I must stay in control….!! Is that true?

So, ok, what is this thing called ‘control’? It’s not a word I like much; it smacks of ‘discipline’, which smacks of having to do something I don’t want to do, in a way I don’t want to do it - it feels all about someone else’s wishes, not mine. If I want to do something, and to do it well, I don’t think of it as discipline or control, I think of it as flowing, actuated purpose, which grows into the realisation of my intention.

So what happens if I’m not going where I want to go, being where I want to be, experiencing my intention? There are two choices; one is to resist, fight, push, and ‘stay in control’ so things hold together and look as if they are working and I don’t look like I am panicking. The other is to release to soften the contraction, be present to the mess, and even fall apart, just keeping a light hand on the tiller through it all until steerage returns. This last way seems less cluttered, more useful, more my truth.

What’s this ‘fall apart’ bit though…? I don't like that bit, do you?

It’s the bit I don’t want to be transparent about; control is the thing which, although I don’t like, keeps me (Ha!) looking as if I know what I am doing. Control is my ‘I’m fine’ actions - my re-action - and my reaction is one of subtly holding, tightening down, contracting, hanging on for dear life, waiting with baited breath (i.e. holding my breath at the end of the out breath)....  Is this reaction so you don’t see I am anxious? No, it’s so I don’t see I am anxious! I don’t want to admit to anxiety; I don’t do anxious any more, surely? I ‘should’ be able to handle things with grace, not even like a swan who is paddling like fury under the water; just with grace, ease, calm balance... Shouldn’t I...? Yet being swan-like isn’t a bad thing to be; perhaps true grace is grace under pressure, not grace under ease!

Well, let’s cut to the real deal... I often share with my students how delightfully adjacent we are as humans when we live as if we can hold the sun 24/7. As if we can keep the tide from going in or or out. As if we can be both ‘up-yet-calm’ all the time. I’ve got news for you, we can’t. And this is a reminder for myself. Again. (Ah yes, we teach what we most need to learn!) So can we let each other - and mostly our self - off the hook from worrying as to what people will think if we’re not ‘in control’?

When we do come on wobbly times - and we ALL do, frequently, and often messily - can we let our self wobble? And through that permission, let others wobble, too?

I teach the Alexander Technique - a process that is extraordinarily effective in taking us back to our latent ease and flow. ideas that assist us to be a great deal calmer in the face of life’s squalls. But mostly its power lies in not panicking when all seems lost during the wobbles - whether over spilt milk or major life changes - and in trusting the AT’s signposts in the matter of returning* to our equilibrium... (*‘Returning’ appeared as ‘retuning’ at first - I like that too.) ‘Being good enough’ is not staying in control, it’s wobbling about freely and magnificently, quietly or loudly, and then gaining back our balance when it’s time. With permission to wobble comes the graceful wobble! For change to occur, the old has to fall apart to make space for the new.  So any wobbling before the fall apart into change is entirely apt and not wrong. 

Ah ha! So there it is, the problem revealed; the discomfort is about Change! That word we all dread as it surely includes ‘for the worst’. But who says? Is it true? Where did that belief come from? How would I feel without that belief? My advice to myself here is “Doubt my doubts!” And live today as if anxiety is as welcome as joy, just to see what happens. Maybe it’s really excitement, because change so often for the better! 

So, I’m off to wobble with I hope not only grace, but excellence! Join me?

Happy wobbling!!

Embarrassment vs Shame….

I've not blogged here for a while - as you can see from the dates. But earlier I read a post on Facebook from Hollie Holden - Notes on Living and Loving ( Authenticity )  who writes utterly beautiful words. She said, "It's a Thing, expressing ourselves. Whether we have a blog or write books or give talks or just speak our truth and make a stand for love in the post office queue. It's a Thing." And it is a Thing, a thing that is touched with so much from our childhood, from our make up, from something often quite invisible. I grew up hearing, "What will people think?!" And I used to say, "I don't care!" But I did; deeply. Their fear-mongering seeped inside and bits of it still stick. We are meant to have dealt with things like this with our educated minds. Well, I don't know about you, but my mind hasn't cracked embarrassment for me! I stopped writing my blogs because every non-like, every non-comment, every 'ignored' post of the link on Facebook, pushed a great big red button in me. "No one likes it." And worse, "They actively loathe it!" Plus a dose of 'they are laughing at me'. And 'I must no longer subject them to something so awful'. Risking transparency here, that's what has been going on. 

 

All the pictures of embarrassment on-line have people hiding their faces - trying to Not Being Here… :-(

So, today, on Hollie's encouragement to re-start - thank you! - I took a moment to think about this…. I allowed a deep experience of the feelings that were coming up, because feelings live in the body where they are authentic, genuine, un-changed by the mind which wants to analyse and justify them as 'fine'. They are not fine, but they are real, and our body reveals them perfectly as the messengers and signposts we need to get to a clearer and free-er life.

I had never before sensed such a clear difference between shame and embarrassment. Similar, yes, but I found they were actually very different. Shame a bottomless ache. Embarrassment a sharp sting. There's a distinct possibility that I have a PhD in Shame; much work has been done on this deep, bone-marrow, 'I'm not ok enough to even be on the planet' stuff, and I'm happy to report that that particular certificate won't be going up on the wall. But embarrassment? What's that about? I didn't think I did that one! (Ha!)

I let myself re-meet embarrassment deep inside; those feelings long buried because they hurt too much. I let myself see how it affected me then and so affects me exactly the same way now. Embarrassment stops me writing, because embarrassment is about feeling silly. Stupid even... The feeling of curling up and making yourself as small as possible in the face of mockery, and certainly hiding your face. The burning sensation as the 'laughter at' hits you in the face. The jeering that hits you in the stomach, making the world seem to disappear outside your bubble of now muffled sounds. Or the unbearable tension of 'the noisy silence'.  Maybe shame is the one that recognises embarrassment, or even acts like a magnet, but today I realised it's embarrassment that is so difficult to push through when writing. 

I suddenly had the image of a duck - a lovely mallard with shiny, oily, grey and green feathers. These are right on his surface, the oil in them a thin layer that prevents water soaking into his feathers and drowning him. Useful for him, but the oil is my embarrassment - an invisible-but-powerful surface layer that prevents life getting in and me getting out… which stops me from doing so many things I want to do. Shame lies deep within us and hurts when touched - which it will never be if embarrassment protects us from anything getting in at the surface. Yet when shame is healed, embarrassment poses no threat… So let the healing continue!

Dare I dare feeling embarrassment in order to live? Dare I dare shame being stirred in order for more healing to take place? Dare I let the oily layer down and let life in? Dare I let you all in and write? Well, here I am - daring To Be Here instead of hiding. And that's really pretty good, whether you read this or not!

How does embarrassment touch you? How does it feel to you? What triggers it? How do you handle it? Do you know how amazing you are and how unnecessary it is? Let's be kind to ourselves and begin to release this restricting feeling, and let's do it together?

A Small Ponder on Habit.

Habit. What a word. One that seems to fill most of us with a sudden sense of ‘Bad’ - I should give up x, I should take up y, z is just part of who I am, but I wish it wasn’t and hope you can’t see it....

Yet there wonderful habits, too. Gratitude is a habit. Cleaning your teeth is a useful habit. Patting the dog as you put the kettle on for the first morning cuppa is a heart-warming habit. Add your own - find 3 before you continue reading!

Habit came to me this evening in a new way: a habitual thought response leading to familiar fear had flashed up before I could even think consciously. But I then saw that nothing about this habitual thought was either good or bad; it was simply a response that doesn’t suit the current moment. It was one from long ago. But somehow back then I made a tag to it and the thought connection keeps on happening.

I’ve attempted to suppress it over the years. I’ve ‘ignored it’. (Ha!) I’ve tried to understand it. I talked to it. I tried over-riding it with the opposite, often in the form of affirmations, but I think brains are all wired differently and that way works well for some, but not others, and it doesn’t work well for me. I’ve told myself this thought habit isn’t true, but the listener aint heard the teller....(which intrigues me as they are one and the same!)  So, I Have A 'Bad' Habit. A heap of ‘shoulds’ fly around in my head. And a lump of certain desperation to finally, once and for all, deeply and meaningfully Get Rid of It. And guess what? With all that resistance, Habit was persisting magnificently!

But tonight those words lit something up; A habit is simply a response that doesn’t suit the current moment. My thought didn’t fit what was actually happening, or not happening, tonight. And I could hold my habit, as it were, in the palm of my hand - unconditionally; able to observe it and not condemn it, and not run away from it. And if I opened up fully to present awareness of what was/wasn’t happening around me, the habit simply dissolved; it wasn’t relevant to now. The habitual thought was relevant to the memory of something past, but Not Now. And memory faded the more I was in the now - Present to What Is - and not re-telling the story and putting myself in the past.

So, in many situations, ‘beating habits’ can become a thing of the past - not all, of course, but a reduction is a brilliant start! Instead of ‘beating’ habits, hold them, look at them, be very present with them, see them, enquire about them, to them.... “Why are you here, now? You are not relevant to now. You’ve leapt in on a memory, which isn’t now. Your message doesn’t serve me right now, please go away.” And instead I begin to respond to what IS going on around me - the habit grumbling away as it sloths off, unwanted, into the wings. This is true of thought patterns, unhelpful attitudes, tightenings in the body as we move, association habits with furniture and 'life props', interactions with other people.... No more turning a blind eye to Habit; see it, let it happen so you can watch it closely, get to know it, really, really sense how irrelevant it is to the Now. (Unless it is relevant, but then it's not a habit; it's an appropriate, or at least current, response.) 

It may be still there, but I can repeat my question to it if it reappears. And the really good thing? Each time I am in stimulus-response, if I respond to the now and not to the memory, I reduce the fear a little more, and habits just LOVE fear! My reducing fear begins to starve the habit. Once it's starved, job done.

Let’s just hope no one invents a RSPH - Royal Society for Protection of Habits.... We might laugh at that, but boy, I see I have been paying into that one for Far Too Long! 

Grace at Winter Solstice

Tree House stone circle, by the light of the full moon...

Winter Solstice - a dark time, a quiet time, a still time, a contemplative time, a time of gratitude, a time of dreams, a time of transformation...

Yet, here in the Northern Hemisphere, madness reigns, buzzy music, scurrying people, jostling queues, minds way ahead of heads, heads way ahead of bodies, bodies way ahead of the date; the dark silent stillness forgotten in the noisy brightness of Christmas...

Yet even when moving, if I stop within for just a tiny moment, I can sense the seam of sanity running through all this. I sense the Something that watches over all this mayhem with a loving and amused smile. I am so glad of the Grace of this Something; I am glad Something remembers and is holding my dark, contemplative stillness as I rush around with lists. It reminds me that this place within never leaves me, that is as much me as the rushing me, whether I sense it or not. That unconditional place of stillness that still remains still as I move from shop to shop, cross things off the list, share season’s greetings with friends and fellow beings. As I remember things to not forget....

That Something is a Place that knows, exists, remembers and reminds - soft, dark, velvety calm. All knowing and all thankful - pure Grace. Waiting. Watching. Listening. Waiting and watching and listening for me - my thread of connection to the Winter Solstice; the time that forms a link from the light to the light, through the longest, darkest night. This Solstice heralds a birth. Our re-birth. A new start. A gift beyond measure, for which I am deeply grateful, no matter the over-lying busy-ness. Wherever I am, I can greet that still point in me - it always has been and always will be there - and let my grateful inner stillness kiss the Solstice. And that kiss will witness and declare the light, my light, your light, our light, at this time of Light. And the light will grow....

Blessed Be.

Which flower are you?

You how often we say 'motivational things' about tough, bold, brave plants that come up through concrete or, like this thrift on the cliff face, grow in really tough places? Had me thinking today though - lovely as the sayings are, it's a bit tough on many of us to always do all this 'go for it' stuff; we're all beautiful 'flowers', but if you're not a thrift, you're not a thrift! A rose is absolutely stunning but wouldn't fare well on this cliff face! As is an orchid, but it wouldn't last a second here either. Would we suggest they 'weren't trying hard enough' if we saw them struggling up here? No, we'd take each to where they could be the best rose or orchid they could be. Let's do that for ourselves and each other? What flower to you think you are? And where do you best flourish? Do those match? Which bloom will you let yourself be as the very best flower you are?

Keep going!

I saw a picture a bit like this on Facebook this morning (only it was pointing up a mountain) and found it touched me surprisingly deeply as I realised I am really quite tired. And I had several other quick realisations flash through my mind along with the, 'Oh heck, yes, I am tired from the feeling of keeping on keeping on keeping on...' I also had, ‘How far to the top now?’ And, 'Maybe I am not headed in the right direction? And, ‘Why is this feeling so hard?’ And then, 'Oh, of course....!' The thing is, I have been headed up a mountain for some time - many years in fact - yet finally reached the top of it three years ago, gratefully and delightedly. And I could suddenly see clearly that I now am doing the next necessary thing; coming down this mountainside in order to go up the next one. Even if all your peaks are high in the clouds, you have to come down from one in order to ascend to the next, let alone if you are now coming down to be ‘home’ for a bit, and to make plans for your next expedition.

The only way is down now....

Why do I say down is harder? Well, I learned this painfully, and slightly embarrassingly, about 5 years ago. Having gone a day early to the Alexander Technique Congress in Lugano in Switzerland, I took the funicular railway to the top of a 1000m mountain overlooking Lake Lugano, intending to walk down. Not big by mountain standards, and being summer not covered in snow, it was going to be easy; after all, the hotel owner had said so, and ‘just don’t wear party shoes’! Hot sunny day, spirits high from admiring the view from the top, I set off down the winding shallow steps which I intended to count. At about 750 I gave up the counting and started the self-motivation. After about 2 hours I came to a clearing where I could see the turquoise lake below me - the ferryboats on it like tiny dots; I was still as high as in an aeroplane! Somewhat daunted I wondered about going back up and taking the funicular down, but I didn’t want to give in; this was downhill! So I carried on, and when I finally - another 2 hours later - came to the bottom, I had an surprisingly elated sense of achievement. Of course, when I told my ‘mountain experienced’ friends the tale, they explained how it is much, much harder on the legs to descend than ascend. I was ready to agree wholeheartedly as I hobbled around the Congress on day one; a ‘poised’ teacher of nearly 30 years who had to actually (quite true) go down the five steps to the ladies’ loo on her bottom because I could not do it on my feet! Four days later, after the general afternoon-off from Congress, I knew exactly who had spent the time doing the same ‘walk’ as me, as I helped them down the same steps on their bottoms!

So I am grateful for this morning's picture which reminded me that we need to see this sign on the way down, too - in fact on any path, including one following a time of dreams, effort, and achievement. On the path between goals and dreams, on the path back home. Yes, “The journey up may be hard, but the best view is from the top” is a wise saying, but believe me, the view of that lake at eye-level was just as good, if not better! Suddenly I knew, after seeing the picture this morning, that the reason the path currently feels hard is because I have been, in effect, walking down that 'achieved mountain' backwards!

I have been going back down but still facing the peak I have looked at for so long, despite having attained it, and also because I have been forgetting that ‘down’ has as much merit as ‘up'. Out of pure habit (oh dear!) I have forgotten to stop, wake up fully to the now, and change my view! Oh, how much easier it is to walk facing the way I am going, the way down whilst clarifying my plans for the next peak!! 

No matter which way you are pointing, let's bless up, and bless down, and let’s also bless all the bits in the middle; all of them with great big ‘Keep Going’ signs!

The House Whose Face Fell Off.

This is a piece I wrote in 1996, and have just found again after thinking it was lost. I remember so clearly the images that came to me which called me to pen and paper. 

The House Whose Face Fell Off. 

The house was beautiful - elegant and proud - raising its lovely frontage to the world, promising beauty and grace within, and joy for anyone who came inside. It coloured a warm cream, with great windows allowing great light to enter, strong curtains gracing the edges of the panes, showing opulence and taste. However, the door was always closed, which surprised those looking on; the whole place looked so welcoming, but the door never seemed to open; perhaps people came and went from the back?

One day, with a great noise, part of the frontage fell leaving a great jagged, diagonal wound running from the house’s top right to its bottom left. Behind it was a shocking contrast. The grey, black, dark horror of a war-zone. A war-zone long gone, but which was stirred occasionally by faint bangs and rumbles of a ghost of battle, or remnants of some stubborn soldiers who refused to leave - although the intent of their damage was more than obviously accomplished - as if they so enjoyed it, they couldn’t go. The walls of this house within were blackened by fire and blast, and the windows empty like eyes in great shock. The house seemed to cower in shame and fear at being opened to light again after so long - embarrassed and fearful at being revealed. The rubble and dirt began to clear away - sometimes in great chunks, and sometimes seeming to be only piece by tiny piece of dust particle. At times great progress appeared to be made, but at times it seemed the secret of what had happened, and what it hid, wanted to stay buried forever.

Suddenly, a wall of stone fell away and revealed a small child cowering in the far corner of a blackened room. She had been cowering for who knows how long. It was not just the cowering from suddenly being covered in light, it was the cowering of being afraid and shameful to be seen to exist. Whatever had happened to that child had destroyed her so, so many years ago.Yet despite her terror, her hurt, pain and guilt, which she felt showed so strongly in the battered remains of her facade, she had found the strength to build the beautiful looking frontal to her dwelling place. Such tragic mis-use of strength. She had assumed that people looking at her real, damaged house would have believed it to be her fault, and were embarrassed and angry at her for it looking thus; the area wanted good looking places. She had been too afraid to ask for help to re-build the old - to have the army that attacked her to be removed; somehow she believed herself to have deserved it. For years she had hidden behind the beautiful but empty grandness of the creamy building. She had successfully led the onlookers to believe in her strength and security, but now they understood why the door was always shut.

How long would it take the little girl to gather the courage and trust to come out of her corner? They knew she couldn’t trust them yet; somewhere out here were the original persecutors and she mustn’t put herself in that position again. But the walls were down and the light, the glorious sunlight, and the clean, clean air were with her at last, and she had all the time she needed to grow and stand strong again. To become a genuinely beautiful house with real welcoming windows, and an opening door to let people in, and out.

(20th June 1996)