(This is an article I wrote for the promotion of the training that I fascilitate in Indian Head Massage. This is irrelevant here, unless you’re living in my hometown, nevertheless I’m very happy to share it in my blog. Enjoy!
When I started Kung-fu in my youth, at one point the teacher told me that what we do here in the training is not really trying to build something. And then he started conveying a metaphorical image of an archaeologist who brings out a statue from the depths of the earth. You can barely recognize its image and characteristics as it is covered with all this dirt. And then he starts to clean it slowly and with delicate movements, uncovering its true form, helping it manifest its beauty to the world.
Years later, when I was transposing myself –with a sense of wonder and awe- to Florence in the times of Medici, while reading the biographies of the Great Masters, I heard Michael Angelo say that when he sets his eyes on a block of marble, he can visualize the statue lying in there. For him it is already in there, only imprisoned within the marble boulder, and all he has to do is to release and reveal it to the world. (I believe words like these outline a very effective tool to achieveing goals that we have in front of us. It is actually in guidelines like those, given by masters on their own craft, that a big part of NLP is based upon, but this is for another article).
I’m sharing the above here because they have influenced the way in which I approach either the fine arts, those of the body and soul, or life itself. I find that words like the above to convey a natural sense, a letting go into a of natural flow, sidestepping the ego, while at the same time committing to the response-ability of being present. And in what has to do with offering sessions or trainings, it brings me to the level of simply being a human that has something to share. In this way by helping me strip off the cloak of the teacher, escape the trap of an inflated image of the healer and in this way experience the freedom, freshness and respone-ability to not search for these things for myself.
Yes, we can get taught by what life brings on our path, and the way that we come in contact can heal us, but we really can’t heal, teach or save anyone. This is in the hands of each of us, in our own responsibility.
Another thing I like about this concept, is that it challenges the narrative that can often be found in the world of “alternative”, “new age” therapy, which goes like: “there’s something wrong with me and I need to change it”, “I’m not well/good”, “I need saving/a master to save me” (funny how these beliefs look resemble the narratives in traditional religions). Well, the words of those who’ve mastered the Kung-fu or the chisel (or life in general, like Osho) are actually saying to me “you are perfect already”, “you have a unique place in the universe” “there’s nothing wrong with you, nothing needed to do except dropping the bullshit”, “the only thing to do is allow yourself to flow in the process of manifesting the truth and richness of your soul”.
You see, one can attend therapies and seminars for a lifetime without even giving permission to this simple truth to touch hers/his essence. Just running from one therapy to another, missing what’s in front of the nose, the joy of living and sharing.
So, this is the way with which I approach and share this seminar. More like a celebration of our wholeness and sacredness as human beings, than as therapy. And my wish is for this approach to also spread out of the group room into the world.
