Stories of Hands-On Healing
written Summer 2022
My senior year of college, I began suffering from migraine headaches that were almost constant for weeks on end. I was taking a course through the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University called “Transformational Leadership and Embodied Activism”, which integrated the Feldenkrais Method®, Zen meditation, and discussions of leadership and activism. Part of the class was one hands-on Feldenkrais® lesson with one of the teachers, Feldenkrais® practitioner Rich Goldsand. Though I’d been taking Feldenkrais® classes for over a year, it was one of my first hands-on Feldenkrais® lessons. The past few weeks I’d been experiencing almost constant underlying pain, and though I had a sense Feldenkrais® would help, I was uncomfortable lying on the floor or the table for Feldenkrais® classes or lessons. I felt frustrated and hopeless.
During my hands-on lesson, Rich slowly helped to find padding, supports, and positions that helped me to find comfort. Throughout the lesson I began to feel more ease and comfort not only in my body but throughout my whole self as he gently moved my legs, finding trajectories that felt smooth and effortless. Slowly the pain began to subside, and I began to feel comfortable in my body. Rich helped me feel that I could push my foot against the table—that the table would not give way; it would support my skeleton. After the lesson I stood up and walked around. I felt relieved, lighter, happier. Half in a daze still, I said, “I didn’t realize the ground would support me.” I had been feeling like, in addition to all the things I had to worry about, I had to hold myself up against gravity. Over the next hour I played with pushing against the ground, gradually gaining more trust in it. I began to develop a trust that no matter what else was going on in my life, at least the ground would support me. The force of gravity pulling my skeleton towards the ground will always be perfectly matched by the normal force of the ground pushing back against my skeleton holding me up.
The headaches began to subside, and after several more hands-on Feldenkrais® sessions with Rich, I decided to pursue a Feldenkrais® professional training program to become a practitioner myself. I spent four years traveling back and forth between my home (and graduate school) in Indiana and the training program in New York City. It was quite a feat, especially being 22 years old when I started the training. Over the course of the training, I learned to let go of the things that no longer serve me—the expectations and rules and norms—and to uncover the Self that was buried beneath the expectations. I learned to accept myself exactly as I am, to connect with others, to feel belonging, to sense and align with my values, to find the space and possibility to make new choices. My relationships with myself and others, my life, and my career path were transformed.
This is of course just one of the many potent experiences I’ve had with Feldenkrais® over the past 9 years (and other experiences outside of Feldenkrais!), but it is a formative one that stands out in my mind.
