Little joys

I went to my Feldenkrais lesson this afternoon, she said that she could see that my movements and my body positions are much better. I noticed over the weekend that I seemed to handle all the walking in Vermont much better, too. I still have pain that won't leave me because of my injury, but when I am working with my practitioner, I feel connected to my body and so flexible.

It has been worth the weekly classes and the few exercises that I need to do during the week.

I got myself outside in the yard after supper and raked and even mowed the lawn some. I realized that I spent the winter as a couch potato and just didn't have the motivation to get up and moving because I was letting the pain get the best of me and bring me down. It felt good to overcome the urge to sit in front of the TV tonight and fall asleep.

As I was outside raking, I just kept thinking about all the things I was grateful for -the yard to rake, a summer like evening, the flowers, being able to walk, the smell of the newly mowed grass, all those little joys helped me not to focus on the pain and to enjoy the now.

Step by step

Today was a great day. I was able to walk with out pain for some of the morning and not limp. Talk about little joys! I had a Feldenkrais class last night and she did some work on my leg, loosening it up. By the end of our session it had loosened up some, but it was still very painful. Come this morning I could tell the difference. She said it would take time, but I will take any amount of progress no matter how small!

Feldenkrais is amazing because the movement is so gentle and ever so slight. You do only what you can do without pain. You visualize your whole body working together while you are moving and you can feel where you are over working your body. It is important to become aware so that you can break the bad habits and learn not to work certain parts so hard.

I have never been very connected to my body, so this is a hard thing for me, and I didn't think I would stick with it. So far, I am liking it and learning so much.

Over the hump day

I went to dinner last night with my two friends that I have known for over thirty years. I love being with them because we laugh so much. We always have a good time because we are all so comfortable with one another. It is like having two extra sisters.

We usually try to meet for dinner once a month and we have jokingly dubbed these dinners, board meetings. Seemed to be that one of us would naturally end up in the hot seat during dinner, sharing either a work or personal situation which would inadvertently become the recipient of the opinions and advice of the other two. But all in all it is good to have trusted friends who you can bounce ideas off of and know that they will be straight with you when your thinking isn't too clear.

With the holidays coming up there sure was plenty to talk about as we gear up to cooking and cleaning marathons and houses filled with relatives. It all always ends up being good, but there is a certain amount of stress and dread that goes into holiday preparations. As many times as I have put on Thanksgiving, it always seems like it is the first time and I get all stressed out about how it will turn out.

I went to my Feldenkrais class again tonight. I had to do one eye exercise that was really hard to do and she said it is because I have so much tightness in my eyes. I never knew that you could hold that kind of stress in your eyes! It got a little bit easier, but that is one exercise I will need to work on. The half hour went by quickly and I liked it better than doing it a full hour.

With Monday off, the work week is going by quickly. I have an appointment out of the building at noon time tomorrow and it will be good to get out of the office for awhile.

Feldenkrais

Today was a good catch up day at work. I was able to get a handle on all my work which was piling up because I had to spend so much time on the keynote event. I am so glad that event is over and that it went off as well as it did.

I stayed an extra hour after work to finish cleaning up and organizing my office before I went to class. No sense going home and coming back in to town when my class was only up the street.

I have started taking Feldenkrais classes and today was my second one. I am hoping that the movement classes will help with my range of movement and even help me with some pain management. I know for the exercises to really benefit me, I will need to practice them at home. I plan to try to do some every day. Just after a half hour session today, I could tell that they made a difference in my range of movement. It is all about awareness of bad habits and learning not to make the body do so much work to move. The biggest thing I realized is how I tense up my body so much, and that will be the number one thing I aim to change.