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What Does It Take To Improve?
Two minutes. James Clear, the author of “Atomic Habits“, has studied and created a method for dismantling old habits and starting new ones. It takes two minutes. Plus awareness. And an intention. Put the three together and we have a start. Moshe Feldenkrais wrote Awareness Through Movement in order for ordinary folk to have a method in which to improve. “Less is more”, “Go slowly”, and “Make it easy” are key features. To improve, there has to be a recognition that something isn’t as it could be or an idea that something is wanted that isn’t happening now. Where to begin? Ask questions. What’s wanted? For me there…
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It Only Takes A Second…
But we will give it two minutes. That is 120 times more! Wow that’s a lot. Imagine if our bank account made that big of a change? We probably wouldn’t be sitting at our computers! Maybe??? Change happens on a dime. As we are experiencing during this pandemic. There have been lots of roller coasters emotionally, financially, physically, mentally. And it is summer here in Maine. And it is lovely! Besides shark attacks and droughts and covid, we continue to move forward. And my moving forward is to start a “2 Minutes To Improve Club”. Inspired because I want to hike Mt. Katahdin, the tallest mountain in Maine …
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What Is Enough?
May 25th. George Floyd died at the hands of police. Uprisings spread nationally and internationally over racial injustice. Raw anger and rage led to violence, arson and looting. Protests filled cities across the nation. Interviews, podcasts, videos, poetry, song, dance, and visual art supported all manners of expression. Grief and reflection ensued. This is a “moment”, a moment to look inward individually and collectively. No stone will go unturned. As I wrote the above, I was well aware of thoughts, much more than feelings. The feelings were the week before: grief, disgust, dismay, frustration–all easily tapped into; on the surface, some might say. Grieving for days, feeding my…
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Cozying Up With Breath
Voice going. Energy depleting. It happened one Monday afternoon, the end of January, 2020. Thinking back, there may have been some warning signs, but nothing that was significant at the time. If it were a month later, I would have thought it was the coronavirus. I would have taken my temperature. But I didn’t take my temperature. The most important thing during that week was working to make myself comfortable. Lying down a lot. Resting on the sofa. Drinking lots of fluids. Cancelling appointments. Reading magazines that had piled up. Even thinking back to the magazines brings a smile to my face. In some ways it was a…
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Waking up to breath
Coordinating breathing and swallowing is the first act of coordination that we do as infants. Once that is learned, infants average 30 breaths/minute the first 6 months of life, meaning that infants breathe almost 8 million times by the time they are 6 months old. Pretty amazing! What does that mean for adults? Well, breathing does slow down to 12-20 breaths/minute. If we average 15 breaths/minute, we will have inhaled and exhaled 394 million times by the time we are 50 years old. That is a way larger number than 99+% of us will ever see in our bank accounts. But pretty much we spend more time thinking…
