Life/Livework
Alertness, intensity of perception, promptness in reacting to situations: on stage, on the job, and in life
Life (live) Work is an activity that involves the mind and the body. Thanks to music, voice and movement it increases one's personal capacity to "see" reality without being influenced by one's emotions or mood, and it allows the individual to see everything in its real dimensions.
Life Work is useful for dancers to help them improve their stage presence and it helps them react promptly to difficult and unexpected situations.
It is useful for the professional woman or man to understand work situations and business relations.
It is useful for us all to dampen our emotional excesses and to transform the difficulties of life into an opportunity for personal growth.
Life/Livework Rehabilitative Training
IT'S CALLED LIFE (LIVE) WORK
GOALS:
recovering from physical and/or psychological traumas; overcoming the consequences effects of a disease; increasing one's ability to perceive reality and relationships with others.
WHOM IS THIS FOR:
this is a rehabilitative training for those who have difficulty communicating such as isolation, depression, insecurity; degenerative diseases, psychological traumas and for those who wish to improve their professional life productivity, and their ability of analyzing and solving situations in their job and profession.
HOW DOES THIS WORK?
This activity enables the participants to tune in and be in the now, which requires and attitude and openness to continual adjournment, just like phases of life (for this the name Life Work). This means that we must be in tune with nature and with the circumstances we find ourselves in. Often times our emotions can get the best of us, and we get confused about our true priorities and our values. Life Work helps to reappraise the real value of things, and to identify our problem, what is not working right within us (our poison), and to work on that aspect.
The trauma can be physical (like a tumor) or emotional (like a tragic event); slowly as one begins to be aware of the circumstances, one learns to "see" reality and understand why we do certain things. This new awareness usually occurs in the studio: understanding why we are doing what we are doing at a given time. We can apply this same thing to our daily life, our work, our family, or even when caught in traffic. With this new awareness of reality there almost always occurs a change in one's posture and a change in one's psychological attitude.
HOW CAN ONE RECONNECT WITH REALITY?
By working especially with the voice, by using an external medium, music, and with movement. Voice and music create contact with the moment.
One acquires a keener perception and an exact sense of time.
By stimulating the person in the present, he or she ends up remembering facts and episodes of the past (what we hide in our personal closet), they could be either positive or negative experiences which can be used in different ways for that day or for the future.
WHAT HAPPENS IN THE STUDIO:
often being stimulated by the music, voice, movement the students release the real side of themselves, their authentic natural side (right or left brain) and they reacquire a sense of time, with a simple act as putting on a watch, after having ignored it for years, or putting it spontaneously on their right or left wrist. The main characteristics of the person could become positive or negative depending on how they are being used: in an active manner (in tune with the circumstances) or passive (the dimension of a dreamer out of touch with reality). Life Work focuses on keeping everyone in tune with the moment, aims at enabling one to always be aware, to have decision making capabilities, to gain perspective, to understand situations and face them, thanks to the constructive recovery of one's own past. To attain this one needs to always be active.
In CONCLUSION: to be in good health one always needs to work (for life, lifework).
Lifework: the Work Continues
In this article written by Viviana Guadalupi, Wiebe Moeys tells us the goals of these months of work together:
- Knowing how to solve a problem in any given situation.
- Succeeding in not losing oneself in heavy and unproductive thoughts, but knowing how to overcome them through REASONING.
- Succeeding in our profession even in the most unexpected situations.
These are our primary goals of our research in the next months. This endeavor starts from within and has the objective to develop a strategy that can help us to be logical and coherent even in situations that are unexpected in our work and outside.
There are a few fundamental elements that help develop these attitudes:
- Assuming as our starting point the circumstances we find ourselves in;
- Utilizing, as stimuli, the interactions with the people who surround us, the speed of action, the voice and the music all of which we can use in ways to increase our perception ability;
- The COURAGE to take new unknown paths in our lives.
Starting off from the "circumstances" means to always start from
what is available to us in the very moment that we have to act.
One should never act on the basis of how one would like the situation
to be, but on the basis of the real situation. For this reason we
cannot allow ourselves to be caught up in our thoughts and fantasies.
They are not in the real time dimension; they can easily be dismissed
because they are part of an individual's emotional sphere. We reflect
when we "pull the plug", when we are alone and we pull the plug.
This signifies shutting off reality.
In second place reflecting also means trying something, and to assume
that our actions are a tentative, is like allowing the thought that
we might not succeed in attaining what we are working towards. It
is un-motivating and strongly suggesting failure. Knowing how to
communicate and nurture our strong and real motivation is the first
step in the direction that we are talking about. The best motivation
for anyone is the knowledge that one is useful and very productive.
In doing are own job there is hardly anytime for idle thoughts.
One would lose grip with the practical aspect of our job on the
basis of which we are judged, because our work is the element which
presents us and represents us.
With all of this we don't believe that one shouldn't elaborate and
internalize what we carry out with our work. We only believe that
one should do it with a plan of operations. We speak of Reasoning
(not of reflection) that pertains to a dynamic sphere, which continually
gathers stimuli from outside - an attitude of openness- and this
protects us from the risk of getting stuck on ourselves. By reasoning
one is already in movement, it's already a step in trying, attempting
something, experimenting with something. It's succeeding in "seeing
in time" the evolution of a moment. It is always a moment of clarity.
We risk to be caught by the temptation of drifting in our own reflections
when we find ourselves in a time of difficulty. Instead, it is exactly
in moments of difficulty that we need a plan of operations the most.
Don't stop and think but WORK more than ever. By doing this we give
ourselves an effective chance to overcome difficulty, to understand
what our limits were, once we have already overcome them, that is
when it can no longer harm or hurt us. In this way, what was once
a point of weakness a moment ago, would become without a doubt a
starting point and even an element to strengthen ourselves, because
we would immediately experience the positive outcome of our work.
For example, listening to critiques we receive regarding our work
only become constructive if we work on them immediately. This means
listening actively and avoiding the risk hearing them in a passive
way.
To define this concept we must underline that when we stimulate
a circumstance our memories resurface. In other words, when we are
able to stir a situation in the present, in means that we have unconsciously
brought out a memory of our past and we can use it consciously to
elaborate it healthily. We are able to foresee a future outcome
and are able to take control of new situations because we know beforehand
what will happen.
The temptation to be captured by one's reflections can only be
avoided if we give room for our instincts to respond rather than
to thought out and constructed reactions. Instinctive reactions
are always the most logical. Reacting with our instincts means that
we haven't had the time to reflect on the need to adapt our attitudes
and thoughts to cultural and social conditioning imposed upon us.
This conditioning diverts and upsets the natural prevalent side
(left brain or right brain) that each one of us has. For instance,
cultural assumptions that just because are so spread throughout
a society, and for a such long time, gain authority, become unquestioned
assumptions that effect the natural prevalence of one side of our
brain diverting it. These are simple data, but extremely revealing.
In most countries one drives the car in the right lane: a left handed
person has to adjust without much fuss; the placement of the strings
on a guitar is meant for a right handed person, not to mention the
guitar classes: a left handed person either invert the order of
the strings and holds the guitar with the other hand or has to make
an unbelievable effort to play. Even some knives are serrated only
on one side of the blade which is the one used by right handed people.
In some cases, all these elements together may become the cause
for the unnatural development of one side oft the brain. In acting
with speed the more logical side emerges, and we use it to follow
the path most consistent with our natural inclination.
Other than speed, another tool we have at hand to stimulate instinctive
responses is the people surrounding us, who we live with or interact
with on many levels, whether they are on our wave length or are
our opponents. If we are able to "see him or her in time" our opponent
can only be of great value to us to abandon our rigid mental attitudes,
and to learn how to handle and respond appropriately to sudden and
unexpected situations, so not to risk falling in the trap of our
routine and habitual ways. Continually accepting confrontation with
others, meaning our opponents and not our accomplices, accepting
their interference in ones personal and professional dimensions,
means being open to breaking routines continuously and to always
know how to recreate a new balance. By this we mean a dynamic equilibrium
in perpetual evolution, very different from a static equilibrium,
which ends up letting a person sit on his hands, his achievements
and abilities without giving himself or herself the opportunity
to push his or her limits. The capacity of being empathetic is an
obvious sign of being open. The people who surround us, when "used"
as a push coming from outside of ourselves and our small personal
space, contribute not only to help us conquer an equilibrium in
our daily lives, as we have said, but also and mainly an internal
equilibrium, built on our certainties, and tangible and concrete
considerations.
We conclude with the inclination toward experimentation, not as
an extreme value. The courage that is necessary to endeavor (and
just to try) in new directions, does not arrive unexpectedly and
suddenly. It is a strength that one acquires through experience,
with the firm awareness based on one's work-profession. It has to
be faced with enthusiasm. If this professional soundness were missing
one would fall into a euphoric state, hard to handle and caused
by an approach to one's work that is not consistent with the notion
of dealing with the "present circumstance".
At this point we take the opportunity to restate that we do not
intend to dictate a set of rules to follow in order to reach a set
goal. It would be in contradiction with our belief in the importance
of experiencing. We are practicing! Specially since pointing at
only one path/direction causes great temptation to stray, probably
rightfully so.
Wiebe Moeys (contents)
Viviana Guadalupi (writer)
LIFEWORK REHABILITATIVE TRAINING
Group work or private lesson by appointment held by Wiebe Moeys in collaboration with
"Center of Medicine for Man" of Dr. Miriam Malfatti - C.so Magenta, 27 - 20123 Milan - Italy
DANCE THERAPY and REHABILITATIVE TRAINING LIFEWORK with WIEBE MOEYS
For information call: +39 340-4739602 - E-mail: contact@wiebemoeys.com