Keeping Watch….

Keeping Watch 

Frustration - rushing - impatience - even the dog wary....
What is this? 
This oh-so-familiar feeling? 
It’s that I want to be doing something other than that which I am doing now.
What?
I don’t know.
Stop then....
Can’t....
Can; it’s what you teach!
Yea, I should....
And then, 
Yes, 
I stop….
And not the suppression-like stop of 
“Count to ten! You naughty girl!”,
But the gentle pause of attention -
Compassionate attention, to me.
Compassionate, because it’s empty of judgement;
I left the plug open for all that to flow out before looking,
Because judgement is futile stuff; 
The stuff of old - 
Other’s stuff - 
Stuff of what isn’t,
And I need to discover what is.
So, what is...?
Is, is that I feel held up - 
Halted -
Stuck - 
Interrupted.
By?
By wilting flowers.
Hungry rabbits.
Noisy storms wreaking time-taking damage -
Rattling and rumbling - sleep interruptions.
Recalcitrant iPlayer
Messing me about.
Slow drivers and
Ornery traffic lights...
Getting in the way of
Me, getting there.
Where's there?
Over there - not here:
Not where I am now.
(Even if I, of course, am.)
What’s there?
Clarity.
Understanding.
Knowing.
Certainty.
New direction.
Progress.
Happening.
How do you know this?
From my shallow breath,
My scattered thinking,
My tightness and holdings,
The inner fight....
So, what to do...?
Nothing.
Just nothing.
Not stopping, 
Not pushing,
Not fixing,
Not holding,
Not repressing,
And not, not judging,
De-finite-ly not that....
Just non-doing no-thing.

Wait.
And wait waiting.
And waiting wait.
And notice....
Notice the whys and whens,
And shouldn’ts and oughtn’ts...
Notice how they physicalise within me....
And wait; wait with them.

Remember the light touch when I was an Alexander student - 
The quiet hands waiting with me,
Showing me how to embody the quiet pause,
How to release my mind’s net on my body.
Companioning me in the lonely, 
Rather scary no thing place - 
The neutral between gears - 
Where births my potential,
And where most wont stay long enough.
Reassuring hands saying, “This is ok’.
Not preventing me,
Not pushing me,
Just waiting with me.
Waiting until I heard,
And saw,
And felt myself
Witnessed
And understood
By me.

I am rushing because
I want more,
I want it now,
I want what I haven’t gone for
For far too long.
For ever.
And I want it now.
I want to step up,
To shine as me - 
Seen or unseen,
Shine nonetheless.
I want to drop
The veil of ‘mustn’t’.
Oughtn’t, shouldn’t.
My ball and chain of ‘What if?’
‘And, but, why, who, you…?’
Rolling, grindingly, away.

The hare and the tortoise; 
Is a good story,
But the hare is catching me up - 
The hares are about to win!
The story ending’s about to alter…
So, wake up and run!
Run, tortoise! Run!
You are worth it!
You are good enough!
You can, you can, you can!
Wake up!
Oh! Run!

Oh my! Oh yes!
Out of my way plants,
Rabbits,  storms and drivers!
Out of my way old beliefs,
Agreements, and habits!
I have places to go and people to reach!
Yet, also include 
The Immaculate Pause...
The waiting....
Wait for the tide,
Wait for the wind.
Pushing the river never worked for anyone.
The tide will turn each day - 
Watch:
Ride it then,
But don’t miss it.
The wind will back and veer;
Watch:
Be ready to respond as it does...

Move within waiting,
Wait within moving - 
Remember those gentle hands 
Teaching you how to pause in faith.
Remember how you teach that too,
Because you know it works so well.

Trust.
Be.
Wait.
Watch.
Then flow.......
Flow....
And happen!

It's Not All Your Fault - part 2, aka the Not Good Enough habit...

So, how does the be-friending of my self, instead of bashing myself, change things?

Well, what does your self-bashing self say to you?  To stop it, it has to be heard and questioned. 

Mine says things like, "Look at those old socks - dreadful… Your hair is awful; you look ridiculous… You house is a tip… You don't get anything done…. You're as lazy as s**t…. You should have done a; everyone else has… You ought not to have done b; other people don't… If you'd done x, you'd have achieved y by now…. Listen to that piano playing; you could have played like that if…. Well, other people just get on with it..." Blah, blah, blah-dee blah….

And then, from the inner agreement I made long ago to the brain-washing that, 'If you really wanted to, you could do anything if you try hard enough', comes my almost addictive desire to sniff out people who tell me I can fly to the moon through molten tar, with one arm strapped behind my back, whilst wearing lead boots, because, 'Look, I and everyone else can - what's wrong with you? You clearly aren't trying hard enough and obviously aren't good enough.' And as they are doing it, it must be true. Mustn't it….?

People saying, 'If I can do it, anyone can…' is actually pretty dodgy; no, not everyone can be 'amaaaaazing', and nor should everyone. What a monotonous world that would be! The entire population of planet Earth meeting at the top of Everest for tea, 7 billion people sailing around the world at the same time, and the same again playing phenomenal piano concertos every night - all fighting for mountain, sea, and stage room….no sponsors, no viewers, no audiences; a world without the inspiring variety we have now - without the quiet, unsung 'heroes' doing things which change and save lives every second. Every mother, father, partner, nurse, teacher, neighbour….go on for a moment filling in the blanks, and include your self.

So, I see now the magnetic pull of 'I can do anything (as long as it's massive) if I try hard enough' is the drug which feeds my 'not good enough' habit - watch me pick the most difficult things for me, and actually feel double bad because actually they are not very big at all. Double success through a double failure! And with a double hangover! 

How to change this? The same way as has worked for years: Stop. Just stop. Cease the Lemming-like rush towards 'be brilliant!' And in the space left, see what I can do, and want to do, where, and when…the what I am unique at. Then do that. This means leaving all the things I think I ought to do and not feeling bad about them. Which is something only I can decide is possible. And when the shock-horror-failure-feeling rises, to stay with it, acknowledge it, hear it, and most especially be kind to it, kind to me…. And when I hear again the tempting cry of the Be More Now bird - 'you must build, bigger, faster, more, now!' - to sit down, firmly, and hear my best, loving, kind self's take on it; is this going to lift me to the next, best version of me possible, or is it going to ask of me what I haven't got/don't actually want, and just feed my NGE (not good enough) habit? 

It's a question worth asking - I, like you, am here to be the fully and most appropriately me in the world, the best Annie I can be, not the best someone else, however like the 'brilliant other' they extol me to be. Can I be the great me I am?  And can you be the great you you are? Or will I (and you?) go on trying to be the 'them-me' I think I ought to be? 

So, beware the 'Be Better Than You Already Are' brigade; go find the 'Be You At The Top of Your Own Voice' support team; I think they will serve you better to rise and to shine. That's what I am doing for me now. 

It is Not All Your Fault! Part 1.

What an extraordinary thing it is to receive a stern talking to - from oneself….. And what a blessing…

There was a morning a while back when there was a rapidly rising sense of panic, and an echo - and I mean in a nanosecond - of all the old destructive thoughts of times gone by… But, in an instance, a part of me leapt in, and stood up, tall and strong, and I found myself telling myself…

"Stop it, now!!" 

I was somewhat scared by this voice's forcefulness myself, and as to what remonstrations I was about to hear…. But it went on… 

"Enough! Now! It is not all your own fault; it's no one's fault; it just is. Even when you try your hardest, sometimes things happen, no matter what. And sometimes things don't happen, no matter what. And everyone else does not get it right all the time, or know what to do all the time, or never loses it. That is just your belief habit.

They, those that told you so, well, they were wrong to tell you everyone else could get it right all the time, and that you should, too. Their regret-full shame was simply being projected onto you; the shame and fear that they hadn't found the way to everlasting right-ness, with the resulting feelings they were so afraid to feel, and which - out of love - they didn't want you to feel, too. A well-meant, but futile effort, because Life. Just. Is. 

You are doing your best, and you are also human. So quit the self-bashing and the fear-mongering, by your self, of your self. Self-kindness. Self-encouragement. Self-friendship. This is the only way, or it really will be a tough old life for you. And, what's more, this is how you will truly be kind to others - allowing your own imperfections allows them theirs, too."

And I stood motionless and clear - stilled, surprised, and soothed - by whom…? Ruefully, humbly, yet delightedly, I had to concur that it was by a part of my own self - Me. Always there, knowing this in pencil, but never before so loudly - and now inked in, forcefully, through love...

How blessed and cared for we are, by our own beautiful and kind self - if we stop to listen to the part which loves us, instead of endlessly tuning in to our critic. 

What does your kind self say to your troubled self, when you listen?

Listen to your rants like granny would….

Sometimes, just sometimes, (aka often in Cornwall, in autumn, when they love to close 50% of the roads for repairs) I find myself in the state of utter despair, like tonight; a journey to a wonderful day in Delabole was marred by The Roads… This morning it took 1.5 hours to Truro from me (usually 20-25 minutes) due to (I later discovered, sadly) an accident, and a l-o-n-g detour round the lanes was followed by not getting fuel as I was, by then, SO late. Easy; get it on the way home, no problem. But at the end of the day I followed friends leading us in a convoy to a lovely pub for some supper, but I knew I could get fuel in Wadebridge afterwards. No; the one 'open all hours' garage wasn't. With about 10 mile's worth left of fumes, I asked a man in the Spar shop who said, "Bodmin - good luck!". I crawled the 8 miles to Bodmin (in rain, fog, and tempest - of course) and made it. smile emoticon Fuelled up I headed on for the A30, a fast, clear road home…which, at the actual slip-road entrance, announced to me it was closed, follow diversion….which I did….which took me the 8 miles back to….WADEBRIDGE!! So, as I again, an hour later, passed the 'open-all-hours' garage (which the man in Wadebridge Spar had announced to be 'Yea, useless; opens and shuts at a whim') I noticed I had driven a 22 mile circle…. But, nil desperandum, on, on, to collect the dog from Truro and get home…but at the turning to Truro, "Road Closed - follow diversion"…. Suffice to say, the windscreen bent outwards a little in small rhythmic movements in time to the 'prose' describing my feelings!! Why was this a form of self-kindness? Well, read on….

As I waited to drift off to sleep later I thought about this oh-so-common, not-really-earth-shattering life event and wondered… I felt interestingly 'clear'… Something was missing? Ah yes, the guilt. Shame. Embarrassment. Awkwardness. Those things which show up at the first sign of 'I shouldn't have lost it; I should know better by now and have stayed ultra calm and serene, after all, ranting makes no difference'… Or more correctly, 'You shouldn't have…' You? Why not I? Who's speaking to me inside then? Ah yes, those judges on the shoulder, like the ancestral parrot re-playing the old instructions which only serve to keep us down, disciplined, demure. Well, mine had flown off. So I bent the windscreen (windshield), but freely and openly, leaving no after-effects, because of two things. 

One - self-kindness in the permission to feel feelings. I was aware I could have ranted with all the words along the lines of 'it's not fair!', and 'How could they?', but I now know that's pretty futile and only serves to have me observe myself with a certain 'Oh dear…'. But I could tell the road before me what I wanted to be heard; that I was tired! I didn't want this! Grrrrrrrrr! It was one of those darker-than-dark nights where the headlights seemed to only penetrate a few feet into the blackness. Rain and spray, fog and 'mizzle' (a particularly 'delightful' Cornish rain which is fine, soaking, and travels at you sideways at speed) coupled with tons of wet leaves, hills and sharp bends was demanding. I did not need this! I know people have real things they do not need, but right now this was mine, and I am human, and tired, and actually quite scared of the conditions. And I told it as it was - loudly. I let my self be heard and acknowledged by my self. I work in a field (Alexander Technique) where the saying no to unwanted tensions and reactions is the basis of the work, but to me this can lead to a covert suppression. Sometimes the need is to simply let the feelings OUT. We know it's ok to do this on violins, drums, pianos, but balk at the use of our own voice and lyrics! 

So, I did, and, two, I played it. I had had a day 'Fooling' - the Art of Play, Lila-like, and it's a truly wonderful thing to do. So I played the angry and tired person meeting diversion signs. Just played it - like we would go see in a theatre, or on telly, and where we would cry-with-laughter in recognition of the 'little things' we humans find so irritating and tough. But how strange it is that we suppress, ignore, shame our natural tendencies to show frustration…. Maybe if we could all show it more, we could all give others permission to show theirs, and then, amazingly, we probably wouldn't all feel so frustrated! Having played it out, what showed up for me in its place was an easy gratitude.

So today, play your rants! Be kind to yourself and hear your feelings. Stamp your foot and say the line I had in a school play a million years ago, "It jolly well isn't fair! I'm going home to bed!" Then there's no need for projection onto others, judgement of self or others, and no need to suppress and compress into tension and the later 'stress-hangover' feelings. 

Happy rantings!

On emotions and welcome and kindness as a gateway Home - by Hollie Holden

Hollie Holden kindly gave me her permission to be my guest blogger - I read this today and thought it was so beautifully apt for the Self-Kindness blog.

Here is the link to her page where she puts up some very lovely, loving, and hugely supportive posts. https://www.facebook.com/hollieholdenlove?fref=nf 

 On emotions and welcome and kindness as a gateway Home:

As some of you know, I am currently reading Geneen Roth's beautiful book 'Women Food & God'. I am also going through some pretty intense emotions - the kind that wake you up at 5am. A lot of shifts are happening right now in my world and as a sensitive human being, that is never straightforward for me.

And just in case any of you ever get overwhelmed with emotion or wonder how to deal with it, I have to share this most stunningly enlightened description of emotional welcome from the book:

'Can you imagine how your life would have been different if each time you were feeling sad or angry as a kid an adult said to you, "Come here, sweetheart, tell me all about it." If when you were overcome with grief at your best friend's rejection, someone said to you, "Oh darling, tell me more. Tell me where you feel those feelings. Tell me how your belly feels, your chest. I want to know every little thing. I'm here to listen to you, hold you, be with you."

All any feeling wants is to be welcomed with tenderness. It wants room to unfold. It wants to relax and tell its story. It wants to dissolve like a thousand writhing snakes that with a flick of kindness become harmless strands of rope.' (Page 100 for anyone who wants to read the whole section in the book and get the full reparenting experience.)

Such a beautiful description of the work we must aim to do with ourselves and others; to bring kindness to the pain, curiosity to the suffering.

And what a deep lesson in how we could hold our children too so that they learn to welcome all of themselves. But we have to start with us. I have to start with me.

Doing great…..

A student today got us seeing something differently - I heard myself say, "You're doing great!" as she walked down the steps. We laughed, sagely now after the work we had been doing. It might be a lovely and reassuring thing to hear, but if the main challenge is one of perfectionism, it really doesn't help. Being told we are brilliant might be what we all want, but it carries a heavy demand; 'I can never, ever, let myself be anything but brilliant'. I was so glad we took the time, even on the doorstep as we were, to clarify my words into this: ''Great' isn't about being the best student ever. This 'great' is about being brave enough to go within when being anywhere but in the head is scary, and being willing to go to that often-to-some terrifying place within our body where we feel things. It's about agreeing with ourselves to be soft, to open a little, to suspend the impulse to achieve long enough to consider other choices, and to experience ourself falling short of the huge expectation - 'failing' - and not react to this, but just observe what happens within. We can't change anything until we know it is there, and touch it, sense it, fully make its acquaintance, This takes being in our truth, fully present to all of it as it is. This student is 'doing great' precisely because she is giving herself permission to sometimes not be great, and to experience the disconcerting feelings that brings up so they can change in the light of acknowledgement. But she is also now feeling all all the softness and unconditional kindness most of us crave. Only this time it's coming from herself to herself. :-)

Befriending your own wisdom

 There once was a man with a boat. He wanted to go somewhere very important to him, so he put his destination firmly in his sights and set out. He had been told many times to be positive, to never take his eye off his goal, and to trust he was always in the exactly the right place at the right time.

Suddenly he saw rocks ahead… Small jagged black shiny point sticking up out of the water. 'What to do?', he thought. 'I am meant to keep going no matter what, remembering that all will be well and I am being looked after. But this isn't right, surely? My boat will founder on the rocks and I will perish.' Doubt began to seep into his mind. Was he wrong? Were they wrong? What and who was right? Maybe the tide would take him away from the rocks, even if he held his current course...

‘But what if it didn’t?’ was loud in his mind. However, he had also been told to never believe the ‘what ifs’ his mind brought up. “All will be well; everything that happens is for a reason” had also told to him many times.

The rocks loomed ever closer, the tide not appearing to make any difference to his track. The man had been put well and truly on the spot, his spot. Yes, his teachers had had many boldly powerful ideas, but they weren’t in this boat at this time in this place - this situation. 

He suddenly knew something deep inside; that he was his own best teacher; it could only ever be himself who made the right decisions for his own life. And that to do so did not make him bad or wrong to not listen to others. His best ‘other’ was in fact his own wisdom. 

He quickly reckoned that this very wisdom was manifesting itself ever more powerfully as his gut-feeling of “Do something, and fast!” surged, and he swung the tiller round and altered course away from the rocks just in time. 

No, he now wasn’t heading directly for his destination. Yes, it was taking a detour. But he and his vessel were safe and he could now plot another course for his beloved harbour.

As the black tipped rocky points slipped safely by on his starboard side, he smiled; yes, it could be a gift that he was here at this time to realise about his own wisdom, but he saw beyond that... He saw and finally understand that he had always known his own wisdom, and how authentic it had always been. He had simply listened to too much ‘head stuff’ from others to whom he had given himself away through self-doubt, and it was all this that had got in the way of his own knowing-already, and which nearly caused him to founder on the rocks.

As he sailed away into the sunset he smiled at the warm feeling in his heart: no more self-doubt from now on, no more asking and listening to everyone else, and much more listening and trusting his own wisdom, his own knowing-already.