Growing through struggle...or not

   

      The past couple weeks have been exciting, curious and startling. 2014 was a year of magnificent chaos and outgrowing me. In surrendering to the chaos, I got different. I feel different and as situations in my life mirror that different back to me, I get see the different.

    A couple weeks ago, after attend my first 5Rhythms workshop, I had a little “ah-hah.”   I realized part of my resistance to dancing as a practice is how much fun I’m having doing it. The wise woman part of me knows there is more going on than just dancing. Another part of me is suspicious of how deep or evocative this path can be because it’s too much fun. Hmm…

     At first that awareness seemed like an entirely new thing. Then I realized nope, this is another layer of something I’ve been working with for few years; a belief that when something is hard, it’s valuable.

     Until my early twenties, I was heavily invested in avoiding myself. My addiction was a great way to do that….until it stopped working. When I got clean I realized I had to deal with me. So I rolled up my sleeves and started doing the hard stuff.

    That was exactly what I needed to do. Somewhere along the way my willingness to do the hard stuff grew into a belief that when it comes to spiritual and personal growth, hard is better. I caught that pattern in myself a few years ago when I noticed I often felt pulled to doing things that were difficult simply because they are hard. Okay, time to be mindful and consider saying “no.”

     Having run with the hard preset for a couple decades, I’m starting to see middle ground.  When we humans change we tend to move from one extreme to other to find the middle.

     My wariness of 5Rhythms because it’s fun reminded me of a friend who used to talk about how she didn’t understand why she and other humans had to learn from pain rather than joy. I didn’t have an answer at the time, but growth from pain did seem to be the way life worked. But maybe that’s not the way it has to work.

     If I’d jumped in 5Rhythms three or four years ago, it would’ve felt hard. The difference between then and now isn’t the practice, it’s me.

     A few years ago the awkwardness I feel on and while dancing would’ve captured my attention. I’d have focused more on the awkwardness, my resistance and even my sore muscles than on how much dancing was. What I focus on, I feed.

    Somehow I’ve been able to hold the fun and the challenges with equal attention. While I’m experiencing that as something that suddenly happened, I’m aware this is an instance of “it takes a long time for something to suddenly happen.”

   In all the difficult things I’ve done over the years, most of the hard was about me. Regardless of the external circumstances, I struggled more with myself than the situation. I got in my own way. I got in the Universes way. It was hard work to get myself out of the way. It was hard to keep tripping over myself over and over.

    When I started down this road in my twenties, it all took twice as much work as it does now. I had little awareness of my own wounding and triggers. In every situation I had to stop and figure out where I was coming from and what was going on with me before I could deal with my reactions…and that seemed to take forever. Often when I got that far, I still didn’t know how to be with what was happening because I didn’t have the tools.

     I didn’t know how to be still and listen. I had little self-acceptance. I didn’t know how to question the stories my mind told me. I’d been disconnected from my emotions for so long that every feeling I had seemed bigger than I was. I was just beginning to consciously befriend my shadow. Any faith I had in the bigger picture was blind. I took myself and everything that happened way too seriously. What I wanted most was an operating manual for me.

    Fast forward a couple decades and I still haven’t found the owner’s manual. But I trust my soul knows where it’s going even if my personality hasn’t got a clue. I know myself much better now than I did then. I trust me. I have tools, most of which I gained through struggle.

     I still fall over myself repeatedly. After a couple decades of negotiating those roadblocks, running into me is sometimes more like hitting a speed bump than a wall. Some of the shift is just experience. I’m more familiar with my stumbling blocks. I have some practice in moving with my wounding rather than resisting and denying.

     Working with my wounding over and over for years opened me to a big “ah-hah” about my shadow, my struggles and my relationship to my life. I’ve lived most of my life giving a lot of power to circumstances, situations and other external things I have no control over. I’ve allowed those externals to rearrange my internal landscape and dictate how I feel.

     I am learning how to take that power back. No matter what’s happening, my relationship to all the stuff out there begins inside me. I don’t live in the externals. I live in my relationship to those things. That relationship is mine to create, change and recreate.

     All that brought to me to this place where I “suddenly” have an opportunity to learn from having fun. Yes, we humans seem predisposed to learning through pain and struggle. But that’s not inevitable. It’s not hard wired into us. We are just a capable of learning and growing from joy and fun. It just takes a while to open that place in ourselves.

   

Resistance and leaping

     Last Saturday I participated in my first 5Rhythms workshop. Yep, I’m writing about dancing again. That seems to be the vehicle the Universe is using to show me where I am these days. I registered for the workshop a couple weeks ago. As the date drew closer I noticed some resistance to actually going.

     Sometimes resistance arises loudly. It’s a big “Oh no you’ve got to be kidding!” This resistance was quieter. It felt like a little internal catch, as if I was holding my breath around something.

    Often we view resistance as either a “no” or an enemy that must be defeated. Backing up or steamrolling ahead are options that exist as extremes on a continuum. There’s a whole of middle ground between them.

    Resistance is a sign that I’m pushing the edge of my comfort zone. Resistance is part of process of change. It’s tied to our survival mechanisms. We have that ego thing that’s only comfortable and safe in what it knows. Change involves stepping beyond the known so the ego perceives it as threatening. Once that sense of threat comes up, our lizard brains jump in.

     The lizard brain pretty much operates on threat or no threat. It doesn’t discern between the threat posed by uncovering something in me that I may not like and walking into a dark cave with something growling inside that might decide I’m lunch.

     Resistance is one of the many faces fear wears. Being resistant to change is not a lack of motivation, intention or desire. On the flip side, intention, motivation and desire don’t automatically create change. Authentic change doesn’t happen until I’m willing to work with my fear.

     When resistance comes up for me the first question I ask myself is whether the resistance is internal or external. The answer to that question is often not as obvious as it seems. Many times I’ve made a decision, begun taking action on it and immediately run into an obstacle or two or three.

      I suddenly have four other things I need to put in the time slot I reserved for something else. The money I was going to use for a workshop needs to go to an unexpected expense. Before the workshop I need to get a whole list of other things done and I won’t have time. Blah, blah, blah.

      While all of that may be true, it’s also possible that it’s entirely self-created….even if it appears to be external . When I decide to go do something that I’m feeling resistance to and my car breaks down, if part of me is looking for an excuse to back out I can use my car as a justification not to show up for the scary thing. If my car broke down a week earlier when I wasn’t looking for an excuse not to do the scary thing…okay, that’s just life. Get the car fixed and go on.

     The difference is not in what happened, but how I choose to perceive it. If I’m already looking for an excuse, I can project that onto an external event and use it as a justification for not showing up.

    Here’s the tricky bit, it’s not an either/or. I may end up using the money I was going to spend on a workshop to get my car fixed. That doesn’t mean the workshop was a bad idea. It may be question of timing. Perhaps there’s another workshop next month that’s a better fit for me.

     I can also chose not to do the scary thing right now and still work with whatever resistance came up around it. The most important bit in moving with my resistance is being conscious of what I’m doing. Resistance is a like a toddler. If I don’t engage it, it tries even harder to get my attention.

    It may not get louder tomorrow or next week, but the next time that piece of resistance comes up, it’ll be yelling. The liability of choosing to steamroll over my resistance is that while it gets me past it temporarily, I usually rob myself of the opportunity to find out what the resistance was about. So my resistance stays intact and is free to resurface in another context.

    Even if it seems to be attached to an external event, resistance is something I feel. It’s an internal reaction that comes from inside me. While my emotions are one of the best sources of info I have, feelings aren’t facts. The way I feel is reflection of my inner experience. My feelings don’t necessarily have anything to do with what’s happening in the external world. I could be reacting to a trigger that has to do with an old childhood experience.

    Working through resistance is often a process that happens in layers. I work with the piece I’ve got right now and that makes room for another bit to arise. Sometimes it takes a while for me to figure out what my resistance is about. Like so many other things, I can’t make myself know what’s up right this minute, but I can certainly make the process take longer if I get in my own way.

     Moving with my resistance doesn’t magically make it go away. Consciously being with my resistance does take some of its power away. When I look at it head on, my resistance doesn’t get to slide around in the dark and look bigger than it really is. Sometimes I reach a place where I feel as though I’m teetering on a precipice. I’m caught between the fear and the possibility of a new experience.

    The only thing I know to do with that place is leap before I look. If I stand there and think about, I can keep teetering for years. It comes down a question of what I would do if I wasn’t afraid and am I willing to do it even though I’m scared.

     At other times I need to feel the fear and do it anyway before I have any idea what my resistance was about. I still excavating what my resistance to 5Rhythms is about. Doing the workshop last weekend did show me a piece of it. Some part of me is leery because dancing is so much fun. Hmm….next week’s topic perhaps?

Possibilities in partnership with the Universe

     

     Gary Zukav, author of Seat of the Soul, published a new book in 2011 called Spiritual Partnership: The Journey to Authentic Power. Although I haven’t read to book, I stumbled across a few excerpts from it this week online. Zukav defines spiritual partnership as a “partnership between equals for the purpose of spiritual growth”. Seems pretty straightforward, but when I sat with it in relation to my partnership with the Universe the word “equal” threw me.

    I am one little pea brained human. The Universe is infinitely vast, deep and sees things I can’t even imagine. How can that be a relationship between equals? The first thing I got hung up on was the difference in size. Me, small. Universe, huge. When I asked myself if the size discrepancy really mattered…maybe it doesn’t.

    I am a piece of the Universe, a part of the larger whole. The way an aspect of something larger stands in relation to the whole triggered me thinking about hormones.

    Hormones are a type signaling molecules or chemical messengers. They use the bloodstream to travel to various organs where they regulate physiology and behavior. There are tons of hormones in the human body. As they are tiny molecules, I haven’t seen one.

     I have experienced how powerful hormones can be. Menopause was multi-year experience of having hormones run my life. Over and over those tiny molecules that ran amok in my body pushed me to cry at commercials and react to a broken shoelace as though it were the end of the world. (Funny now, it was not at the time.)

     Given that experience, how can I say that any smaller part of a larger whole is insignificant or unable to affect what it’s part of?  So the size difference between me and the Universe is really an issue of perception on my part. Me and the Universe as equals…I’m not there yet but open to moving that direction.

     The other aspects of partnership that feel relevant to my relationship with the Universe are respect, trust, give and take and ownership. Respect and trust come with time and getting to know someone. What I really want is a deeper friendship with the Universe. I know how to grow a friendship. When I’m getting to know someone new I spend with them, ask questions and do things with them.

    That brought up an image that made me smile. Me inviting the Universe out for coffee…which looked like me walking into my favorite coffee shop with this vast cloud of everything following me. Hah!  My connection with the Universe is an inside job. I find that place by going inward. So creating a stronger friendship with the Universe means me making more space in my life to step away from clients, distractions and doing.

    The give and take thing brought up some resistance for me. Give and take is really about responsiveness. In a friendship I respond to what my friend does and he responds to what I do. Again, seems pretty straightforward. But when I looked at where my resistance came up, I picked up a sneaky bit of control on my part.

    When I ask a friend to help me with something, I often talk myself into thinking I know what she is going to say and do before I ask. So there’s an aspect of predictability. In an exchange with the Universe, I have no idea how it’s going to respond…or do I?

    Even in my friendships with other people, my ideas about how someone is going to respond are just possibilities or stories. If I run with that and create an expectation I’ve succumbed to the illusion of control. Although because I’m human and my friend is also human I do have some idea of what her range of possible responses could be. But I really don’t know which response she’ll choose.

   In a partnership with the Universe I have a partner whose vision is infinitely larger than mine. This makes it much harder to throw my energy behind any story my brain makes up about what might happen. I can see a dozen possibilities. The Universe sees a few billion. Often the Universe responds with something that was so far off my radar I hadn’t imagined it.

    The Universe does respond to me. I’ve experienced that over and over for years. But how well do I respond to the Universe? Sometimes I’m pretty good about that. Other times not so much. I can get pretty attached to my idea of how something “should” come out. When I trap myself in that attachment I’m resistant to changing directions and my vision narrows. It’s harder for me to see what’s going on. I miss the little “hey look over here” hints the Universe sends me. There usually are hints. When I don’t see the hint, that’s where trust comes in.

    Any partnership whether it’s a friendship, business partnership or a romantic partnership involves both joint and individual ownership. I’m responsible for my thoughts choices and actions. My partner is responsible for her thoughts, choices and actions. There are things that we share responsibility for.

   In the past couple months I’ve overheard snippets of conversation around “the Universe did that.” The speakers tone implied that because the Universe took care of something s/he wasn’t responsible for any part of it. Hearing those comments shifted my awareness around how often I’ve done the same thing.

    Yes often the way the Universe responds is both startling and surprising. What comes out of that partnership is an act of co-creation. My thoughts, intentions and actions still play a part in what happens even if the result is something I didn’t foresee.

    My partnership with the Universe works better if I stay fluid and in the moment.  That partnership is showing me how to be more fluid in my other relationships.

 

   

Baltering like a beginner

  

      Barely a week into the new year and there’s already a lot of new in my life. Most of the new began in the last couple months of 2014. New things for me are an exquisite mix of excitement, fear, creativity and flailing.

    In November I began attending a weekly 5Rhythms dance ritual. I went based on an experience I had with dancing in holotropic breathwork.  Some part of me got very insistent that I need to dance more. So after a few weeks of arguing with my introvert self about showing up in a group of people I didn’t know to do something I haven’t done before I got up one Sunday morning and just went.

    Other arguments with myself included a lot of “practical” bits like I’m short, round, have two bionic knees and am going to turn fifty in February….what the hell did I think I was doing? All arguments aside, the real fear was of learning to do something new in public where people would witness my flailing. Yikes…vulnerability.

   I’m pretty proud of myself for even showing up the first time. I had an amazing experience. The music took over. I didn’t think. I forgot myself. I just danced for an hour and a half. Afterwards I felt great. I was amazed at how clear I felt emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually and energetically.

    I loved it. I went back the next Sunday and met my beginner awkwardness. Not the first time I’ve had this experience. Often when I try something new my first experience with it is free of self-consciousness, filled with ease and wonderful. I’ve come to see this as the Universe giving me a little preview of what’s possible with this new thing if I stick with it.

     The first time I went to dance I had no idea what it’d be like or how I’d feel doing it. I had no preconceived ideas. I went in curious and open. Zen Buddhism calls this shoshin, beginner mind. The second time I went my brain had the previous week’s experience to chew on and make up stories about. So I went in kinda half in shoshin and half in what my brain thought was going to happen.

    I wanted a repeat of what I experienced the first time. I didn’t get it. Instead I got the opportunity to experience my version of beginner awkwardness. I was disappointed. It took a couple days for me to realize the initial nudge to dance more came with the sense that dancing was a new way to meet myself. And I am meeting myself in a new way, just not the parts of me I particularly wanted to connect with…but those pieces need my attention too.

   Each dance since my first experience has been a dance of connection, awkwardness and flailing.  My head empties, I sink into the music and here comes my ego. Am I doing this right? Do I look stupid? Wow, that person over there dances really well.  Wait…what are my feet doing?

    I catch myself being more in my mind than my body. I bring my awareness back to the music and my body. I sink into the music….and here comes my ego again. My hips feel tight. So does my right foot. I’m thirsty. Why am I doing that with my arms? That’s kinda strange. I hope nobody is looking at me.

    Bring my awareness back to the music, being present in the moment in my body. After a few minutes, here comes my brain again.  So within the larger dance I dance with my own self-consciousness. In that dance I’m seeing my self-consciousness in a new way.

     Traditional sitting still meditation doesn’t work for me. I learned a couple different ways to meditate in my twenties. When I didn’t get to that still mind place I thought I was doing it wrong. I simply couldn’t get that “see your thoughts as clouds moving across the sky and let them go” thing. As I got to know myself better I discovered that “put the conscious mind on hold and become the observer” state happens when my hands are busy with something I don’t have to think about.

     Dancing brings me to that place. When my self-consciousness comes up I’m able to simultaneously experience it and watch myself experiencing it. This is giving me a much clearer view of what goes on when I feel self-conscious. I’m surprised at how much of my internal dialogue around feeling awkward consists of things I don’t really believe.

     The piece that surprises me the most is how easily I slide into comparing myself to others when doing something new. I don’t often do that in the rest of my life. When I looked at what the comparing thing was attached to, it comes up in response to my feeling like I’m flailing.

     Internally I connect feeling awkward with something not being right. That triggers me to start looking at the people around me to see if they look awkward so I can try to do what they’re doing and then I’ll feel different. I know that doesn’t work. What I’m really doing is comparing how I feel to how someone else looks.

     The bigger question is: does feeling awkward really have anything to do with something not being right? Nope. That’s just my brains explanation for how I’m feeling. That’s what brains do. They offer an explanation for uncomfortable feelings that includes a way to fix the feeling.

     My feeling awkward needs to be met, not fixed. Meeting the awkward means showing up to dance and moving with the uncomfortable rather than letting it stop me. Despite my flailing, I still come away from dancing feeling clear and wonderfully empty. That feeling keeps me coming back.

   I’m still working my way through Sweat Your Prayers, Gabrielle Roth’s book on 5Rhythms. I can’t tell you anything about the rhythms themselves yet, but I love the fluidity of the practice…movement and sweat as forms of prayer. For now I’ve surrendered to baltering.