I have launched my business! Yay!
I made it through months of research, business plans, writing and re – writing content, recording and re – recording audio and editing audio and learning how to upload audio and figuring out when it was uploaded that the artwork didn’t quite fit the space so going back to my wonderful website designer and so much more, Laura, and asking her to create artwork that fits. Sourcing images and learning to use my website and when to schedule lessons, which by the way took about 12 takes to get it to where it currently is and I know that this will also change as I understand how it is working for people who attend classes. And then there were coupon codes and a few fiascos with these, accounts and policies - the experience of reaching my limit of energy and understanding and really wondering exactly how I am going to get there or make it happen.
To anyone who is self employed or runs their own business a lot of this will sound familiar. Although not in the detail, this applies equally to studying, starting a new job, making art, putting on an exhibition, making a film or music or anything where there is a need to learn a lot in a short period of time. Most people will have had some experience of this kind of intense learning.
I found my way through. A big part of being able to navigate a phenomenal amount of new learning has been due to me having integrated core tenants of Feldenkrais by doing Awareness Through Movement. In Awareness Through Movement (ATM), the teacher gradually guides students through a series of movements that build one upon the other until the sequence comes together in at the end of the lesson. Building up in this way students focus their attention and curiosity on the individual unique movements and how these connect. The process of learning, of becoming aware, of thinking, feeling and sensing ourselves in and through movement, is more important than the end result because this can be applied to a variety of situations.
In building Curious Kind Movement, I kept attending to the next step and then the next as we do in ATM. When I hit my walls, I held onto the knowing I have experienced time and time again, in over a decade of doing ATM, that I will find a way to do what I need to do. If one way didn’t work, I would try another way, then another.
Moshe Feldenkrais, the originator of the Feldenkrais Method® said that we must learn to do the same thing in at least 3 different ways so you will find that variation is built into every ATM. This equips us with the ability to make use of ourselves and our functioning in the most useful, easy and efficient way. It can be invaluable if part of ourselves is injured or not able to function well. It helps us move beyond our habits thereby provide more options in the most useful ways.
Doing things in a variety of ways also helps when you are in situations like launching a business or where there is a lot of new learning or change. Aside from all of this, on a personal level, and this is something that I have heard many people report, it also helped soothe me. I felt my calmer, less stressed as the lesson unwound some of my habitual tension. There was this wonderful (and much needed) sense of relaxation alongside resiliency and readiness for action. After doing an ATM I had a felt or embodied sense of being able to manage whatever comes my way.