Study and Discussion of the Moving Center

[whitecoast]

Thanks, Laura, for this thread.

I, definitely, have a strong moving center orientation. Even a child I loved to walk. I hiked many miles as a kid, in the process discovering many wilderness areas in the area. If I went to a movie I would walk downtown and back.

As an adult I ran for exercise for nearly 20 years in all kinds of weather. I climbed mountains each summer. I loved the physical effort of mountain climbing, though it drained my energy. Super efforts indeed. When I lay in bed after a day on the mountain it's like my spirit is released. Visual images of the climb flow with deep feeling of wellness and contentment.

My intellectual center is also very active. Reading, studying, learning new ideas points of view.

The emotional center mostly seems to be left out. Somehow I came to seem emotions as a weakness, a vulnerability. Ba-ha breathing has helped release emotions, although usually not during the session itself. The emotions can overwhelm me the day after a ba-ha session, I sit quietly and break into sobs.

No doubt my centers steal functions from each other. Thinking with emotions and body, trying to feel with my mind.

Mac

What you're describing sounds similar to my own situation. I love going on walks in all weather- somehow I felt as if rain recharges me. I've never considered that it may mean I have a movement center orientation. I always thought I was level 3, with my fascination with mental theories and conjecture. As I said in the "what programs have you discovered?" thread, I have sex abuse in the mental center, meaning I take those mental energies too far in inappropriate ways. It never occurred to me though that it's possible to have that and still be movement oriented. What you described about enjoying mountain climbing and those super efforts- that sound almost like sex abuse in the moving center... I may be wrong but have you considered that possibility?

For trying to break free of having all center subordinated to the moving center, maybe one technique would be to uncouple the functioning of the mental and emotional from postural thinking and imitation? If I have a particular posture while reading or thinking, if I force myself out of it and resume thinking, it actually becomes more difficult. Similar to trying to convert inflation into breathing, the opposite could work by restricting the kinesthetic aspect of thinking and in doing so encourage the mental or emotional center to realize it's own energies, without being overtaken by the contributions of muscle memory. FWIW, that's my two cents.

One last question. For those of you familiar with NLP, do you think there could be a relationship between being a kinesthetic thinker and being moving center oriented?

 

[Laura]

Just because you like physical activity doesn't mean you are weighted in the moving center. Ark walks a lot too, but he does it because it helps him to think. The main thing that is going on is intellectual.

I think a person could be man #1 and be totally lazy.

 

[obyvatel]

Yes, Man 1 could very well be physically lazy and spend his energy in daydreaming initiated by the moving center.

[quote author=ISOTM]
Daydreaming is absolutely the opposite of 'useful' mental activity. 'Useful' in this case means activity directed towards a definite aim and undertaken for the sake of obtaining a definite result. Daydreaming does not pursue any aim, does not strive after any result. The motive for daydreaming always lies in the emotional or in the moving center. The actual process is carried on by the thinking center. The inclination to daydream is due partly to the laziness of the thinking center, that is, its attempts to avoid the efforts connected with work directed towards a definite aim and going in a definite direction, and partly to the tendency of the emotional and the moving centers to repeat to themselves, to keep alive or to recreate experiences, both pleasant and unpleasant, that have been previously lived through or 'imagined.'
[/quote]

 

[webglider]

Quote from Paragon:

Recently however I have been able to move my consciousness or my centre of gravity from my head/intellectual centre and emotional/feeling centre, to a place outside all 3. I'm observing how I'm feeling emotionally, and how my posture is, if there is any tension, and what automatic negative thought loops are present which the other centres could be reinforcing etc.

So today in work I was able to keep calm in very intense situations, that I usually would be struggling to breathe in! Others noticed my calmness and commented on it, other colleuges projected their anger and irritation at customers rudeness at me, which upsets me usually and I even felt the same 'rush' of sickening energy but I did not identify with it and observed from a 'different' place. The emotion was there, burning away inside of me, but it was not Me. It was the most euphoric thing I have ever felt! It was as if I had stepped outside myself and was watching from a more objective viewpoint. All of my anxiety was gone, I felt very happy/content, i was able to perform my job much much better and best of all, I felt like I had a certain kind of Freedom, to choose how to act in any situation!! This state of being can be so easily lost as personally, it's quite an abstract thing for me, the idea of 'being' in a certain centre. So to be aware of my moving centre, the emotional centre, and also the intellectual centre, to be aware of all this and experience all of this at the Same time, is truly breathtaking. To be in another Higher place observing myself and utilising all 3 centres for what they are designed to do, makes me feel like I can do Anything. I feel like life is fun. Nothing is an unpleasant effort, it just Is what it is. Such things as Cleaning the house, talking to people becomes simple and no social anxiety gets in the way (it may be felt, but one does not identify with it). It feels like my essence shines through on everything that I do.

I think that I'm also experiencing some of what you describe. It's very exciting!

I haven't had any negative thought loops since I started experimenting with the moving center. Instead, I started working on an art project - something "it" never does. I am fascinated by trees; and I'm exploring that fascination through the emotional center, (I think), by conceiving of and working on an art project. I'm not identified with the picture being good or not - I just feel joyful working with the colors and shapes and composition. I also can observe myself as I do this noting, in a non-judgemental way, certain habits that I have as I work that are not serving me well and that I would need to make an effort in order to change them.

I'm wondering if a lot of the problems I've been having in my life are because the thinking center and the emotional center have become too emeshed so that I don't know where one begins and the other ends. They kind of feed off of each other in a very destructive way so that Gurdjieff describes - worrying about things that may happen in the future of which I have absolutely no control.

Since I've been disconnected from the moving center so long, it's really exciting to explore its possibilities. I have to say that I've been happy since I started doing this work.

 

[Joe]

At this point, Jefferson, you CAN'T apply any of it to yourself because everything you do is moving center driven.

I'm not sure if you understand this whole "center" business Jefferson (it is kind of hard to pin down), but maybe a good way to think about it for yourself is that you being moving center driven means that you tend to act and speak without first thinking it through. I'm sure you can imagine all the results of this, but one result is probably that you don't really listen to others when they speak, and you speak too much and too often yourself. So maybe practicing listening to others and not allowing yourself to automatically respond without proper contemplation first would be a good exercise for you.

 

[Thomas Alan]

What you're describing sounds similar to my own situation. I love going on walks in all weather- somehow I felt as if rain recharges me. I've never considered that it may mean I have a movement center orientation. I always thought I was level 3, with my fascination with mental theories and conjecture. As I said in the "what programs have you discovered?" thread, I have sex abuse in the mental center, meaning I take those mental energies too far in inappropriate ways. It never occurred to me though that it's possible to have that and still be movement oriented. What you described about enjoying mountain climbing and those super efforts- that sound almost like sex abuse in the moving center... I may be wrong but have you considered that possibility?

Yes, thanks whitecoast, very likely. In the section on the sex center G mentions that things done with an uncalled-for vehemence indicate energy from the sex center being used by other centers. Or the sex center trying to use lower energies. I see this a lot in my life.

I sometimes pride myself on being "enthusiastic" "going for it" "taking a chance" "hitting it hard". I can see that most of the time the activity doesn't merit the energy I put into it. I guess I do this to both to convince myself that I am making "progress" and to avoid feeling nothing or even despair. Sometimes I engage in sexual fantasies, even though I know they are meaningless, for fear of having nothing sexual in my life at all. I am beginning to see that I have little real knowledge of what sex really means.

I, too, love theories, new perspectives, figuring things out. So the mental is there. Much more self-observation needed. Like mountain climbing: many false summits before the real one.

Mac

 

[Paragon]

I think that I'm also experiencing some of what you describe. It's very exciting!

I haven't had any negative thought loops since I started experimenting with the moving center. Instead, I started working on an art project - something "it" never does. I am fascinated by trees; and I'm exploring that fascination through the emotional center, (I think), by conceiving of and working on an art project. I'm not identified with the picture being good or not - I just feel joyful working with the colors and shapes and composition. I also can observe myself as I do this noting, in a non-judgemental way, certain habits that I have as I work that are not serving me well and that I would need to make an effort in order to change them.

I'm wondering if a lot of the problems I've been having in my life are because the thinking center and the emotional center have become too emeshed so that I don't know where one begins and the other ends. They kind of feed off of each other in a very destructive way so that Gurdjieff describes - worrying about things that may happen in the future of which I have absolutely no control.

Since I've been disconnected from the moving center so long, it's really exciting to explore its possibilities. I have to say that I've been happy since I started doing this work.

Yes, it's like you aren't judging wether or not the art piece Is good or not, rather what Works in that specific context and making course corrections along the way OSIT. For me I use this 'non judgmental' technique when I do the work, if say a customer Is not happy with my service, I shall alter it to the best of my ability to meet their demand within reason at that particular time, because the context Is different - what Is actually working in real life at this precise moment, rather than my sense of how good I am at providing a service when thinking about a happy customer I served last. My focus Is on them and what they best respond to. And I used to be self conscious about this until I realised how self important this was, and even that the other person Is actually to busy worrying about theirselves to notice you noticing yourself! Lol! :)

Yes web glider, i have also wondered the same thing, that both my intellectual and emotional centre have a destructive circle of negative energy feeding off each other. And I also have recently discovered my motor centre OSIT, and since I have done it's really helped me recognise when I'm stuck in a particular centre and not in the 'outside' observing. So when I get an emotional shock I notice my movement becomes very clumsy and nervous, which in turn makes me feel self conscious and feeds the intellectual centre, over analysing what someone said to me. I get stuck in a loop so to speak. I identify with that circle of negativity and lose the big picture. But realising I can go to 'another place', that I have a choice in where to focus my attention - it's only me that stops myself from doing so. You are your own worst enemy in this respect OSIT :)

 

[Approaching Infinity]

Just because you like physical activity doesn't mean you are weighted in the moving center. Ark walks a lot too, but he does it because it helps him to think. The main thing that is going on is intellectual.

I think a person could be man #1 and be totally lazy.

Yep. Daly King wrote as much, based on Orage's lectures:

Previously we have discussed the functional human types, practical, emotional, intellectual, and it is now necessary that one determine one’s own type among these categories. Each has two aspects, the positive and the negative, as follows:

practical, positive – active, negative – inactive or lazy
emotional, positive – optimistic, negative – pessimistic
intellectual, positive – constructive, building up, negative – destructive, tearing down.

It makes no difference which aspect of which type refers to you and you must not let your prejudices in favor of one or another influence your judgment; none are “good”, none are “bad”, it is required only that you discover for yourself which is applicable. And here we must remember that it is not one hour or one day that counts; the criterion is what type you impersonate ordinarily, usually or most of the time, for all of us fall into all six of the above categories some of the time.

 

[herondancer]

Yes web glider, i have also wondered the same thing, that both my intellectual and emotional centre have a destructive circle of negative energy feeding off each other. And I also have recently discovered my motor centre OSIT, and since I have done it's really helped me recognise when I'm stuck in a particular centre and not in the 'outside' observing. So when I get an emotional shock I notice my movement becomes very clumsy and nervous, which in turn makes me feel self conscious and feeds the intellectual centre, over analysing what someone said to me. I get stuck in a loop so to speak. I identify with that circle of negativity and lose the big picture. But realising I can go to 'another place', that I have a choice in where to focus my attention - it's only me that stops myself from doing so. You are your own worst enemy in this respect OSIT :)

This is good description of something I experience. The loop is so quick to get going, it's kind of breath-taking. I haven't developed the ability yet to step out into "another place" yet, but that image is very helpful.

I agree with anart, in that I'm not sure if more motor-centred stuff would be helpful. The problem is the speed of the centre. So if movement used as a doorway to change, imo the type of activity would likely need to be constantly different, as once once the body adapts, the tempo picks up again. G.'s idea of postures to invoke different emotional states sounds very interesting. But that seems like it would need an instructor to make sure the process was being properly applied. What seems to be important is slowing the tempo down enough for the other centres to have some input. Very hard, if you've been accustomed to thinking of it as enthusiasm, or using it to to hide from the thought that you really aren't getting anywhere, as Mac has noted.

 

[Z...]

So when I get an emotional shock I notice my movement becomes very clumsy and nervous, which in turn makes me feel self conscious and feeds the intellectual centre, over analysing what someone said to me. I get stuck in a loop so to speak. I identify with that circle of negativity and lose the big picture.

Same here. More over I noticed the tendency to "invent" the emotional shocks if they are non existent in external environment and then go through the same motion over and over again.

You shouldn't have much difficulty. Indeed, in Gurdjieff's words, you are often like an "hysterical woman".

Ouch! I've been sulking over this in the above described loop since yesterday. I was certainly aware that that my reactions are driven by emotions and this is the work in progress but I was completely unaware that I "often come across as a hysterical woman". Even if you exaggerated in order to deliver the shock it is a lot to take in

I'm not sure if you understand this whole "center" business Jefferson (it is kind of hard to pin down), but maybe a good way to think about it for yourself is that you being moving center driven means that you tend to act and speak without first thinking it through. I'm sure you can imagine all the results of this, but one result is probably that you don't really listen to others when they speak, and you speak too much and too often yourself. So maybe practicing listening to others and not allowing yourself to automatically respond without proper contemplation first would be a good exercise for you.

'kind of hard to pin down' is an understatement at least in my case.
I presume everything you said here can be applied to emotional center driven people?
While both moving center man and emotional man react quickly without thinking - how would you characterize the main difference between these two types?

 

[Laura]

At this point, Jefferson, you CAN'T apply any of it to yourself because everything you do is moving center driven.

I'm not sure if you understand this whole "center" business Jefferson (it is kind of hard to pin down), but maybe a good way to think about it for yourself is that you being moving center driven means that you tend to act and speak without first thinking it through. I'm sure you can imagine all the results of this, but one result is probably that you don't really listen to others when they speak, and you speak too much and too often yourself. So maybe practicing listening to others and not allowing yourself to automatically respond without proper contemplation first would be a good exercise for you.

A good way to get a handle on the different "brain centers" is to read Steven Mithen's book "The Prehistory of the Mind." That is, modern cognitive science supports Gurdieff's ideas.

 

[Laura]

You shouldn't have much difficulty. Indeed, in Gurdjieff's words, you are often like an "hysterical woman".

Ouch! I've been sulking over this in the above described loop since yesterday. I was certainly aware that that my reactions are driven by emotions and this is the work in progress but I was completely unaware that I "often come across as a hysterical woman". Even if you exaggerated in order to deliver the shock it is a lot to take in

LOL! Yes, I was just using what was available, and sure you would sulk... but you need to now and then and use the intellect to get yourself out of it to get practice. Because, of course you know that I wrote that with a big grin! ;D

And there are certainly more difficult things that being emotion driven... at least we can work with that fairly easily with shocks and applying the "doctrine of the present."

But how to give shocks to the moving center weighted person is the question.

I'm thinking that a few activities that are aimed at engaging other centers ... like:

1. Journaling every night and writing down the general attitude of the day, specific events, all the petty thoughts that ran automatically, and projecting how such might affect the future.

2. Making lists of things to do and committing to checking that list periodically and trying to stick to it religiously. Put the things you like doing the least at the top and do them slowly and carefully with full attention. Pay attention to your feelings while doing things you do not like.

3. Get up early and go to bed early (after journaling) and read an important book with information you know you need even if you don't like it. Read for half an hour or so before sleeping.

4. Work on paying attention to how you are moving when doing things that you do habitually. Slow it down and pay close attention to everything going on as you proceed with the task. Examine your emotions related to the task.

5. Pay close attention to how you are walking; deliberately slow it down or speed it up alternately, all the while paying attention. Pay attention to how the different paces make you FEEL emotionally.

6. If there are physical activities that you LIKE to do, and do automatically, change them to something else. If you like dancing, stop doing it and just march in place instead, all the while paying attention to the urge to break out into dancing and resisting that urge. If you get used to marching in place, change to something else like walking up and down stairs.

Can anybody think of others that might force the intellect to come into play to observe the action and/or the emotion related to it?

 

[EmeraldHope]

Laura:

Can anybody think of others that might force the intellect to come into play to observe the action and/or the emotion related to it?

Writing with the opposite hand, securing a room or having a safety partner and doing things "blindfolded", if you are right foot dominant, walk left foot dominant and vice versa.

 

[Gimpy]

Can anybody think of others that might force the intellect to come into play to observe the action and/or the emotion related to it?

Video tape yourself reading something, and ask another person what they see? Would they see you as you see yourself, or...not?

Video tape yourself exercising, same thing....?

 

[Paragon]

Can anybody think of others that might force the intellect to come into play to observe the action and/or the emotion related to it?

Video tape yourself reading something, and ask another person what they see? Would they see you as you see yourself, or...not?

Video tape yourself exercising, same thing....?

I think this has potential to really help, as for example, who ever likes to hear their own voice? One time when I was 14 or another, it produced a rush of embarrassment and a cold awareness of how I Actually appear to others. It was chilling. And for years onwards this crippled me with self doubt and feeling self conscious, wether people thought I was goofy or silly or any other number of deamaning thoughts about yar self. Then I realised recently - what does it actually matter? Unless you are constantly for example, making other people feel uneasy by the way you speak to them and not being aware of this, the beauty of the truth is that you can work on that, for the benefit of others . If one loves truth then one can accept who you essentially are and not as you would like to be. And from that point onwards, you can really ' create your own reality, In accordance with reality

OSIT :)