The power of the unknown,
a place for space,
drop deep within,
where mind is matter,
mine your matter where your mind matters less
I’ll meet you there.
and we will dance.
Dialogue unfolding, unspoken,
where each player can only play their part.
and no more.
As the clarity of straight-arrowed answers
shoot dead the conversation,
so what must be cultivated
is an openness to what’s emerging,
tending a space for something new.

Context

I have recently recieved some lovely feedback from two of my clients.

“[Ali’s] knowledgable guidance of the body provided me with a powerful way to (re)connect with that innate capacity of knowing, reawakening the sensibility to feel myself from deep within, allowing my body to heal itself after it has been reminded how to move and flow naturally.”

Dahlia Freyde Nathan.

“What Ali did felt intuitive and gentle. He basically facilitated my body to heal itself.”

Sophie Bolton. Read the full versions

Entering the Unknown

These quotes seem to have captured something that has been coming up for me lately in a few different conversations, a concept I’ve been pondering in the context of the work I do. There is a part of the work that is all about entering that space of the unknown, of presence and intuition. beyond the visible, the verbal and sometimes even the sensory. To begin with this can feel like an uncomfortable place to be, after all haven’t I spent a lot of time, money and effort studying the body to reach a place of knowing? of expertise?

I appreciate the irony that ten years or more dancing, over three years of training in Body-mind Centering, further Anatomy and Physiology training and more recently, embarking on Craniosacral Biodynamics, as well as on-going self practice and teaching in somatic movement, contact improvisation and embodiment have brought me closer to the realm of the unknown.

I am completely fascinated by the body. I love to dive in and discover more, the investigation is part of a rich ongoing journey. So it is very interesting that in my one to one work, I still meet many cases where what exactly has happened to create the symptoms presented is not really knowable though study, or through analysis of external symptoms or even through dialogue, and the ways that clients experience their own sufferings can add layers of confusion to attempts at ‘diagnosis’.

Yet as a good teacher once said to me:

“when you’re confused there is an opportunity for learning.”

Thomas Greil

The conversation I have with each client at the start of a session is our starting point; a pointer to orientate us. There is a conflict that arises in applying purely mechanical models to the organic living tissue of the body. So a large part of what I do and why I believe it to be successful is that the results come from a different kind of conversation in which you don’t know the outcome. What you do know is that creating a space for the body itself to speak will yield what the person needs.

There is a deep listening, an invitation, and a shared sense of emerging possibility. It is a generative space (Otto Scharmer) I have found myself in the realms of the intangible and am learning to trust what arises there.

Questions

The games which we can keep playing are not the ones where we find the answer, but where we are inspired to keep asking more questions.

So to end I have a questions for you (there is no right or wrong answer):

What do you look for in a health practitioner / bodyworker / therapist ?

• Someone who can fix you ?
• Someone who creates a space for you to heal?

If you’d like to disucss any personal health issue with me please give me a call 07805762998