Note how this hawk's head is absolutely still, its attention unwavering even while its body undertakes the…

Note how this hawk's head is absolutely still, its attention unwavering even while its body undertakes the most extreme movements. A short thread about how bodies work, potentially life-changing. /1 https://t.co/qofYhonw0g

We tend to separate our attention from our body and movement. We see those as two separate activities, paying attention, and supporting/moving. The hawk shows this is false. /2

It's not 'doing' any of its movements. Nor does it when hunting, without a person doing the movements for it. It puts its attention with laser-focus on where it wants to go, out into the world, and its body automatically follows it. /3

Bodies are elastically-sprung to *release* into movement and activity. We don't need to do it. A surgeon can tell you that cutting into a body is cutting into elastic tissue, it rebounds. Our bodies, as well as hawks and many other animals, store elastic potential energy.../4

...which they then continuously release into activity, following our attention. They use gravity to create this elastic potential, gravity doesn't weigh us down, it holds us up. You can feel this directly. /5

In any activity you're doing, even one where you're not moving, have your attention on what you're doing and *simultaneously* feel your body elastically releasing, to follow your attention. Not 2 activities - attending and moving - but 1, integrated, elastic release.../6

...of our entire attending being, out into the world, to what we're attending to. All sense of weight and effort will disappear, as these are (falsely) thought to be caused by gravity. In fact they're the outcome of splitting our attention off from our movement, as 2 things. /end