03/09/2026
Finding your balance | Blog
How do we balance ourselves, not only in the way we stand over our feet, but in broader life too? How do we balance rest and action, consolidation and moving forwards?
And how can you change those things when your current habits don't serve you well? Firstly it's about noticing if something is uncomfortable, or needs changing, and that depends on how well you can sense what your body is telling you. Then making an adjustment, trying a shift here or there, and seeing if it works better.
From possibility to habit
One of the crucial parts of human existence is that we have a body. Our lives are embodied. We're not only the 0s and 1s of information. We have senses. We can feel.
We start life with so many possibilities, highly responsive and able to learn like a sponge. As we get older and repeat patterns we begin to form habits. Which we need, to build skills and free up brain space for new learning. And yet once they become too fixed they can reduce the range of our responses.
Ageing feels like a two-edged sword. On the one hand, you get to know yourself better each year: what's important to you, what you need and what you don't. But you may also notice yourself becoming more set in your ways, rather than staying open to responding to each situation a little differently.
Balance isn't a fixed state.
Balance isn't a fixed state. Even standing requires constant tiny adjustments that we barely notice. Some soldiers on parade faint partly because they suppress these small movements in order to remain completely still.
I think something similar happens with rest and work in our lives. Sensing becomes increasingly important once we reach adulthood. If you can notice smaller changes in effort, comfort or uprightness, you have more chance of adjusting before you're off balance, before you reach the point of strain.
After all, too much stability is lying down, and even that becomes uncomfortable after a while. We're designed both to move and to rest. What helps you feel safe can also limit you if it stops you trying something different.
Ageing and Adaptability
Maybe ageing well is partly about adaptability. Not preserving an idea of yourself unchanged, but staying able to respond to the current needs of who you are now, rather than who you were ten or twenty years ago.
This is where Feldenkrais can help.
At difficult points during my professional training, I kept coming back to something I noticed in my teachers: many of them moved with an ease you might associate with someone much younger. Whatever their background, they were often still able to get up and down from the floor comfortably well into their eighties.
It wasn't simply the result of stretching or exercise, but of years spent learning how to sense themselves, organise movement and find alternatives. That didn't mean they never had pain or injury. It meant they had more resources to draw on when things changed. That's been part of my own journey too.
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Find your balance this September: join me for weekly classes beginning on Thursday 10th September at 8pm, or for my Morning Feldenkrais Practice series, which restarts on Monday 14th September. Visit my website (link in my bio) to learn more.
