The Hardest Thing to Believe About Improving Yourself #107

Mary Debono challenges the common belief that meaningful change requires struggle and strain. Through the lens of the Feldenkrais MethodⓇ, she reveals how our nervous system naturally seeks improvement when approached with curiosity and gentleness rather than force.

The episode features a practical mini-lesson in shoulder movement, demonstrating how small, mindful adjustments can create immediate improvement. Through compelling case studies - including a horse trainer's dramatic ankle recovery, a stroke-affected poodle's remarkable rehabilitation, and a young child with cerebral palsy learning to walk - Mary illustrates how profound change can occur instantaneously when we work with our nervous system instead of against it.

Listeners learn the science behind rapid transformation, understanding how neuroplasticity enables quick adaptation when we create the right conditions. The episode concludes with practical tips for incorporating this gentle approach to change in daily life, emphasizing curiosity over criticism and ease over effort.

Key Takeaways:

• Change can happen instantly and pleasurably when we work with our nervous system
• The Feldenkrais Method creates lasting improvement through gentle, mindful movement
• Our nervous system responds better to curiosity and gentle exploration than force and struggle
• Small, easy movements with awareness can lead to profound improvements
• The importance of creating safety for your nervous system to enable change
• Practical tips for approaching change with ease instead of effort

Want to sit in a more balanced, comfortable way? Click here for all the details on our new series.
Effortless, Balanced Sitting: A FeldenkraisⓇ Movement Series  ⬅️⬅️⬅️
Resources:
💥Learn how the Feldenkrais Method can help improve your seat, position, and balance on your horse! Free rider videos: https://www.marydebono.com/rider 💥

Grab your FREE video training to help your dog. 🐕 https://www.marydebono.com/lovedog 💥

Get Mary’s bestselling, award-winning book, “Grow Young with Your Dog,” for a super low price at: https://tinyurl.com/growyoungwithyourdog. Demonstration videos are included at no extra cost. ⬅️⬅️⬅️

All information is for general educational purposes ONLY and does not constitute medical or veterinary advice or professional training advice. Please consult a qualified healthcare provider if you, your horse, or your dog are unwell or injured.  Always use extreme caution when interacting with horses and dogs.

Email [email protected]

About the Host:

Mary Debono is a pioneer in animal and human wellness, blending her expertise as an international clinician, best-selling author, and certified Feldenkrais Method® practitioner. With over three decades of experience, Mary developed Debono Moves, a groundbreaking approach that enhances the performance, well-being, and partnership of animals and their humans.

Mary's innovative approach draws from the Feldenkrais Method®, tailored specifically for horse and dog enthusiasts.  Her methods have helped animals and humans:

• Improve athletic ability and performance
• Enhance confidence and reduce anxiety
• Reduce physical limitations and discomfort
• Deepen the human-animal bond

Mary's flagship equine-focused online program, "Move with Your Horse," offers equestrians a unique opportunity to experience the benefits of Feldenkrais® while also learning her signature hands-on work for horses. This transformative approach has helped riders and their equine partners achieve harmony, both in and out of the saddle.

As a speaker and educator, Mary has touched the lives of animal enthusiasts across the globe, empowering them to unlock their full potential through mindful movement and enhanced body awareness.

Visit https://www.marydebono.com to learn more about Mary's unique work.

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi. What if the change you're longing for could happen in a single pleasurable instant? No struggle, no pushing, no pain, just a gentle shift in your awareness. Hi, I'm Mary Debono, and this is the Easier Movement Happier Life podcast. It's for you, your horses and dogs. Today we're exploring a concept that might feel counterintuitive. That real change, real improvement doesn't have to be hard. It doesn't have to take a long time.

It can happen effortlessly and instantly. And in many ways, it can surprise and delight you. So in this episode, I'd like to share how and why change doesn't require struggle. How you can use the Feldenkrais method to work with your nervous system to create profound change gently and easily. You can create lasting improvements without force. And why this idea can be so hard to believe, too. So you'll hear the science behind some of these, like, rapid changes.

You'll hear a real life story of a person who completely changed her life in one Feldenkrais lesson. And we'll even do a, like a mini Feldenkrais lesson right here in the episode. Okay, so let's, let's examine, like, why is it so hard to believe that change can feel easy and can happen quickly? Well, it's because our society kind of conditions us to believe the opposite, that we need to struggle and strain and that we have to have all this willpower and self discipline to get anything done.

It's like we're constantly fighting ourselves. No wonder we fight with each other. You know, we're fighting ourselves all the time, right? Think of all those things you say to yourself all day. And a lot of them, by the way, are so habitual and, you know, just unconsciously said, you don't even realize you're saying them a lot of times. So, you know, what if that belief, the belief that change requires struggle, what if that is what's holding us back?

Because here's the truth. Your nervous system isn't resisting change because it's lazy or somehow faulty. It's trying to protect you. Your nervous system is designed to keep you safe, and it finds safety in the familiar, even when those familiar patterns or habits are no longer serving you. That's why you'll find that you often cling to old habits. But there is a way to change them. And it requires being a little more clever, a little more intelligent than trying to fight yourself.

It requires actually to be more curious and more playful, have more fun creating change. So again, you know, when you, when you approach things Like a fight, everything turns into a struggle, right? But if you approach it with curiosity, then it becomes like an adventure, right? It becomes something fun. And the nervous system gets on board with that, okay? And it's quite different than when you're struggling and the nervous system is trying to hold on to the old habits, right?

Because you're just trying to pull them out of it, so to speak. Okay? That doesn't work. So what we want to do is instead embrace this idea of curiosity. You know, think about how kids are always so curious about everything, and then, you know, as we get older, we often lose that. We lose that quality. And I am going to invite you today to return to that sense of curiosity and wonder, and you'll see how.

How it serves you. So let's do a little movement lesson. Now, obviously, if you're driving a car or operating a tractor or any other heavy machinery, please don't do this. Now, you want to wait till you get home or somewhere else where you may be at the office where you can just sit for a moment and be safe. So if you're. So just skip through. If you're driving or something like that, this will only take maybe five or so minutes.

So for everyone else who's in a safe place, please have a seat. If you. You can actually do this standing up, it's kind of nice to do it sitting, but either way will work. And I'll say it as if you're sitting, but the same thing applies to standing. So just sit comfortably, maybe even sit a little bit forward on your chair instead of like way back against the back of the chair.

You sit towards the front edge a little bit. Notice how you're sitting. Notice how your shoulders feel. Again, just notice you're not correcting yourself. You're not being all judgy. You're just noticing. And now with your right shoulder, you just do a little upward movement. So it's like you take the shoulder a tiny bit towards your ear and let it go back to your neutral, to your starting place.

Now, I want to say right off the top, don't do anything that's painful, uncomfortable in any way. Unsafe for you either, you know, and. And it's more helpful if you do the movements small, really small and slow. Don't go anywhere near your maximum. You know, we all know you could force that shoulder up. That won't be helpful. That won't be. You won't learn anything useful by doing that.

And this is a learning modality. You're going to learn how to have More comfortable for your shoulders. Okay? And this is just a little mini lesson, like a little taste. So again, you just, several times lift the shoulder and let it go back to neutral. Breathe easily, and I'm going to encourage you to take a mini pause in between each movement. So when you go back to your neutral, take a breath and you exhale and then you do the movement again.

We're not doing it like reps at a gym where you're just doing it over and over. All that does is exacerbate whatever habits you have. What we're trying to do is encourage new options, new choices in how you move the shoulder. And notice, does anything tighten up when you lift the shoulder? In other words, your neck? Do you stop breathing? Do you clench somewhere? Notice if your toes are clenching or your fingers.

And think like, as you lift the shoulder, it's like you're going up in the elevator a little bit. Just a very mild lifting. And then you're going down, down, down, down, down. When you let it go, like, really think of that. When you, you know, release the shoulder back to neutral, you're going down, down, down, down. You're not forcing it down, but you have that image that the shoulder is descending like you're in an elevator.

And just be curious. Notice. Notice, for example, if you take the shoulder a little bit forward before you bring it up, do you take it a little back before you bring it up? Or do you keep it right in the middle and maybe try it all three ways? Maybe you'll find it's easier if you. If you change how you're doing it. You know, we have all these habits of how we move our shoulders, and we don't even know we're doing them right.

So this is why slowing down and doing small movements is so important. Gives your brain time to notice these differences. And we learn by noticing differences. So you don't need to, like, make sense of it. Your nervous system will take care of that for you. Okay? But just do this several times, slowly, easily. And remember, you're monitoring your own comfort and safety. Here. You lift it just a tiny bit, and then you think of it just going down, down, down, down, just sinking deeper.

Okay? Then you just rest in neutral. The rest breaks are actually important because they allow kind of like the uploading of the information and the integration. It's where you create a lot of new neural connections, is actually when you're resting. Okay, so now let's take the shoulder, the right shoulder a little bit forward and just back to neutral. And we're looking for the ease, ask yourself where can you let go of unnecessary tension?

And it might, you know, might be around the shoulder. That's common, but it might be somewhere else as well, maybe around your jaw. Can you relax your jaws as you take the shoulder forward and back to neutral again, really slowly and gently. Less is truly more in this work. Okay, take the shoulder up again. Notice that got a little easier. And then allow it to go down, down, down on that elevator.

Pause when you get to your neutral. And now take the shoulder back. And then return to your neutral. Take it back, return to neutral. Make sure you're breathing easily. A lot of us hold our breath when we're learning something new. Okay, when you're at neutral, take it up again. Notice if that got a little easier. Let it go down the elevator. Down, down, down. Pause when you get to neutral.

Now let's take your shoulder in a circle, very gentle. So you're going in these different directions, right? You're taking it up to your ear, forward, down. Do this several times again, really slowly and gently. Feel how when you're going down, you could just in all the, the directions, you just have it feel really simple and easy, really light. You can make your circles so tiny. It's basically just past a thought.

It's in your imagination, even that actually stimulates a lot of activity in the motor cortex. And you can start to improve your movement just by clearly imagining your movement and imagining these different variations that we're doing. Okay, let that go. You can maybe go do a few circles in the opposite direction again, really reducing your effort. Less is more. Go really small, light. Think of it being light, easy, and pleasurable.

It's very important to associate a sense of ease and pleasure with the movement. Very, very important. That's how your nervous system will want to expand on it. Okay, go the original direction again, maybe just once or twice. Come back to neutral. Take a nice breath. And now just simply take the shoulder upward towards your right ear. And then let it go down, down, down. And then just when you get to neutral, just notice your two shoulders.

Compare your left to your right. We've been working with the right one. Notice if one feels bigger, like in your self image, do you have a sense that the shoulder is bigger? Is it, does it feel like it's sitting differently? You know that you're. You've organized the shoulder a bit differently. There's something more alive maybe with the one that you worked with. And you know, it doesn't take long for the other shoulder to catch Up.

So you have a choice here. You can either just stay with working with the one shoulder and you'll find within a short amount of time the left shoulder will, will catch up to that feeling of ease because the body yearns for kind of homeostasis and or you can go ahead and just repeat the movements. Just, you know, play again what I just said about the right one and do it with the left one.

Okay? And then you could even do a bicycling kind of movement with both shoulders and see how that feels. But again, I want to encourage you. The idea is that you're doing easy, gentle movements and you're not just pushing through things the way you normally do, right? You don't want to do that. You don't want to just, you know, quickly hurry through this. It's a, it's a, an exploration, right?

You want to take your time, but just notice that. So something as simple as that right now, that's just a tiny, tiny example of how bringing attention and awareness to something and doing some maybe non habitual movements can create change. Maybe you notice that now the right side of your neck feels longer. Matter of fact, let's add, let's add something else. Let's add this. Let's take the right shoulder up again.

But when you do it, tilt your head slightly so your right ear is going slightly towards your right shoulder. It's just very small movements. And then you both, both the shoulder goes back to neutral and your head goes back to your starting place, which is very light. You're not actually touching the right ear to the right shoulder by any means, is just in that direction. That's it. Okay, now leave your head in the middle and simply take the shoulder, the right shoulder up again, way up.

Notice how, how high it goes, right? Like feel it, feel it in yourself. Notice if there's a change, if that made it even easier. And then of course you let it go down, down, down that elevator. So see, we just added another little variation and this is how the Feldenkrais method works because it's so powerful to add these non habitual kind of movement explorations in gets the attention of the nervous system in a positive way because we're clear, we don't go into pain, we don't go into any sense of struggle.

So your nervous system likes the feeling of ease and pleasure and wants to expand on it. So this is just a little taste, but you might find that now it's much smoother to move your shoulder in a circle. So that's just A little taste of it. So we're constantly, our brains are constantly rewiring ourselves, okay? We're creating new neural connections when we encounter something that's novel, something that's non habitual.

And that's what makes these small, curious explorations so powerful. So I want to emphasize too that in the work that we do here in the Feldenkrais method, we really emphasize slowing down and paying attention. Because that's how your nervous system can feel differences. That's how it can detect what is a better option. And that's how it can choose to help you organize and coordinate your movement in a healthier way.

I'll tell you the story about a woman named Cheryl. She came to one of my in person workshops years ago. She was a horse trainer. Nine years previously, she had badly broken her left ankle. She fell off a horse. It was this bad accident. She had surgery. She had, you know, hardware put in her ankle, which thank God they did. It was helpful. But she never could use the ankle easily again.

She had pain, she had stiffness, she had all this trouble. And she did tons of physical therapy. She did some other modalities as well. She just did everything she could to heal. But she continued to have an issue with that ankle. And she just at that point then was like, well, this is how I'm going to be, right? This is what I'm. How it's going to be. Well, she was in my workshop.

We were doing a Feldenkrais lesson. So it was a full length, like 45 minute probably lesson. I remember, actually the one it was, it was called Pelvic Clock. And it's such a, it's a classic for a good reason. Matter of fact, it's in my effortless balance sitting series that's going on right now. But so during the class, as you know, it was in person watching everyone I could see she was kind of struggling with some of the movements, you know, encouraging her, just do it easily, do it easily, et cetera.

Then suddenly she just like her nervous system really got it. And she was moving her pelvis like so much more smoothly. It was quite beautiful. And then so at the end of the lesson, she stands up and she cannot believe it. Her ankle is completely different. Her ankle. Now we didn't do anything directly with the foot or the ankle. Okay, we're moving what we were focusing on that lesson.

It's really moving the pelvis relative to the legs. Okay. The legs were like out of the picture. And she was just overcome with emotion actually, because the change was Unbelievable. And what's interesting was it affected her in so many different ways because her whole demeanor was different. And this is another wonderful aspect of the Feldenkrais method that I find is that you generalize then that feeling of ease and pleasure, so it like, transfers to other things.

So, for example, my husband, who's also a Feldenkrais practitioner, he had met Cheryl earlier, and then he came that afternoon to work privately with some of the students in the class and he saw Cheryl. He didn't work with her at that point. He had. He saw her and he said to me, wow, she looks so. He didn't know anything about what happened, you know, in the class. And he said, she looks so different.

It's like the weight of the world is off her shoulders. I mean, that's how remarkable her transformation was. So that's an instant where, yeah, her change happened with just this experience of learning to move in a different way. And I'm not saying that's going to happen for everybody, okay. But it really just shows you what is possible and how all those years of trying to help ourselves and struggling and straining and trying different modalities, some of which, of course, are very valuable modalities, these.

But what she needed was a shift in awareness, okay? And that's what the Feldenkrais method was able to give her, which is pretty cool. So, again, she was a great example of change that could happen just in a pain free, easy, simple way. And that's why it's very hard for people to believe, you know, right about this. It's like, how could it be that quick? But it can be.

So. So let me give you another little exercise. And not a movement exercise, more like a mindset shift. You can think of it as a reframe. You know, if you're ever feeling like I'm always stiff or I'm always sore or I'm not athletic or I'm not graceful, I'm not, you know, I don't have good posture. Ask yourself, what if I could. What if I could be that, like, what if I just let that go?

What if I surprised myself? What if I took on the Persona of someone who's graceful or athletic? What would that feel like? What would that look like? It's interesting how just this little shift can change things. And what I like to do is to couple that with actual experiences of that. So in my Feldenkrais classes, for example, I often encourage people to just say they, they, they have that identity that they feel like, oh, they're not, they're not coordinated or they're not flexible or something like that.

So what I encourage people to do is to make the movements so small, so small that it does feel easy, it does feel graceful, it does feel coordinated. Now sometimes that's just doing the movement in your head, just mentally, just in your imagination, but it sets you on that path. So now you're giving your brain evidence that you are graceful, elegant, coordinated, athletic, you name it, whatever you.

You want. So that's really key, is you want to give your brain literal, like movement evidence that you are this, like life experiences. I think such a big thing in the Feldenkrais method that I found is it allows you to feel differently. You can just feel differently, so you respond to your environment differently. And again, it's, it's, it. It builds on the incredible ability of our nervous system to adapt to changes in our environment.

What we call neuroplasticity. And that's why things can change so quickly. As a matter of fact, I'll tell you a story. Years ago, this is actually how I opened my book Grow Young with youh Dog. I opened the book with this story because it was so dramatic. And I'll just say it very, very briefly here to summarize it, but bottom line was someone asked me. You know, a client called me.

I'd never met them before, but they asked me to work with their elderly dog, a little poodle who had a stroke. She had a very severe stroke where she was paralyzed on one side. Like her legs were stick straight, she couldn't move. She was. She had been like this for a while. The vets all said just, she needs to be euthanized. She had to be, you know, fed and, you know, water squirted in her mouth, etc.

And she was just, you know, soiling herself. They had like these plastic sheets down. So they get there to her home. And anyway, again, I, I go into more detail in my book grow young with your Dog. But the bottom line is I worked with the dog every other day for three sessions. And each day there was a tiny little bit of progress. Like it was crazy. Like at first I thought, I don't know if I can help this dog.

And by the way, she was blind and deaf and, you know, things like that. But it was the mobility that we wanted to bring back. So after the third session, I did something different in that session. And she stood up, Believe it or not, she stood up. Now she had. She actually stood up for the first time after the second session. But she was using the couch, they had a big couch.

And she was using that to lean against kind of like a crutch. She was very intelligent, very intelligent. And so she ended up on. After the third session. She stood up though on her own, unsupported. But here's the kicker. She reversed which legs were paralyzed. It was crazy. And for a split second my heart stopped because I'm like, oh. Because the other legs were stick straight now on the other side of her body.

And then she just did a little shake and she walked off like as if nothing had ever happened. And her, her person started basically screaming with joy, saying I wish we had before and after videos. And all I kept thinking was, you wish we had before and after videos because it was such an amazing transformation. And I always say, like, with all the wonderful human teachers I've had over the years, that dog was one of my best teachers because she showed me power of neuroplasticity.

She showed me how easily things can change when you go from being paralyzed on one side to very temporarily being paralyzed on the other, you know, and, and then of course shaking that off, literally and just walking as if nothing's wrong. And I went, I never worked with her again. I, I went and visited her a couple of months later. She was still fine. She was still fine.

She was motoring around her yard at a little hill and everything. She, she was navigating everything just fine. It was amazing. So again, that's one example of how our nervous systems are capable of change. We're capable of so much more improvement. I think then we give ourselves credit for. And the beauty of by the way, because many of you probably know, right, I also work with animals of all kinds, especially horses and dogs and, but animals of anyone with a nervous system.

I often say. And this work in some ways is even faster with, with non human animals because they don't have a belief that they can't improve. Okay. A lot of times our mindset gets in the way and we think, oh no, the doctor told me this, or no, I read on Google that, you know, this can't work or whatever it is, whatever the belief is the animals don't have that.

They haven't googled their symptoms or anything like that. So they, they're often same thing is like working with children. Oh, I'll tell you another quick story. A little boy came to me as a client. He was 22 months old. Obviously his, you know, actually it was his grandparents that brought him to me. He was 22 months old. He had call It a mild case of cerebral palsy where his right side, his right arm, his right leg were very contracted.

He couldn't use them very well at all. He never had walked. He just used to try to crawl around using one side of himself. So he was going, by the way to therapy five days a week. A wonderful place. I actually went and visited with all his therapists later. Wonderful place. And I'm sure they were very, very helpful to him. And I worked with him. And again, it was interesting because he wasn't that easy to work with because he was a little, he didn't know why he was there.

He's 22 months old or, you know, why am I here, right. So I, you know, milk was flying all over the place. Grandma used to bring chicken nuggets. They were all over my office. You know, I had toys for him, etc. But what was so cool was again the third session I was, I was helping him organize his pelvis, you know, over his legs in a different way.

And he went home with grandma and they got in the house and he walked towards his grandfather. It was crazy. She called me up, kind of crazy, hysterical, happy, you know, and that woman, she was so amazing and she was so grateful. She actually paid my tuition to attend even more training and working with special needs kids. So that was really fun. And I haven't spent a lot of time working with special needs kids just to put that out there, or children of, you know, human children of any, any situation.

But that just shows you. And again, I think part of the reason that, that the work worked so quickly is he didn't have any preconceived notions that he couldn't do it. He was too young to know about cerebral palsy and what that meant for his future. And if I haven't walked by this age, that might mean this or that. I didn't know that. Anyway, those are just some examples of how this work can be so transformative for people.

And right now I'm actually teaching a course called Effortless Balance Sitting. And it's, it's great for anyone who sits, whether you're an equestrian, you're not an equestrian, it doesn't matter if you're sitting at any point in your life, this can be helpful for you. And it doesn't even just help sitting, it helps with all your movement. So you might want to check that out. I'll make sure I link to it wherever, wherever you're listening or watching this.

I'll make sure there's a link in the description. So you can check it out. And even though I'm teaching it live, it doesn't matter when you join because you get all the replays, so you have lifetime access to it. So we have some. We have people joining. You know, like, as a matter of fact, today we had more people joining. So it's, it's ongoing, so it's open for, for enrollment.

I'll put it that way. So, again, just to sum up, just to sum up, let's talk about how you can do more of this in your own life. Okay, What I would say is just think about this week. Choose one little area of your life that you can approach with curiosity. So instead of criticizing or pushing, ask yourself, what happens if I try to do this differently? And look for lightness, look for ease, look for pleasure.

What I always love. One of my favorite questions is, how can this feel easier? And this can be anything, whether it's movement, whether it's packing for a trip, whether it's, you know, going through traffic, whatever it is, whatever, whatever situation is, how can it feel easier? Ask yourself that, how can this feel easier? And then I'd love to hear from you. Like, if you explore this, if you think about, like if you embrace the idea that change, that improvement can happen in a.

In a pleasurable instant, how does that play out in your life? What changed about that? Maybe you changed your whole perspective on something and things got a lot easier. So let me know. You can find me on social media. Email is often actually the best way. I don't spend a lot of time on social media, to be honest, but hit me [email protected] and again, if you want any information about that effortless balance sitting.

It's a Feldenkrais series we're doing. Get in now because the price is very, very good and I expect it to go up later. So you might want to get in now. Anyway, just putting that out there for you. So, okay, just to review. Remember, change doesn't have to be hard. It can happen in a single pleasurable instant. Replace judgment with curiosity. You want to create a sense of safety for your nervous system.

So be curious, be playful, be adventurous. Remember that small, gentle explorations both in movement and mindset, can lead to profound, lasting change. And finally, ask, how can this feel easier? Okay, well, that's it for today. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here for listening and subscribing, and I look forward to talking to you again very soon. Bye for now.