PART 1 : HOW CREDENTIALISM AND AI BLOCK REAL CHANGE AND ERASE HUMAN GENIUS
Author’s Note: This article (Parts 1 and 2) represents my personal opinions and life experience, offered as an invitation for reflection not advice.
My focus is on facilitating Somatic and Emotional Learning not to persuade you but to invite you to reflect and come to your own understanding. It is not a substitute for clinical and medical advice.
Personal development and somatic and emotional learning are powerful processes for individual and social change. They enable us to navigate everyday life challenges that prevent us from feeling happy with ourselves, and support us in building fulfilling, cooperative relationships.
These learning sessions can also be valuable when physical fatigue or bodily tension is aggravated by daily life stress. Looking at the mind-body connection from an experiential learning perspective is especially helpful in this respect.
When you feel nervous, overwhelmed, or stuck, your first instinct is probably to try and “fix” the feeling. You might seek out strategies to minimize it, look for quick distractions, or try to rationalise your way out of the discomfort.
But what if that difficult emotion isn’t something to be fixed at all?What if it is actually trying to tell you something crucial about your life?
Is Emotional and Bodily Tension a Sign That Something is Wrong With You?
Donald Marmara, Core Development Sydney
How we view everyday stress, worry, or moments of feeling stuck depends on the lens we use. From a somatic and emotional learning perspective, these challenging moments are often signs that your inner system is functioning as it should.
by Donald Marmara, Emotional and Somatic Learning Facilitator, Core Development Sydney
Most of us are not terribly good at dealing with our emotions, let alone speaking about them. How do we find the right words, and be sensitive yet honest when talking about our own and other people’s emotions? Is it always appropriate to be honest about what we really feel?
by Donald Marmara, Personal Development Facilitator, Core Development Sydney
My Early Journey: Overcoming Emotional Distress
At the age of 14, I experienced severe emotional distress, anxiety, and depression. At the time, I was put on a conventional path of clinical diagnosis and prescribed an ever-increasing dosage of psychotropic drugs, with the expectation that I would be dependent upon them for the rest of my life.
I’ve been to many networking events, workshops and seminars that place so much emphasis on being extraordinary that I’d come out feeling that there must be something very wrong with me for not aspiring to reach the dizzy heights of extraordinariness(!) that these people claim to have achieved.
So you’re feeling worried or out of sorts. Perhaps you don’t feel quite right, but you find it hard to describe exactly how you feel. You know your life can be better, but you don’t know how to get there.
You may have already tried various approaches without getting the results you are looking for. Maybe you’re feeling disillusioned and starting to wonder if there’s anything that can actually help you feel better.
This is what my experiential work in somatic and emotional learning is about. Restoring our capacity to give and receive love.
As a society, and indeed as a human race, we have moved so far away from our true nature, from what we know in our hearts – ie that our true nature is loving, cooperative and compassionate – that we we have come to believe that human nature is destructive.
When I was 18 years old, I was a good amateur table-tennis player. I never made it to a final, but I made it to a semifinal and a number of quarterfinals.
In the first round of a national competition I was drawn against a player who had one leg shorter than the other and consequently limped and was unable to move fast.
