The Layers of Somatic Education

The practice of somatic education arrives at a number of "layers" of habituation.

When used as a supportive adjunct to clinical sessions involving pandiculation, somatic education exercises serve to reinforce the changes of that session, which has entailed disappearance of patterns of habituation (or dis-intensification/relaxation of memory). In that case, the way has been cleared ahead of time for that new patterning.

When used by themselves, however, somatic education exercises must accomplish both the disappearance of old patterns and the emrgence or development of new patterns.

In that case, the first patterns to go are those that are obsolete remainders of previous adaptations -- injuries that have healed, emotionally traumatic situations that are long past, conditioning from family life or exposure to institutions with a "culture" (e.g., "corporate culture", "military culture"). All of these, because they are not actively called for and actively used in daily life, are subject to easier release. They are not being reinforcced by use, but only persist by memory's tendency to persist.

The next patterns to go are those that now surface. Those patterns are patterns we enact in daily life -- including our mood and attitude of approach to somatic "clean-up". Let me make that point more vividly:  The sense of self that is doing "clean-up" comes from a habituated and remembered entire characer that may or may not yet have been subject to exposure and conscious integration.

If not yet integrated, it is "the one" doing the clean-up, and as such, its own pattern is never subject to clean-up; it's always "behind the scenes".

So, the person tends first to lose the obsolete remainders and then to reinforce, more and more, the mood and attitude of approach (or remembered way of being in the world's situations) characteristic of the daily self. That means that there are "areas" of S-MA that are untouched and seemingly untouchable, and actually, we find, of which we are almost entirely unconscious -- but which others may recognize.

To get at that next layer of habituations, we need to take another angle of approach.

That approach is, on the basis of attention freed up by releasing obsolete remainders, to notice, to catch ourselves at it, in the patterns we live on a daily basis. Since the second layer consists of all the attitudes and moments of reaction of our daily self, to notice those patterns gives us access to the layer of "self" that is doing the clean-up.

Generally, that layer of self consists of emotional tendencies, attitudes, and self-talk by which we activate ourself in life -- rather than merely reflexive after-patterns from injury or long-term stress, which are primitive kinds of reactivity -- typically called, S-MA. For that second layer of self, another term is appropriate: A-IA:  attentional-intentional amnesia.

As such, these patterns must be addressed on their own terms and in their own "language" -- the language of feeling, the language of "I" and of "I's" meaningful terms.

It involves not merely a psychological process of analysis, which is but a start; it involves distinguishing those patterns in terms of the four basic facets of somatic existence: attention, imagination, intention, and memory -- or attending, imagining, intending, and remembering.

There exist specific procedures that use all four of those four facets at once to develop or recover conscious integration of those daily patterns. I present those in detail, elsewhere, in usable form. Ask.

What happens in integration is that the grip of a "daily pattern" that "has" us suddenly loosens and softens, and as that happens, somatic changes occur that might be interpreted as neuro-muscular or sensory-motor, but which are actualy attentional and intentional; we feel our old postural set and we feel how we could be to feel more "ourselves." Our memory set changes, and with that change, our personal quality in the world also changes. We experience the world differently and the world experiences us differently. The old "daily pattern" no longer "has" us, no longer automatically springs into action when circumstances might before have triggered it. A freer response allows for a more spontaneously and more finely tuned, even more ingenious, response.

In the process of dissolving the second layer, we touch repeatedly into what is "beneath" or what pervades that second layer (and also, the first, residual layer); that "what is beneath or pervades" is a kind of formless, impartially present, conscious space. It is not seen, in itself, to be of any particular quality -- other than a kind of radiant presence -- and it's "felt" radiant, not seen radiant. It could be termed, "self-existing", since it has no particular quality and there is nothing in evidence to be creating it as an effect of something else. It is continuous with and gives rise to all things particular. It is their substance. They are a play upon or play of it. It is our experience of "now".

Memory stores the impressions of its shape-shifting and so gives it the sense of duration in time. Attention gets absorbed in it. Imagination anticipates its developments, guided by memory, more or less. And intention reacts to all of that and proels our movement.

Such is the second layer: the deeper layer that persists after somatic education exercises have done what they can in the hands of the "daily self"; and touchings into the intuition of the free, undefined (infinite) condition.

So, the second layer of de-habituation consists of a differently shaped, differently organized, differently responsive self-pattern. But it's still a habituated self-pattern, a pattern of A-IA, attentional-intentional amnesia. Coming out of it reveals something unexpected.

A third development.

That third development consists of integration of the second layer, "daily self"; what we integrate of ourselves ceases to be an "it" to us; it ceases to have any weight, to us, any mass, or so little as to be negligible. Those patterns, before, unconscious and running the show, have been made conscious, lost their automaticity, lost their sense of grip and become more freely available for spontaneous, more subtly fitting responsiveness without a sense of "hard self".  They have been both streamlined and freed from internal conflict, so they are "tuned to the harmonic of the formless ground of being" and simultaneously express their responsiveness to conditions and communicate the formless ground from which they emerge and of which they are actually made.

One term for this is "Wei Wu Wei" or spontaneous right action. Another term is "The Fair State" -- although that kind of fairness is not an opinion; it's an experience of action experienced as "no action" -- and if it's a state, it's a state of flow. It's the foot dipping into the pond without a ripple, unless the dipper wants to make a ripple. The conceptual mind cannot grasp that kind of functioning, but that kind of functioning is recognizable in the instant of its happening, by feel. It draws observers into its own state (or drives them off as an insult to their habituation).

Thus, somatic education first dissolves the residues of obsolete memory, then dissolves the current "do-er" of all things, then itself dissolves to reveal the paradox of embodiment: that our lives emerge from and exist in the continuity of all existence, that before, our habituation and all our efforts did obscure.

Impermanence and Eternality | beyond mind, inherent in us Lawrence Gold

This entry may feel like you cannot grasp it. It’s true.

It compels you to release mind into No-Form (because you can’t mentally grasp it). “No Form” is not a concept of the mind. It’s the feeling of, “Beginner’s Mind” — what I have called, The Zone of Incomprehensibility — a phenomenon of the learning process. Get comfortable with it.

First thing:
Impermanence and eternality are conceptualized concepts.

Second thing:
"Impermanence" has in it the word, "permanence". Therefore, "impermanence" appears to be a "something" that has the meaning, "permanent impermanence" -- for, although nobody I know of has ever said it, "impermanence" is understood to be a "permanent" condition.

By its very nature, "impermanence" has about it an air of being "something". And it is: it is a conceptualized concept, a marker, a placeholder for a certain feeling of or sense of things. "Impermanence", representing transcience or temporary-ness or temporality (movement), is taken for a permanent attribute of all existence -- an unchanging SOMETHING! And, again, it is: it is a concept.

Transcience or impermanence or temporary-ness, or temporality imply movement or motion or transmutation (change); they do not imply anything in themselves, but only give rise to a mindset of becoming somehow vague. A synergistic counterpart is needed.

And that synergistic counterpart is Eternality.

We may gaze into Eternality in two ways:

1. by conceptualizing a kind of indefinite foreverness in which the mind gives up at the furthest reach of imagination
2. by observing the present moment and noticing the continuity of consciousness, regardless.

The one is the immanence of something becoming tangible, but limited by the reach of imagination.

The other is transcendental and looks to no form for evidence of its existence.

The closest we can come to, "transcendental", conceptually, is that it "IS",
"IS" being a conceptualized concept -- right next door to AIN'T.

So that ain't it, either.

Immanence must be endlessly moving,
for if it ceases to move,
it ceases, altogether.

Temporary-ness and Temporality
are the very stuff of existence,
without which,
nothing exists, altogether.

Eternality is no-thing.
It is the reach of attention into the closest sense of impending NOW,
but that's still memory -- short-term memory.
Memory fades and mutates
but Eternality is the perpetually unknown Unknown
rested of the mind.
If, to find the "Eternal" closest sense of impending NOW
we make an effort,
we are substituting a memory of "how" the Eternal should be recognized
for being that which we already are,
the Eternally Unknown Unknown,
rested of the mind.

To identify and to release the Eternal
is to be the Eternal,
since the Eternal cannot be object to the Eternal;
objects are all temporal
only lent the sense of permanence by the presence of the Eternal
the Moveless Eternal
which is not known
but stands in contrast
to all of temporary temporality
which is movement, time, and memory
e=mc[2]

Locate and abandon Eternality,
and you'll find that you also release the memory traces of your temporary existence.

The memory traces of your temporary existence
are one with your sense of Eternality.

Release one, you release both.

Eternality is the felt substance
of all that is temporary.
Eternality lends its substance
to the temporary
and makes it seem eternal.

The remembrance of all that
doesn't do a thing to your experience of it.


AND NEVER UNDERESTIMATE A MAN WITH A CHICKEN IN HIS SACK.

 Impermanence and Eternality | beyond mind, inherent in us

SEE ALSO, There Is No ‘Now’ Moment; There Is An All-Present Now-Field | http://lawrencegoldsomatics.blogspot.com/2012/02/there-is-no-now-moment-there-is-all.html

MORE at Full-Spectrum Somatics | http://lawrencegoldsomatics.blogspot.com/

Clinical Somatic Education | a New Discipline in the Field of Health Care
https://www.youtube.com/user/Lawrence9Gold?feature=mhee

http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/lawrencegold.wordpress.com/277/ Impermanence and Eternality | beyond mind, inherent in us Lawrence Gold https://lawrencegold.wordpress.com/2015/03/25/impermanence-and-eternality-beyond-mind-inherent-in-us-lawrence-gold/

Back Pain, Hip Pain Ended by Hanna Somatic Education | See it, hear it, get it. Lawrence Gold

http://somatics.com/wordpress/chronic-back-pain

RESULTS: Client’s first words after a session of clinical somatic education.

ARTICLES:

http://ezinearticles.com/?Reconditioning-Your-Back—A-New-Type-of-Exercises-For-Lower-Back-Pain&id=4166806 | http://ezinearticles.com/?Back-Pain,-Therapeutics,-and-Somatics&id=2615893

http://ezinearticles.com/?What-You-Can-Do-About-Your-Own-Back-Pain—17-Minute-First-Aid-For-Back-Pain&id=2466536 | http://ezinearticles.com/?Understanding-and-Overcoming-Back-Pain&id=102427

What You Can Do About Your Own Back Pain : http://www.somatics.com/back_pain.htm

Free Yourself from Back Pain: Nine Movements to Recondition Your Back for Any Activity: http://somatics.com/page7-back_pain.htm
~~~
BLOG: https://lawrencegold.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/spinal-decompression-therapy-and-back-pain/ | Know its limits.

http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/lawrencegold.wordpress.com/275/ Back Pain, Hip Pain Ended by Hanna Somatic Education | See it, hear it, get it. Lawrence Gold https://lawrencegold.wordpress.com/2015/03/18/back-pain-hip-pain-ended-by-hanna-somatic-education-see-it-hear-it-get-it-lawrence-gold/

Freeing and Coordinating Jaws | INTRODUCTION | from Comfort Your S-I Joints Lawrence Gold

This preparatory video introduces the section of the program, Comfort Your S-I Joints, dedicated to the jaws.

The effects of a twisted sacrum may go as far as the head, with altered muscular tensions of the trunk, neck, head, jaws, and even eyes resulting.

For more on the effects of chronic jaw tension and a way to correct it, see the following two entries:

The Effects of Jaw Tension: Is the Gag on You? | http://lawrencegoldsomatics.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-effects-of-jaw-tension-is-gag-on-you.html

Treatments for TMJ Syndrome | http://somatics.com/Treatment_for_TMJ,1.htm

 

Freeing and Coordinating Jaws | from Comfort Your S-I Joints

Clinical Somatic Education | a New Discipline in the Field of Health Care

https://www.youtube.com/user/Lawrence9Gold?feature=mhee

http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/lawrencegold.wordpress.com/271/ Freeing and Coordinating Jaws | INTRODUCTION | from Comfort Your S-I Joints Lawrence Gold https://lawrencegold.wordpress.com/2015/03/10/freeing-and-coordinating-jaws-introduction-from-comfort-your-s-i-joints-lawrence-gold/

On Fibromyalgia and Full-Spectrum Somatic Education

The three reflexes of stress. discussed by Thomas Hanna in his definitive article on clinical somatic eduction, are emotional reactions. They involve the limbic system -- mammalian brain -- however much they may also involve the reptilian brain (brain stem).

Let's take this discussion of FM further and deeper.

In habituation, the neocortex disengages, leaving the limbic system and cerebellum in control. Reactions are automatic.

That's the state of the majority of humanity most of the time.

Exceptions: moments of deliberate action, creativity, learning

Habituation forms with the onslaught of experience -- individual, cultural, species, and planetary memory -- and "befouls" (as well as constitutes) the memories and functional capacities of the individual. "Birth Trauma" is better framed as "Life Trauma" -- meaning compounded forms of Trauma Reflex. The onslaught of experience is like gravity -- an ongoing influence that endlessly "tests" our balance and fluidity.

"The Fair State" of which Thomas Hanna wrote is an ideal, asymptotically approached (but never reached), in which responses are increasingly free, creative, and finely tuned and in which attention is increasingly discerning and accurate -- both toward "the world" (3d and 2nd person) and toward ourselves (1st person) -- and leading to transpersonal awakening ("0"th person).

Thus, a life may be seen as a struggle to overcome the onslaught of experience, which drives us, again and again, to lower levels of function -- lower levels of brain function (below the neocortex). By "rebound" (refusal of limitation), we may awaken at the neocortical level and creatively develop means to exceed those limitations, leading to new habit formation and subsidence of the higher cortical functions.

Thus, humans alternately awaken to our higher potential and then sink to lower levels and then, in conditions of crisis, rise again. Such accounts for the rise and fall of civilizations (including our own). (That's why people have trouble following instructions.)

"Sensory-motor amnesia" describes the most rudimentary form of this habituation -- gross movement and fine motor control.

"Attentional-intentional amnesia" describes the more complex forms of habituation -- emotion, conceptualization/cognition -- observable 3d-person as habits of action and interiorly-feelable pattens of tension identified (mistakenly or only provisionally) as, "self" -- sometimes clinically diagnosed as, "fibromyalgia" and usually, as "ageing".

More primitive than habituation is incompetence -- or immaturity.

"Sensory-motor obliviousness" describes the most rudimentary form of incompetence or immaturity.

"Attentional-intentional obliviousness" describes the more complex forms of incompetence or immaturity identified (mistakenly or only provisionally) as, "self".

Clearing up all of these forms of befoulment or incompetence is the proper scope of somatic education -- escape from the sense of the gravity of life and the accelerated awakening of and to our own unrealized potentials.

The Ultimate Structure of All Senses of Identity

http://lawrencegoldsomatics.blogspot.com/2015/01/somatology-ultimate-structure-of-all.html

http://lawrencegoldsomatics.blogspot.com/2015/02/on-fibromyalgia-and-full-spectrum.html

Angels in Winter Lawrence Gold

Gateways into Different Dreaming
SomaSounds

https://www.youtube.com/user/Lawrence9Gold?feature=mhee

http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/lawrencegold.wordpress.com/265/ Angels in Winter Lawrence Gold https://lawrencegold.wordpress.com/2015/02/15/angels-in-winter-lawrence-gold/

Entropy, Dissolution, Integration in Thirty-eight Words

Too much through-put:  too much entropy.
(Entropy is a measure of the number of possible states a system can occupy.)
Too much change:  too many possibilities.
Same thing.
Integrate - or - dissolve.
The rest is debris.

Flush twice.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Intent arises from an unfathomable depth, in us.
Actions express intent.
Actions are unfathomable, even if superficially (i.e., "word-mind") understandable.
Explanations are provisional.
Reason is "after the fact."
Attend.