The Week of Inward Looking: Day 1 - Bendiness

The Week of Inward Looking: Day 1 – Bendiness

December 26, 2011 in General

Author Susan Piver and I are hosting "The Week of Inward Looking" during this week between Christmas and the New Year. It occured to us that this inbetween week is a time for examination, a time to build a bridge to a peaceful, joyful, creative, and wildly successful 2012–whatever success means to you.

So we invited five extraordinary thinkers to join us in creating a 7-day journey, starting today.

You are welcome to join our Facebook group to connect with others participating in The Week of Inward Looking, or not.

You are welcome to post your answers on that Facebook page, or not.

You are welcome to journal in your private journal, on your blog, anywhere you'd like–the questions are simply put into the universe for you to consider as we move in this week toward 2012. Share as you would like.

Each day will have a different questioner, and a different theme. You'll hear from me, Susan Piver, Jonathan Fields, Ken Robert, Andrew Mellen, Jen Louden, and Seth Godin. I hope you'll join us in this exploration.

DECEMBER 26

QUESTION #1

From Patti Digh

Topic: Body (Bendiness)

Question: Where have I learned and lived in 2011? In my head, in my body, or both? What would living more fully in my body in 2012 bring to me? How can I embody life and learning as I move through this liminal space between now and next? How can I more fully learn from the neck down in 2012?

In our hyper-intellectualized disembodied world, we sometimes allow technology to take the place of our bodies, don't we? We sit, with only our arms moving as we type. We've even begun to distrust what our bodies say to us. Instead, we learn from the neck up, when learning from the neck down and fully embodying life will provide us with such greater riches. What do you allow yourself to really feel in your body, without the need to clarify, intellectualize, provide proof, capture with data, or block? What can you allow yourself to really feel in your body in 2012?

About Patti Digh

Patti Digh is an author, speaker, and educator who builds learning communities and gets to the heart of difficult topics. Her work over the last three decades has focused on diversity, inclusion, social justice, and living and working mindfully. She has developed diversity strategies and educational programming for major nonprofit and corporate organizations and has been a featured speaker at many national and international conferences.

5 comments to " The Week of Inward Looking: Day 1 – Bendiness "


Amy

December 26, 2011 AT 12:33PM

Education, especially in this day and age has the tendency to compartmentalize and disembody experience, isolating it into purely intellectual tasks. As valuable as book learning can be, it does have the tendency to discount direct experience, disembody knowledge into facts, and divide up the world into “subjects” with a host of “facts” that should be memorized and regurgitated on a test. Combined with the greater use of technology, it adds a dimension of passivity to the whole process of education that was unheard of fifteen years ago.

I do not think the standardized testing movement would be possible without the growth in technology, just as I often wonder if the loss of hands-on-learning and PE are also casualties of the greater reliance on technology (this is why I find the Wii vaguely disturbing).

Linda Richardson

December 26, 2011 AT 10:43PM

What great questions, and I’ve been thinkign all day how relevant to today. With ongoing back issues, being fully present in my body and aware of posture, standing, sitting & moving in the best way to care and nurture my body has become vitally important to my wellbeing. For a creative workspace I am planning work stations for both art and the computer that I can alternately stand at or use a stool. Practical must support intellectual practice.

rebecca

January 2, 2012 AT 7:58PM

I love this topic! I am getting to be a better skier and sometimes I realize I can’t feel my feet. It’s easier to ski when I can! Feeling first helps with knowing what to do. My body will tell me if I can TUNE IN.

Skiing teaches me to face fears like nothing else right now. Skiing the trees or behind my 15 year old son…I am doing well to stay upright. My body demands that I NOTICE and I can take that attention into any other arena I want. What a gift.

Thanks for asking.

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