If you're like me (or the me 10 years ago) you believe in mind over matter.

As a hyper rational human I used think that thinking was all there was.

My body was just a vehicle through which my mind would navigate life.

I always lived in my head and ignored the signals that came from my body (other than pleasure, pain and hunger).

Because of that I was very much cut off and unaware of my feelings.

I thought that feelings only started in the mind.

But I've now come to understand how much the sensations in our bodies affect the quality of our thinking.

And how our thinking can ramp up the feelings in our bodies.

It's a highly interconnected system that can go horribly wrong if you ignore the connection.

Burnout, poor decision making and inability to face real challenges are all symptoms of being out of touch with our bodies.

We can't only think our ways to success; we also have to feel our way there too.

On the Friday Fireside we'll be exploring how we can get ourselves being more aware of our bodies and we'll present a different way of thinking and learning that isn't just head driven.

We'll be joined by Ruth Polden. She's a Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner, Yoga teacher, YogaBirth Senior Tutor and former dancer /choreographer.

The Feldenkrais Method is a powerful, innovative approach to learning. Blending biology, physics, neuroscience, and motor development, it is designed to engage with our brain’s “neuroplasticity,” (our brain’s awesome ability to change, rewire itself, adapt and repair), to benefit our body and how we move and function in life.

Being a physicist I'm looking forward to seeing how physics and feelings combine!

If you find yourself getting lost in your thinking and maybe overthinking,

and you're in search of a new way of making decisions that feels more in

flow, more instinctive, more in tune with what you really need, then maybe

it's time to listen to your body.

And this podcast.

On this episode of The Friday Fireside, we are joined by Ruth Po.

She's a felted Christ practitioner, yoga teacher, yoga birth senior tutor,

and a former dancer and choreographer.

She spent a lot of time being in her body, and on this episode she shares with us her

thoughts, her understanding what it means to tune into what our body's telling us

and turn down the volume of our thought.

We cover all sorts of topics, including love making and childbirth, and how these

acts don't actually need us to think.

They just need us to let our bodies take over.

So if you're a habitual overthinker, I hope you find this episode helpful

and you find it points you to a different way of making decisions.

Enjoy.

I grew up in a family where my mother was an obstetric physiotherapist and her

passion was to support pregnant people and to accompany them on their journey.

She used to work at the hammer Smith hospital and we grew up hearing about

birth and we grew up hearing about, our physicality and, and bodies and

bits, and it was just normal for us.

And the reason I start from that point is because I was always very interested

and involved in moving and the body and expression through movement.

That was something that always, uh, you know, lit me up from a very young

age, even from about four or five.

And I did have this big dream to be a ballerina.

And so there was that going on alongside my mother and what she was bringing

home and how we grew up, uh, just thinking about bodies and ourselves

and normality of the different, uh, milestones of living the life in a body.

I suppose I, I was soaking that in unconsciously.

And I did actually go on to dance and perform, but not as a classical

dancer, I was told in no uncertain terms at the age of 13, that my body

was completely the wrong sort of body.

It was the wrong sort of aesthetic.

So that was a bit of a blow and that was very challenging.

But I did go on to perform and I had this very strong belief that to achieve,

to attain to find and, and, and meet perfection and to be seen and noticed

in my career meant really pushing hard and efforting and no gain without any

pain and, uh, never feeling that you are quite there and you've quite done

it cuz there's always more to do.

So it was quite a uh, a harsh learning journey.

And it was also very wonderful because being up on and performing was so

fulfilling on so many other levels, but through them becoming injured quite

a lot because of how we were training and, uh, our belief at the time of

what we needed to be doing, I was injured quite a lot and through being

injured, uh, I actually discovered.

Some different options, different possibilities, different ways

of approaching, uh, and honoring my physical self and my body.

And so there was some Pilates, there was Alexander technique,

there was body mind centering.

And there was Feld in Christ that I touched on years and years ago

when I was training, and, and yoga and all of that together started me

on a journey of thinking, okay, I'm getting less interested now in thinking

of what do people want me to do?

Tell me what you need me to do as a dancer and I will replicate it with my body,

and I started to get more interested in actually where movement was coming from.

And that meant starting to go inwards a little bit more, connecting a

little bit more into my, my, my feeling body, my emotional body.

And that was also another layer of growing and growth.

And then full circle coming back to my mother.

I also, uh, when I was pregnant with my first child, my, my daughter, I

got very, very interested in the, the journey of pregnancy and birth.

And, you know, from my own experience.

So birth is very much a metaphor for me and I, and I, and I've worked

for many years supporting people, both in pregnancy, birth and after.

But it is very much a metaphor for me that I take forwards.

And I use in my work, whether it's working with, you know, a male, female,

doesn't really matter, cuz we're always growing something in ourselves

and we're always birthing something in ourselves or about ourselves.

And a lot of that means allowing for this new layer or whatever it is that's

coming into being, uh, to emerge.

So the me of today.

My medium of work is through movement, but movement of course,

is not, be looking at this.

It's not separate to any other facets of who we are.

But it's a door in.

It's a way in.

And I really love to support people to come more, I say, fully forward into

themselves as who they are and in a way that they feel more at home in themselves.

And that could be because they feel more comfortable in less pain.

It could mean that they feel less, uh, stressed or anxious

and therefore more present.

And it could also mean that they feel more kind and caring towards themselves.

And I, I don't mean that I'm teaching people how to be that, but I'm

facilitating through movement, felt experiences that then you know, very much

become banked in a way in that person's nervous system in, in who they are.

I wanted to rewind a bit because, uh, you talked about childbirth, uh, and how that,

as I understand it, or the way it was coming across to me that, you know, you

can't think yourself through giving birth.

Your body's doing the work, it sounds like.

And it's something that it takes over.

And I, from ex the limited experience of watching someone

give birth to my children, there's a level of efforts required.

So you are doing something, but your body felt the way it looked.

The body was taking control.

It was doing what it needed to be doing.

And so having that experience feels like a very strong way to understand,

at some point your body takes over, you can't think your way through it.

You'll do what it needs to be done.

As a man, I have no idea what the equivalent could be, other

than I need to go to the loo.

And so there's this thing of like the intelligence of a female body to

know that, okay, this baby's gonna come out, it's gonna come out this

time, and it's all gonna generally work together to make that happen.

For a man.

It's hard to say, okay, how do I relate to that experience of knowing

my, trusting my body to do what it's going, what it needs to do in order

to make something beneficial happen?

I dunno, Laurence, because you are quite an instinctive person,

would you say that, you know, how your body tells you what to do?

Well, yeah, I wouldn't compare it to childbirth, I wanna go down that

road of having any parallel to that experience, like you said, witnessing it.

And actually me witnessing it was a feeling of letting go.

So certainly as a man, you know, being in that situation, I think is one time

where I felt like I have no idea what help I can be in a situation other

than just being here, uh, as support.

It's interesting when Ruth was talking, it actually reminded me.

So I, I, I mean, some of you may know this, I had a back injury,

God, probably 25 years ago now.

So when in my early twenties, had a bus accident in New Zealand and ended up in

hospital, fractured my back in a couple of places and was told I'd have chronic back

injury for life pretty much the first day.

So it's not great diagnosis.

And when we ended up back in the UK, my parents used to

run a pub in Knightsbridge.

I ended up at this Pilates studio in south Kensington, and it was also ballet studio.

And so people like Wayne Sleep would come and do their ballet while I was trying to

learn this practice of Pilates, because it was one of the things I was told would

help me with the long term back injury.

And lo and behold, lots of pregnant women there, lots of people there trying to get

help, get healed by um, this practice.

And yeah, it's something I've kept up in different guises to this day.

Now I do it more daily, but over the years, I've kind of

done it more sporadically.

So in some ways I would say I was forced into tuning in more to my body

because of an injury rather than.

And when you were talking, I was thinking, I can't think of any

situation in my childhood or my upbringing where that was a thing.

You know, we weren't an outdoorsy family.

We didn't really go on those sort of holidays.

We never went skiing or outdoors.

We were always, I'm a lot of child in snooker clubs and Catholic clubs and

bars and pubs cuz my parents ran pubs.

So yeah, my upbringing was definitely more more in my head really.

And so even though you might say, oh yeah, I'm more intuitive and more

creative, to be honest, that's only something I've discovered or rediscovered

maybe or things I've unlearned later in life rather than something that

was always there during my childhood.

So yeah, I've basically learned through a serious injury that I can take control

of my body, which then helps my mind and helps me understand myself better,

and how my feelings affect my body and how my body affects my feelings.

And so that's always with me every day.

And so I look back it as a gift in some ways that I'm able to know

that and to work with it rather than go, oh, I'm the victim here.

Everything's bad because this happened to me and now I have to

live with this, you know, injury.

I'm torn now.

There's two avenues.

I want to go down.

Because one, one level is like, I'm gonna say the trigger, you know, the trigger

of pain and how that can influence our state of thinking in the moment.

And that could be a beneficial trigger because it's suddenly you slow down or

it could be a trigger that then makes you act irrationally, maybe because it's not

maybe related to this current situation.

It's just something that's happening in your body.

And so how you respond actively.

So there's that bit and how maybe getting more into our body can help.

And then what Kim just said, when I was talking about, Hey, you know,

what is it that a man does that kind of just like, lets their body take

control and I'm just seeing pleasure in your beloved and the rest of the

reproductive process and what that means.

Cuz it, I was thinking well, oh yeah.

So at some point when you are having that experience, you are you, you are

not thinking, you know, you are just purely feeling into an experience.

In terms of the physiological process of birth, birthing, and you

cannot separate that from hormones.

We're not gonna go into hormones, but that is an amazing world to go into

so many of the hormones that that, uh, flood the body during labor and

birth flood us in our love making.

And so, that is some sort of an experience.

So, so being in labor doesn't necessarily, you know, having a meeting the intensity

and the power of labor, it doesn't necessarily mean it's like, you know,

you're feeling necessarily it's similar sensations to love making, but in terms

of where you, uh, need to be, where the experience brings you, you know, brings

you into the here and the now, into this moment, and as soon as you start to get

more into your head, it takes you out.

It's no different on that.

So, you know, there's a huge, uh, honor in experiencing that actually.

But part of it, to be able to be in that place, is also to have an understanding

of the process of the physiology, of what is supportive, of what is

potentially not gonna be supportive, is to feel safe, to feel, in the same

way, as you're not necessarily gonna be, you know, making love to your

beloved in the face of a whole audience, it's the same, you know, I think,

I really wanna go down that route.

and this is gonna be a bizarre analogy, but Kim's pushing us down this route now.

Talks about.

And you've had two sleep as well.

Exactly.

But she talks about letting go.

And there's this thing about what you were saying before is like, if particularly

in that those tender moments, you are thinking too much and your mind is

racing, then that's going to actually that that's not beneficial in the moment.

Thinking too much then is not helpful.

It's actually you the thing you wanna be so much into your body and

so much present with what's going on that to then allow yourself to, to

experience the experience, but also to move, be moved by the experience.

This is how it's landing for me.

And this whole idea, I'm trying to link it to this idea of like, how

do I instinctively act in a moment with, and when my brain said, oh,

I should do this, I should do that.

When there's actually these, I was trying to now link it.

Oh yeah.

In those moments, the less, I think the better it is, the less I'm

trying to work out what to do next.

What's going here.

It's like letting the body just respond, that's actually an important aspect of

not getting too caught up in the thoughts.

That's a really interesting starting point.

And of course, through positioning it that way it is very much the, you know,

your thinking body, your thinking, I'm talking about your head, your brain,

your not your brain, but your mind.

But that's only part of, of you.

And, uh, you know, I, you could also think of your emotional body.

You could think about, you know, your physical body.

You can think about your spiritual body.

It's all you.

it's We are all of those things all at the same time, all at once, always.

And we break ourselves into bits.

I mean, you know, in the wellness industry, I hold my hand up, you know,

we are very good at saying work on this muscle, work on this muscle, strengthen

this muscle, stretch this muscle, but ultimately no muscle works in isolation.

And, you know, even the industry around the core, I'm not gonna go too much

into it, but we cut ourselves into bits.

And what is the core for many people, people think of the core and they

think about their abdominal muscles.

Well, that's nothing to do with the core.

You know, the core is is is actually all of us in a way.

And what happens in one part of us is going to impact

what happens somewhere else.

So this, we are very good at cutting ourselves into bits.

So in terms of coming out of the, uh, thinking, rational very often judging very

often critical, uh, sort of, narrative that we all live with, how can you shift?

How can you shift attention?

Because it's always gonna be there.

It's It's part of us, but it, how do you shift attention?

So that in a way you turn a volume down on it, and you your your

curiosity, your focus, your presence moves into another part of yourself?

I mean, for me moving and movement connects into all

the other parts of who we are.

And as a result, I can feel as if I I come home more fully to who I am truly.

Now the flip side to that is that we are all very habitualized.

We're all creatures of habit.

We need our habits.

Many of our habits have, you know, saved us in times of, uh, uh, stress and strain,

and, you know, for some of us, you know, trauma or big situations in our lives.

And our habits are also quite useful because if we didn't have

habits, we'd have to constantly be thinking, well, how do I roll over

and get out of bed this morning?

You know, we'd have to, we're completely trying to relearn and

learn afresh every step of the way.

That's gonna be a bit impossible.

So we need our habits, but not all of our habits and the way

in which we are habitually serve us in every moment in time.

We've become very habitual also in how we think or how we perceive ourselves

or what we believe about ourselves, or we believe about the world or life.

So moving and movement and moving with attention and curiosity and

playfulness is a real way of shift.

Shifting out of some of that so that you can then regroup and land and

almost come afresh to a situation.

That's one way in.

But just one other piece.

You talked about pain and of course we are not necessarily

gonna go down that, that road, but ultimately our brain likes habits.

It needs habits in a way.

And our brain is also just trying to keep us safe.

So pain, a situation of pain is also our brain saying, be careful, watch out.

But our brain can also not differentiate between a situation of stress where we

might be, uh, needing to sort of run away from a sabertooth tiger, and a

stressful situation where we are, I don't know, stuck in a traffic jam and we've

gotta pick up our kids from basketball.

You know, it triggers us in the same way in a way.

So that's where, you know, having ways of shifting attention to sort

of come into another part of the brain at the time to sort of turn the

volume down is always really helpful.

For me, movement is key.

Speaking to the hyperrational side of me, there's this, you know, when you're

talking about the stress from being in a traffic jam, trying to get your kid to

basketball and the stress of being chased by a tiger, fundamentally they're the

same chemicals going through your body.

And so there's how, you know, they're the same chemicals trying

to send signals to your brain.

It's just how your brain interprets them.

The other aspect of this is this idea of, I don't know if you've, there's

a book called thinking Fast and Slow by a guy called Daniel conman and

he talks about system one and system two, and they're both different

ways of processing information.

One's very instinctive pattern matching is based on a set of beliefs or certain

experiences in the past that allows you in the moment just to make a sort of a

gut decision or a quick snap decision.

And then the system two where there's a more slow processing ponderous

trying to weigh up what's going on.

And so this is on one hand is like, as someone in business, as someone having

to make decisions very quickly, maybe around some complex situation, it would

be amazing if we could make really great.

Fast decisions, not based on a a past trauma, because you wanna get rid of

it or like a conditioned behavior, and that then might lead you down a path

that isn't beneficial, it's just, you're thinking you're in that situation years

ago, when in fact it's completely this situation, different situation, but

you're suddenly responding in exactly the same way, as opposed to you're

sensing it somehow in the body, the, okay, this is the right thing to do.

Not because you're aware that there's that feeling, but there's this other

feeling like, no, I'm gonna go with this because it feels right, not because

of a an unconscious bias or belief.

And when you're talking about the movement, I'm curious now it's

like, how do I become more aware about which things guiding me?

You know, how do I become more aware or more wise to these signals?

As opposed to.

It feels shit.

So I'm not gonna do it, or, ah, it feels shit, but that's

telling me I really should do it?

Yeah I hear what you are saying.

And I, and for me that, growing that listening is something that

happens over time, and it happens.

Very often taking time to experience, to notice, to sense, to feel.

And it could be in a completely separate situation.

You know, it could be just, uh, lying on the floor and rolling

around from side to side, which I, is essential in my life anyway.

But it, you know, it because we need those down times to listen

into things differently and to notice and to, uh, discover parts of

ourselves in a very different way.

Because as you are saying Carlos, you know I think you, you can make a decision.

Of course you can make a decision, but is it necessarily

a decision which is true to you?

It's true to what you think people might expect from you.

It's true to what you think you, how you ought to be.

And that's fine.

You can make decisions on that basis.

And particularly if you are aware that's why you are making those decisions,

you know, we all make those choices.

It's okay to say I'm gonna do that today cuz I know that's what they want me to

do, even though I feel that I'd rather do something that was fine, you know,

as long as you're making that decision and you are clear as to why you're doing

it, fine, it's not a wrong decision.

But there are other layers of subtlety.

And I suppose if we are wanting to sort of grow ourselves, you know, in

terms of being purpose led folk in our, in our lives, in our work life,

in our personal life, you know, in our intimate life with ourselves.

So that does mean another layer of listening has to.

Laurence, you know, I think about the decisions we've made in our business and

the kind of decisions we're trying to get people to make with our programs.

And when people getting to the point of like either analysis paralysis,

or just too much opportunity, oh, too many opportunities to decide from

this whole idea of then committing to something, but not knowing why.

I dunno from your experience of just driving the Happy Startup

School in the early days.

Is there anything, was there anything there about you tuning into your body?

Was it purely your brain

Well there's a couple of things there.

One of one I think is there's often a fear for people of just choosing,

just committing to something to make a decision itself can feel scary.

So procrastinating is a big thing, which might be helpful at times,

but also not helpful at other times.

I think I was talking to someone about this this morning.

When I think back to when we started, there was definitely a

lot of feeling this felt right.

You know, there was a, I wouldn't say a knowing, cause that sounds a bit

too, uh, lofty, but I think there was a yeah, there was, I wanna say gut driven.

There was a gut decision that was more.

driven by data, but it was more from a body point of view

than a head point of view.

So like, I remember we had these discussions and I would have to

rationalize it to get it across to you.

Why are we going to do this thing?

And so I would almost need a different language to, to communicate that I'd

be like, it's obvious let's do it.

You know, look, and then I would have to try and understand myself

what was the data that I was using to make that decision.

And there was data, but I hadn't really thought of it in the head way.

It just felt obvious to me, you know?

And so, yes, I think there was more of a body feeling, but for

me, it wasn't just intuition.

If I think it was based on actual data, as well as what felt right.

If that makes sense at all.

So, what I'm hearing is that there there was some initial sparking and that

Laurence, you're talking about knowing, I don't think that's lofty at all, I think.

Knowing could be, you know, it could be even a sensation of just

something lighting up inside of you, or a fullness in your chest

or just a sense of excitement.

I mean, there could be a sense of something feeling like you're almost

in the presence of something of awe or something a bit bigger or

something that's more expansive.

All of those things are.

I mean, I'm verbalizing, what is also a physical felt sense.

And then we might think of it as a knowing, but ultimately it's coming

from somewhere else inside of us.

Now all of the data to back it up is really important.

Cause it's not about swanning, swanning through life, but it's

also being rooted in the reality of your surroundings, your environment.

And yeah, I think it's a dance of it all coming together.

It's a weaving of it all together.

And having it all.

Why not have it all?

So when the way I've now post rationalized Laurence's behavior.

Please tell me, cuz I wanna know.

Well, I I always go back to the whole feelings and needs stuff that we talk

about every, all the time, even the programs and the way I'm understanding

it, and I'm trying to, I've kind of, I hold onto this, is that feeling of

excitement or there was a feeling there, I think with Laurence, a feeling of

excitement, a feeling of joy, a feeling of, uh, I don't know, connection.

Well, that's for me, it's the need.

So this is where I'm trying to get into this feeling of need things like,

below each of those things before, below the feeling of excitement, there

was like this need for creativity or a need for adventure or a need

for maybe it's connection in terms of like, yes, I'm gonna get to

meet all these people, you know?

Or it's like, I'm gonna get to design this thing and it's gonna

be so much fun to design that thing and to make something new.

And so that, while someone saying, you know, doing an events business,

that's not a particularly profitable thing to do and it's hard work.

And so the head would say, okay, if I broke this down in terms of numbers,

it's not gonna, it doesn't look particularly great as a direction.

But then from the feelings, point of view, all of the beneficial

feelings are saying, why not?

You know, there's, it makes complete sense.

And so this is this whole thing for me about our work and now why I'm now

post rationalizing, why I'm talking to you Ruth, is this thing about how

do we get in tune with how something is supposed to feel in our work, as

opposed just to how something is going to sell or to make impact or to scale?

Which is very much the brain led thing.

How do we also tune into, okay, if I'm gonna do this, what is that

experience going to be like for me.

And having that as one of the data signals, as well as the market research

and the business model and all the other malarkey that people throw

at you when you're doing business.

And so maybe this conversation is about, okay, how do I feel into things?

How do I connect to that rich set of data that isn't you

can't plot on a spreadsheet?

The word that comes to me actually is is tenderness.

And, uh, it's a word that I've got, I'm getting very interested in and

I'm sort of hearing and seeing it in lots of different layers and avenues.

But when you bring tenderness, when you are in a state of tenderness, whether

it's to yourself or to another, or to a, a thing you show up very differently.

You know, you cultivate a very different sense of listening, of

feeling, of noticing, of, you know, it suddenly your internal rhythm shifts.

first of all, we are all tender beings.

We are all tender beings.

We don't necessarily always agree.

We don't necessarily always feel the same things or think the same things.

We don't necessarily always like each other, but in our

essence, we're all tender beings.

And what we bring into the world is for me, if it's, uh, honest

and authentic and, uh, and coming from a real place in ourselves, we

need to be treating it tenderly.

And it's the same in moving and movement.

To have those tender movement moment and to explore and to discover and to

meet, without getting too hooked into a narrative as to why this is happening,

you know, why I've been labeled with this, I've been diagnosed with this

therefore la la la la la, but actually to meet yourself as you are, where you

are in that tendon moment to not try to do as much as you can, to not necessarily

push yourself to your end range, to look, to see how can I lose effort here?

How can I bring less effort?

And then you will in movement terms very often, what you

discover is you can do more.

And it's more sustainable.

And you feel better about yourself.

And in the end you come out feeling more present.

And that can only then serve your life.

And that the other piece that also I remember I wanted to just

touch on, you talked, Carlos, about you moving very quickly and

having to make quick decisions.

And you know, so when we've had an experience of exploring slow and I'm

taking this into a movement metaphor, when you slow down and explore slow

and small, and you lose effort, you can speed up and you can go really fast cuz

you're moving more efficiently because actually more and more of yourself gets

involved and the effort gets spread.

So it's not one part of your body that's taking most of the strain, but

every little part is doing a tiny bit.

Spread the effort and you move with ease and you can move and react and

respond at, you know, in the moment and take this into, you know, martial

arts as well, you know, to be in the place where you could at any moment

in time shift in any direction.

It's the same in life, really.

Well, I can definitely talk to that in terms of martial arts, in terms of, yeah,

the it's getting the whole body to move in coordination to generate more power,

uh, and to be able to be in a state where you can change direction very quickly.

What, the way I'm translating this now to making decisions within business

or within our lives, tapping into all the tools that we have, you know, all

of the brain that we have, which is also our body, not just our heads.

Using that to kind of make the decisions or to take the action.

I saw Craig asking he's made a request here.

It might be fun to hear your riff on where opening ourselves up to all our

body, knowing through movement moving can overlap dance with following your joy.

So there's something around, I'm wondering if there's, I think you talked a bit to

the whole tenderness and I'm thinking about the joy and maybe the, say the

love aspect of this, but was there, is there some way an exercise that we can

do to sort of tap into that, or is there something that you can talk to here?

Yeah.

Just in a few words.

Okay, so, coming into and having an expression of what feels good,

what's enjoyable, what, you know, and that something that's enjoyable

is going to, uh, be cultivating, uh, uh, more of a sense of joy.

You know, what joy is, and for everybody it's gonna mean something else, you

know, there isn't, we are not all gonna be joyous in the same situation and

part of joy is just it's about being in it and steeping ourselves in it.

But also know how quickly and how easily it is to step out of that.

You know, when this, the cogs here start going and there's, oh

yeah, this is good but, you know?

Or what, a shame that I've now gotta go.

And, you know, we are immediately, we immediately sort of almost wipe it out.

So, coming into a place where we are enjoying what we

are feeling in that moment.

And it could be, you know, a bodily feeling.

I mean, that's why I like to get on the floor and roll because it there's

something so, so regulating about rolling and rolling easily and just playfully.

And also, we've all spent most of us, a lot of time doing that in our infancy.

And, it's hugely informative.

It's very very balancing and and leveling for, for all of of us.

That, that's one thing.

And the other thing about, you know, moving it, it's moving in a way that

you like the way it feels, that you like the way that it feels.

Not someone else is telling you how you need to move what you need to be feeling,

but that you like the way it feels.

Take time to, to explore that for yourself.

You know, what does that mean?

We are very good at handing ourselves over to another to tell us what it is we need

to be feeling, we ought to be thinking.

And there's a lot of useful layers to that, but ultimately it starts here.

It starts with me and my expression of joy, my expression of how I

like, you know, I like the way that it feels is not necessarily

Laurences or your, you know, it's.

So, so to have the spaces where that is also very much honored is important.

Shall we do, should we do something?

Yeah, yeah, Something very simple and basic in sitting.

If you are up for, you know, having a go at this it come to sit and if you can

sit, uh, towards the edge of your chair, so you're not leaning back, that would

be useful for what we're gonna do here.

And, uh, if you can sit and have your feet flat on the floor.

And in your sitting, don't try to sit well.

Just sit as you are and find what feels comfortable.

Yeah.

This is a whole other discussion, but we are very much programmed into believing

that sitting in a, you know, in one way is the best way, and posture has still will

be about, you know, being straight and all of that, but that's for another time.

So for now, just sit as you are comfortable and, and

rest your hands on your legs.

You could do this with your eyes closed for a moment.

And just notice, uh, how your two feet are contacting the floor.

And you know how you sense the floor through one foot.

Is that how you sense the floor through your other foot?

Are your legs comfortable?

Do you need to do something to slightly reorganize your legs?

If possible, have both feet flat.

Good.

And then, uh, bring your hand, your attention to your hands, and

just feel through the palms of your hands, your contact with your legs.

And would you say that your right hand is resting and touching your right leg

or your right thigh exactly as you left?

Is there a slight difference there?

Is one hand, a little more easily accessible to you than the other, and you

don't need to look just what you sense and feel, and there's no right or wrong.

And then just notice, uh, how you're breathing right now.

And again, you know, that's an interesting thing in itself.

As soon as we shift your attention to the breath, something might change.

You might notice that your breathing gets a little shallow or shy, or

you might even find yourself wanting to take a slightly deeper breath.

So just notice again, you know, it's not about doing anything.

Getting it right.

Okay.

And now open your eyes and turn to look to your right.

So you're gonna turn to your right, just as far as you can go

without straining and then come back to where you've started from.

And then go again.

And this time as you turn to the right, can you turn and really try

not to bring any effort at all?

So you're not trying to go as far as you can.

How can you turn to look to the right, without strain or discomfort anywhere?

And what do you see?

So just notice how far you, where you are, what you're looking at.

Just remember that place.

Cool.

And then come back to the middle.

Now, bring your hands, rest them on the sides of your face.

So you've got your hand somewhere around your cheeks

and also the side of your head.

Bring your elbows out in front of you.

But where rest your arms so you're not straining and not

trying to hold your arms up.

But you're just lightly and tenderly making contact, supporting your head,

holding your head in your hands.

Good.

And then from here you can do this with your eyes closed, again, just turn to the

right slowly and come back to the middle.

Okay.

So this is just the movement we are exploring.

And as you turn, can you move slowly so that as you move, just, you're

still aware that you're breathing.

Are you breathing or are you holding your breath?

And you just come back to the middle and you don't need to rush.

And when you come back to the front, pause momentarily.

And remember, it's not about how far you go.

It's not about straining to do anything well.

And as you repeat, is there a way as you do this, that you could

actually be doing less, bringing less?

And feel where you have a sense of that movement, of that turning

movement happening right now.

Not because you're thinking about it, but just what comes forward?

What takes your interests?

What takes your attention?

And do you feel maybe there's a slight change in how you are making

contact, uh, with your chair?

You might have a sense of one hip slightly moving a little backwards, and

the other hip moving a little forwards.

And if you don't, that's fine.

Can your tongue stay soft in your mouth?

Yeah.

And you just go where you go easily.

You don't have to do lots.

You know, you can take it very slow and then you can pause.

So as you go, you know, where could you do less?

Where could you do less?

Where could you give up on trying?

Nice.

Okay.

Come back to the middle and then release your arms.

Just let your arms come to rest on your legs and just notice, you know, how do

you meet yourself sitting in this moment?

Your contact with the chair, your, how your feet find the floor.

Maybe you have a different sort of expression through your

legs or a different sense of width across your shoulders.

Maybe your hands are meeting yourself a little differently.

These are just ideas.

It's you might feel something very different.

Notice your breathing, and then when you're ready, open your eyes and again,

bringing as little effort as possible.

You're just gonna turn to look to your right.

And as you turn, just notice where you can go without any additional effort.

And what's different?

What's changed?

Do you have a sense of a shift in quality of the movement?

Are you aware of different parts of yourself getting involved in the movement?

Maybe you are being able to turn a little more, you are seeing further.

Cool.

Wow.

The other thing I think was I was conscious of not doing, which I know I

would be doing a lot previously would be thinking, am I doing this right?

Is this is the right way?

Am I going to the right direction?

Am I, you know, am I following instructions well?

Those are things that you can also, those are questions to ask in any situation.

And in that moment, something might suddenly shift, something might

rest, something might open up.

You know, so all of this is relevant in life anyway.

Soon as you do it can, feel like I felt my shoulders drop at the end.

Like the start was much more kind of I'm moving very rigidly to just

shoulders dropping and feeling, breathing more, uh, more expansively.

I think it's fascinating because yeah, I think a lot of people us included struggle

with, well, like you said, we always try to rationalize things and we try and um

ignore feelings if we're not um sure.

Why we're not doing things, why things aren't happening.

And so it feels like a whole journey to understand ourselves better

and understand our bodies better.

And for me, the older I've got the more I've got in tune to that.

But yeah, I think it's a lifelong journey in some ways.

Well, that was that was really wonderful.

It was great to be here and to chat and to sort of touch on on, on

some of the things that I'm curious about that, that you know, I, I.

I'm exploring in my life.

I'm I am well aware that, you know, there are things that perhaps,

you know, we haven't spoken to.

I'd be very happy to continue talking, you know, people can always be in contact

with me if there's things you want, you know, you feel wasn't addressed

and you'd like to go deeper into.

Yeah.

I think the key thing for me coming away with is refocus on awareness.

And you know, even just that act of noticing bits of your body, how we can be

habitualize well, the way I think about it, how can I can get into the habit of

forgetting that the body's there I'm just like a brain driving this machine and not

realizing actually, yeah, I can feel feet.

I can feel hands.

I can feel breath.

The kind of actions that we just do instinctively, which is breathing, but

we don't realize it's just doing its thing as opposed to us making it happen.

So, I like the idea of sweating around because it's like that we're just

effortlessly responding to what's needed without thinking too much about it.

And part of that exercise was not trying not to think.

And also part for me this whole Friday Fireside and having these conversations

is trying not to think about, oh, should I answer this question?

Should I be reading that text?

Should I be doing this?

Where does it go?

Is more of a case of wherever it leads, it leads.

And if that's to an amazing conclusion, so be it.

If it's a damp squib, then we won't be here next week.

Anyway, thank you very much, Ruth.

Really?

Yeah.

Thanks your time.

Did you have any where to direct people who wanna learn more about your yes?

Yeah.

So it's www.ruthpolden.com is where you can find me.

That's the best way to get in touch.

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