Photo by Alessio Soggetti on Unsplash
By Cynthia Allen, GCFP CM
How do you think of yourself? Perhaps you assign labels such as beautiful, average, heavy, thin, healthy, active, smart or uncoordinated. Perhaps you think of yourself as having value in the world…or not.
We talk a lot about self-image in the Feldenkrais Method but getting a handle on what self-image is, can actually be elusive. Image is fairly easy to understand but the word “self” presents another challenge altogether. Self-image is sometimes equated with body-image. Yet body-image is only one aspect of self-image.
I often say that self-image is how one sees and experiences oneself along with how one sees and experiences one’s function in relation to the world. Our bodily sensations and our shifting emotions AS we interact with the environment help shape the idea of “me.” Of “who I am.”
In the Feldenkrais Method, we have a goal of getting to a clearer and clearer idea of who “I am”. We don’t want to influence what that “I” is, only that it gets clearer. As practitioners, we hope our students gain more ownership over that image instead of being stuck with the one that life appears to have dealt them.(...)
