. The decisions about my body were not ones I could outsource if I wanted to take control of my physical state. This mindset was a place of power, and it is my intent to show you, through this process, how to cultivate this position of power for yourself, to make appropriate choices for your body, not to give your personal power away to the plentitude of advisors and “gurus” in the confusing world of health, fitness, and exercise.

Although I have plenty of experience about what is and was right or wrong for myself, I’m not going to presume to know what’s right or best for you. I believe that the only person who can know what’s best for you, is you. You and only you have the inner wisdom to make choices about your body. No one else could possible have this same understanding about what your body needs, nor should you give over this power to anyone but yourself.

This process I’ve put together is designed to help you tap into your innate kinesthetic intelligence. You will learn to listen, and cultivate critical self-awareness around your choices, attitudes, and beliefs about your body and movement, and dare to tinker with some new ideas.

Unfortunately we live in an age where we are very disconnected from our bodies. We aren’t given the tools and opportunities to develop our inner wisdom and interpret its non-verbal language. In some cases, the idea of communing with ourselves and our inner wisdom is laughed at. Not taken seriously because it cannot yet be quantified objectively by our current technologies. It can also be very scary.

This diminishes the importance of self-awareness in the eyes of the hyper-rational, analytical, and skeptical types, and eventually results in cutting off communication with our bodies. The concepts of healthy, enjoyable, and meaningful lack a kinesthetic feeling tone we can understand as “keep doing this thing its useful!”. We need tools, opportunities, and support to reconnect ourselves with this inner wisdom again.

JOURNEY MAP

“Move daily”, and “exercise more” are the slogans easily preached from the congregation of Good-Intenders. How to do it is the terrain less traveled, and this process if your journey map.

What does moving daily and exercising more look like for you? How to bring this vision into reality? And is this process for you?

Maybe you are interested in starting an exercise routine but find there’s so much information on what’s “the best” thing to do that its daunting to start. Perhaps you’re thinking about exercising because you feel like you “should”, but if you’re being honest, you really have no desire to. Or perhaps your experience with exercise is limited to leisurely walking your dog. Maybe there have been times in your life when you really pushed hard with that running thing and managed to do a 10km race (after which you decided “my work here is done”, and stopped running. Also, your knees hurt).

If you are already someone who moves regularly (or excessively), this process will be equally valuable for you if you want to reinvent or revitalize your practice. Perhaps what you’re doing no longer interests or holds meaning for you, or you’re no longer inspired by your movement practice, and your body is giving you subtle (or not so subtle) messages that something isn’t right (boredom, chronic fatigue, pain, etc).

Or maybe you’re like I was at the beginning of my quest: Addicted to exercise, a lover of movement, but with so many ache, pains, and overlooked injuries that the challenge was finding the appropriate type, frequency, and intensity of movement that would lead to my best health, enjoyment, and actually be sustainable. I did not have a map, but I am happy to have been able to look back on my winding path and share with you the specific questions and actionable steps that I eventually went through myself, and ones I believe will help you step into your own power.

Where ever your point A happens to be, you’ve found this work because you’re looking to revitalize, reinvent, or create from scratch a movement practice that is healthy, enjoyable, sustainable, and meaningful to you.

HOW THIS PROCESS WORKS

I like to call this process a quest in 7 parts. 7 sets of rugged terrain. Moving through each one will help you get clear on a specific component of your relationship with your body and movement, and to cultivate the ability to connect with, listen to, and interpret your body’s signals. If you engage fully with the tasks in each section and put them into practice, you will be able to uncover for yourself what is “best” for you in your movement practice and design one that truly serves you.

1. Your point A: Movement Archetypes; reinvent, revitalize, or create from scratch?
2. Investigate your relationship with your body and movement
3. Get clear on your vision, intent, values, and goals
4. Appraise your current physical state
5. Find what actually interests you
6. Identify your barriers to success
7. Create your movement practice through congruent innovation

SOME HELPFUL JOURNEY TIPS

I have a few important tips and reminders for you as you prepare to embark on this quest (should you accept the challenge):

• The act of engaging in the journey itself is more important than the expectation of getting anything out of it. The secret: There is no point B. There is no concrete, unchanging movement practice for you that you can cling to forever. There is only the constant seeking to understand and iterate, trusting that you are listening to your body’s inner wisdom to the best of your ability.

• I recommend you write notes as you go through the tasks in this process. Some tasks are investigations of your current beliefs and attitudes, and some are actual physical tasks. Consider the physical act of writing the truth on a page part of your movement practice. Writing with an actual pen and paper makes it more real. Speaking it out loud takes it to the next level of realness, and so I also recommend you find a journey companion.

• Do not expect perfection and total clarity from your first try at the process. Inevitably, there will be questions that you don’t know how to answer right now. Don’t rush the process. Take the time you need. You may need to sit with something for a month before your body gives you an answer. This is not a quick fix, do in one hour process. This process is a life’s work. There is no pressure to “get it right”. Be gentle with yourself. Be patient.

• Engage in this process with the understanding that you and nature are in constant flux. What you find enjoyable today you may not in a few years.  What is healthy and cultivates balance for you right now will change, and your choices for movement will need to change. Maybe you’ll have a baby, someone you love passes away, or you start a new work schedule, and your priorities will drastically change.
  
  
• Be honest. You will be expected to answer some challenging questions. Lying to yourself will not serve you.

• Remember: There is no one you will ever know that can ever be as invested in your process than you.
  

WHAT IS A SUCCESSFUL OUTCOME?

Success with this process will look and feel different for everyone. I would like to borrow the words of Dr. Svetlana Masgutova, creator of MNRI® (Neuro-Sensori-Motor Reflex Integration) as I feel that her definition of “success” mirrors the ideals I hold as true for a genuinely useful movement practice: “Success is measured not only by points in assessments, but more importantly by deep restorative sleep, pain-free bodies, health, joy in the simple pleasures of life, confidence, resilience, and optimism”.

These qualities are difficult to objectively measure and compare, and yet can mean so much more than numerical achievement. It is through noticing changes in these measures, that often occur in small increments over time, that your body will communicate with you that you are doing something good for yourself. Please listen. Please pay attention. We live in a world that loves quantifiable evidence, but remember there are many examples of someone’s progress looking good in the numbers, but not feeling good in their lives.

Did you know that the neural pathway that is dedicated to your homeostasis, feelings of safety, social interaction, and activating the epigenetic expression of our innate healing processes, is 70% afferent? This means that it is more involved in relaying information to your brain about how you’re doing internally, than it is about telling your body what actions it should do. That’s a powerful system to be able to interpret.

Everyone’s got an answer and a solution for you. There’s no shortage on those. What we are generally lacking is the ability to ask the right questions. And ideally, these are questions that help you to make decisions for yourself. Become your own best advisor (coincidentally, the name Monika means advisor, but don’t take that too literally…)

As the famous samurai, Miyamoto Musashi wrote in his Book of Five Rings: “There is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker, or smarter. Everything is within. Everything exists. Seek nothing outside of yourself.”

Be like samurai Musashi on your own quest, and enjoy the process.