Moshé Feldenkrais’ book, Awareness Trough Movement, starts like this: “We act in accordance with our self-image. This self-image—which, in turn, governs our every act—is conditioned in varying degree by three factors: heritage, education, and self-education.”

Which means that, for example, it makes a difference whether you think of your chest as a rigid, metal cage, like that of an AI robot… or as a flexible, thick-walled, organic balloon that can expand and contract, twist and bend, and support your legs and arms by being part of the movement — rather than merely being a rigid base with joints on each corner that inevitably will break due to overuse.

Images: Tesla Bot, robotic humanoid, Wikipedia. Adina Voicu, dancer flour motion, 1284217, Pixabay. Font: Tom’s New Roman. Collage by Alfons Grabher.

The way you think of yourself will affect the way you feel, sense, act… eat, walk, talk, look, love, etc. And maybe we can think of the self-image as permanently stored and unconscious, ever available thoughts, internal rules and regulations.

But now get this:

In Christian religion, they teach us that we’re created in the image of God. Genesis 1:27 states: “So God created mankind in his own image”

This means that every person has inherent dignity and value, with a purpose to live, furnished with God’s attributes such as love, justice, kindness and creativity. It invites us to see ourselves as reflections of the highest, most beautiful, most loving, and most radiant being.

Furthermore, this means that our parents, by ancestry, are closer to God than we are, and our grandparents were even closer, and so forth. That’s another logic by which we might love and honor our parents, cherish our family, and respect our lineage. At the same time our children are our offspring, and though they are further down the lineage from God, we hope that the divine spark within them remains just as vibrant. We feel compassion for their journey, guiding them with love and care as we help them grow and thrive.

Which stands in stark contrast to what is taught in public schools.

In public schools, they teach us that humans and monkeys share the same ancestor—essentially some kind of generic, hairy, primitive monkey-man. Monkeys: animals that are often malicious, jealous, destructive, and lazy; always on the lookout to steal food; waging war with other monkeys; and whose leaders dominate their territory by mating with or even forcing themselves upon any female they choose.

And by that logic our parents and grandparents, and all the way up, are ever closer to the primitive, wild and warring monkey-men we supposedly used to be, ultimately originating from some kind of fish or plankton or some highly improbable chemical events at the beginning of life on Earth. And that’s what billions of children are made to believe?

So- which image did you choose for yourself? I mean, in regard to your chest. How do you breathe, how do you move? How do your limbs connect and relate to your center?

And if you would like to explore more about your movements, have a look at my Youtube channel, and follow along one of my lesson, for example this one:

Improving ability, with Alfons, on Youtube, Guided Breathing Exercise : Expand Upper Chest To Breathe Better