My new year started in a very positive way: again, I past my supervision for the 4th time. Every year the level of each practitioner is tested towards the standards of the International Association Grinberg Method Practitioners.
I’m also very happy, because this experience taught me about my reaction to stress.As we know, stress is a physiological reaction, a body response to survival situations. Today we experience stress in situations, that do not threat our lives, even if we may still feel a danger…

The supervision is part of being a member of the association and practitioner of the Grinberg Method. From the beginning the supervision has been part of my studies, where I present my work with a specific client to one teacher of mine. He then gives me feedback and makes suggestions how I could pursue my professional growth.
Because the feedback may contain criticisms, I used to perceive this as something difficult and that I must do it. Hence I was afraid of criticisms, because to me, it was a “dangerous” situation. And of course I had many negative expectations: how everything would go wrong, how my teacher would be angry with me, how everything I was doing with my clients would not be good enough…

In hindsight, I can see how I was expecting something bad to happen when facing the feedback (criticism and its consequences). Being unquiet and having negative expectations coloured my perception in a very specific way: my breathing was limited. I was afraid of making mistakes and that was blocking me. I was very busy in my head. My attitude was defensive and closed. I perceived the situation as dangerous. I was stressed.

You may experience something similar.

• Do you have a situation where you feel trapped and expect something negative to happen?
• Do you respond by tensing up, by reducing your breathing and feeling stressed?
• What kind of negative consequences do you expect?

Over the past years my attitude and perception towards the “dangerous” supervision changed and I started to enjoy the result of my work on myself.

You can do the same!

• Notice that you choose the situation. I agreed to be part of the Grinberg Association, that only wants excellent practitioners as members.
• Recognise what is your personal position in that situation. I realised that I wanted to continue learning… and I still want it! To learn, we need feed-back.
• Listen to the signals in your body: the constrictions and limitations in breathing and moving. By releasing my muscles and breathing deeply regularly, I transformed the dangerous situation (stress) into a learning experience.

Breathe consciously and create some space inside you.
How do feel about your situation now?

Picture Massimo Martino