By John Eckberg
Enquirer staff writer

Ed Knapp of Clifton and Ali Hansen of College Hill take part in Cynthia Allen's Feldenkrais class. Future Life Now, owned by Allen and Larry Wells, has a movement studio in Northside. Photo by MEGGAN BOOKER/The Enquirer

COLLEGE HILL - Workplace stress is leading to business success for a husband-and-wife team of owner-therapists at Future Life Now.

From the Feldenkrais Method - a movement-based approach to learning - to group and individual sessions based on Neuro-Linguistic Programming - subtle, personal behaviors that bring personal or professional success or failure - the Future Life Now center in College Hill explores ways people can change how they relate to friends, family, co-workers and bosses.

Future Life Now, owned by Cynthia Allen and Larry Wells, has a Feldenkrais movement studio in Northside for its growing number of workshops that address how people deal with lives more challenging, time-starved and stressful.

"It's not just the stress of the job, either," says Allen, partner and instructor. "All our lives are so much busier with kids' schedules and activities, voice mail, pagers, cell phones."

Anger's a byproduct

What's important for people to remember and then bring into their lives, says Wells, a former pastor, is that anger does not come from stress.

Instead, he says, it is a byproduct of how people relate to stress.

Anger stems from how people interpret a workplace event, say, a memo, directive or even an off-hand comment from a supervisor.

"No event in my life has any meaning until I assign a meaning," Wells said.

Ed Knapp, a 45-year-old Clifton resident, signed up for seminars on the Feldenkrais Method out of curiosity about the Northside training center.

"To some extent, we are all dealing with stress," Knapp said. "I had practiced meditation for probably 20 years, something I learned in college, and I meditate once or twice a day."

Knapp, the production scheduling manager for Aristech Acrylic, a manufacturer based in Florence, finds it's easier to practice the meditation than the movement exercises.

"I don't do that every day like I do meditation, but I know it's good for you. For me, Feldenkrais is a very gentle methodology," he said.

Signs of stress

Wells and Allen say warning signs of workplace stress include:

• Knee-jerk responses to challenges that can bring resistance from subordinates and slam interoffice relations.

Future Life Now teaches that few approaches to stress are more effective than a pause. Counting to 10 before responding to a stressful incident or event may be the best advice for dealing with stress.

• Habits that can create barriers to communication.

For instance, few responses from a manager are as disturbing to workers as the subtle ones: rolled eyes, dismissive hand gestures and inattention.

• Repeated unpleasant results.

Nothing succeeds like success, and, conversely, nothing brings failure like failure. So why do people continue to embrace the same failed approach to management or work problems? Because even if the strategy fails, it is, at least, familiar and comfortable.

• Stress being not only cumulative but exponential.

Each stressful incident has an impact far beyond the immediate implications of what caused the stress.

"Some studies show that once the pump is primed chemically in the individual, the reaction fuse gets shorter and shorter," Allen said.

"Stressful events are everyday events for the most part. There has to be a moment of decision: How are you going to live your life?"

E-mail jeckberg@enquirer.com