"Breathe and wait" meets its perfect time of year

I’ve been yelling/teaching/prompting “breathe and wait” in classes since the earliest days of Girl on Fire Movement Studio (RIP beautiful studio). Now I tend not to say it enough (and I’ll be changing that). But also? I myself do not always really hear it even as it comes out of my own damn mouth.

And of course, this prompt is not just for movement class but it’s meant to — via movement classes — become so engrained in us that it leads in our wider lives.

Right now? This season of anticipation (advent, the coming solstice, all of it…) and this season of endings (calendars might be made up but they’re based on real things like the sun’s travels and the moon’s cycles)… it seems like the perfect season to really practice breathe and wait in our daily lives and rituals.

Instead of hustling more or seeing how much you can get done in these last days of this year (and how do we continue to hear that advice from the whole coaching community still???)… instead of hustling, let’s just stop.

Let’s breathe and wait.

Breathe and wait to see what peace we can find in these quiet darker days.

Breathe and wait to discern what’s working in our lives — from relationships to routines to work to practices of all kinds.

Breathe and wait.

Pause. Observe. Feel. Listen. Just wait.

Breathe and wait is always followed by allow but we’ll let that off to the side for now.

I felt myself going into hustle mode about halfway through November. I was freaking out about projects I didn’t accomplish this year and I was looking for ways to squeeze them in and luckily I noticed and I stopped.

These last days as we wind down are just not the time for that.

I’m going to focus on connection, rest, and simmering.

I’ll be breathing and waiting as I:

• Get back into paper based journaling and planners and what a joy this has been. Slowing down enough to write slowly instead of hammering away at a computer has been both difficult and delightful.

• Read more and more and more. And read more deeply. I’m planning a personal curriculum for the winter semester and I’ll be writing about that some time soon.

• Turn on twinkle lights and light candles and stretch in the evening on the floor with cats milling about.

• Dream about what’s possible without laying down any really solid plans.

• Connect to my loves and my inner circle of peeps.

What about you?

More steps to recovering my healthy brain: my algorithms

I’ve been taking a lot more steps beyond all of my movement to recover my healthier brain. So I’ll be writing about this much more over the coming months.

I had such a great experience of how much we control our algorithms this weekend. We know this, but a lot of the time we're not really owning the responsibility and we blame the platforms but they're just tools. (Please keep in mind that this isn’t about TikTok. That’s just my example.)

So my TikTok started out all fun and dance. I got it right after January 6th to deal with the stress. Over time, it become super politicized and I've been kinda drowning in that every time I go over there... but again... that's because THAT is what *I* was watching and engaging with.

Well, this weekend, I suddenly got obsessed with Journal Tok. This has been slowly seeping into my FYP (for you page/discover space) for some time, but this weekend, I stayed with the videos (and they can be longer form) and I engaged.

About the same time, some literary and philosophy academics had been hanging around my edges too so I started to really watch those. And then the witchy stuff. And some super liberal Catholic peeps.

So now?!?! My TikTok is like some fucking cozy cottage of all of my favorite things.

IT ACTUALLY SOOTHES MY NERVOUS SYSTEM. Yep.

I have more to say about those topics that I'm diving into specifically but this is a reminder that you are in charge of everything you put into your brain and body. (As Thich Nhat Hanh would say.)

I'm not suddenly taking some privileged road and not paying attention to the wider world. I still know all the things that are going on, BUT I have this little space where I can swim in dreams. (And intentionality but more on that soon.)

Artifacts as motivation

Though I’ve been really low on motivation the last two weeks due to a stupid slip back into eating gluten (and I’m starting to emerge from it but oy…), I’ve been thinking about sharing this particular idea for some time.

A lot of people write about the idea of legacy. What is the legacy you wish to leave behind you in the world? For some of our brains, that’s a pretty abstract concept that doesn’t lead to much past understanding. Meaning, for me, it doesn’t lead to action. Not so much.

But then I ran into the idea of artifacts as it relates to us personally and I can’t remember where but it stuck.

This isn’t about all the stuff in your house. I mean, I really wish more people would take Swedish Death Cleaning more seriously, because yeah, we don’t want your tchotchke and you’re basically asking others to clean up after you. (This doesn’t mean you should live with nothing but maybe, just maybe, if your house and garage and shed are packed to the gills, you could get rid of half of it. I know from experience that it won’t only NOT kill you to have an empty closet or even just some empty shelves, but it will make space in your life to breathe more deeply. For reals.)

Anyway…

What are these artifacts?

You know how on social media there are people who only ever share other people’s stuff (including fucking AI generated crap but that’s another post)? They never share any of their own thoughts, their own photos, their own art, nothing generated from their own minds and hearts.

It reminds me of a lot of those homes I just wrote about above. They are leaving behind bought stuff… nothing from their own hands or minds.

And that’s the artifacts we’re talking about: bits of you. Evidence of you having lived your life.

Not everyone is going to leave behind beautiful paintings like my husband or piles of published books like some of my friends.

But we can still leave behind bits of us… that journal you kept of the seasons? Priceless. Those pieces of art that you labored over out of pure joy? Priceless.

These are the things that matter. Not your freaking figurines.

How this can be motivating

For me, when I think about leaving behind artifacts of my life, it motivates me to make those videos (and build my YouTube so it’s full of my somatic dance principles). It motivates me to actually get writing, whether here or on socials or on the book files I have started. It motivates me to work on my teacher training manual.

It motivates me to plan the next choreography challenge. To build deeper community. To get out in the world and show my damn self.

So… thinking of the artifacts you’d like to leave behind, how could this motivate you?

The measure by which you know your true work

When I say the word work, I don’t necessarily mean your job. The two can be the same but are not always. I happen to have work that is also my job, and though some people idealize that, there are positives and negatives to both ways of being in the world.

And no matter how much you love your work, there are always parts that just suck. There are days that are exhausting. There are times when you think about quitting. That’s all normal.

With that out of the way…

What’s not normal is feeling that way all of the time. Walking around feeling nothing but drained and maybe even angry is a big red flag.

Here’s the thing: the work you’re meant to do in this world (whether your job or not) is something that feeds the world but also feeds you back. That’s the key right there.

There are days when I think about quitting this work/job I’ve been doing for 16 years, but I know I’m where I’m supposed to be because it brings something important to my communities just as it also brings so much to me. It’s as much my own happiness and sanity as it is any student’s.

So every time I’m feeling overwhelmed or disappointed or just grouchy, I go back to that and remember myself.

I also go back to this little story I read somewhere and I cannot remember where but I think the monk in it is David Steindl-Rast.

A man was feeling really exhausted and overwhelmed by his work/job (some sort of non profit) and he was complaining to his monk friend about this.

The monk friend said something along these lines: It’s not the work that is exhausting you but the fact that you are not giving yourself wholeheartedly to it. ((whoa))

This lack of wholeheartedness can show up for me in a bunch of ways: I focus on wrong things; I don’t take care of my own practices; I try to do too much: I succumb to comparison.

Wholehearted is the opposite of hustle, right?

It’s working from your open heart. And that work always includes self care, a human pace, and a constant return to the fundamentals of your what and why.

I am my main job and same for you

I don’t know how life keeps up leveling its overwhelming nature, but here we are, 8 months into what I keep feeling like is the actual upside down world.

This past week has been one of the worst. I’m learning too much about the far far far right (even beyond magat land). And there are things my mind can’t process… it’s all so ugly and demented.

It has started to feel like there are these forces we can do nothing about. And that’s partly true. Logic does not defeat psychoses and neither does empathy defeat these levels of hate that are combined with a stupidity that almost breaks my brain.

I can finally understand why some people have just shut it all off. But that’s still not the answer: that’s a level of privilege that is destructive in its own way.

Feeling powerless, well, that’s what “they” want. And it’s the feeling that led so many of these young men to the nihilism that is fueling their violence. Feeling powerless made them susceptible to voices that aim to take advantage of them by blaming others for their powerlessness.

So staying in that feeling of powerlessness is not an ethical choice.

And there I was stuck until I talked to some treesters, of course.

I am my main job

This will all connect, I promise.

A few weeks ago, it hit me that I am my main job.

During all these years of teaching somatic dance and other movement, I go through cycles where I forget myself in the process.

This particular cycle has lasted a long time. Probably since Peony left her fur suit (and the fourth anniversary of that is this coming Sunday).

Again, a few weeks ago, it hit me that I am my main job. That I can’t teach if I’m not constantly learning. That I can’t talk if I’m not walking that talk.

So I shifted my focus and all of my own practices now come first. Other things are still getting done, but my own practices come first.

My own strength and balance and creative work come first. (Metaphor alert!)

I am only as good a teacher as I am a student and a doer.

Which brings me back to feeling powerless

After my talk with my treesters today, it hit me that, as usual, what I was learning in my movement practices is also the key to living through this upside down world and not becoming upside down myself.

(And this also goes back to things I’ve been learning from tennis, especially about focus.)

I have power. It’s just not where I want it to be or more accurately, where I think it should be. When we experience early trauma, we often take on a savior complex. We go through life not just thinking we can save others but that we should, that it’s our responsibility, and if we don’t do this, we are nothing.

But when I dismiss my own actual powers in favor of idealized ones that “could save the world,” well, I’ve denuded my actual gifts that are meant to be used by me and for others. (This goes for each and every one of us, of course.)

I have power.

You have power.

It might not appear political but life is political.

It might not even seem or feel important to you, but I guarantee you that it is, because every piece of the puzzle that is building love and empathy and caretaking matters.

Focus on my main job is key

If I focus on my practices and my work and the gifts I have and not the ones I don’t, the specific role only I can fill will be filled.

Same for you.

This is not about bypassing.

Because you know what? I think I was already bypassing by allowing the world to paralyze me, by paying so much attention to what I couldn’t do that I forgot about what I can.

Something has been broken in our goodness

We could blame it on COVID, but I think it goes back before that to a certain person coming down a golden escalator. Cruelty suddenly became the norm in public discourse in a way we’d never experienced before. Our highest political leader who is supposed to, at the very least, exhibit high levels of decorum was suddenly behaving like the schoolyard bully. There seem(ed) to be no more rules and people who had been hiding their meanness, all of their ignorant bigotries, were given permission to show it all very loudly and proudly.

When people so clearly show you who they are, believe them, right?

Blaming this on the golden escalator moment can seem inaccurate. This country has had a veneer of nice over mean and violent for, well, its entire history.

But this felt and feels different. It was/has been a definite sort of flashpoint.

We often talk about “those people” and don’t recognize what living in this shit stew has done to the rest of us, because it has done something and I’m noticing it more and more during this god awful second administration from hell.

People who consider themselves openminded and compassionate are losing their capacity to hold difficult things for others. (And I am seeing this absolutely everywhere.)

Yes, we’re overwhelmed. We all are. But to lose this particular muscle — to atrophy these capacities — is a sign of some sort of larger death that we cannot afford.

A lot of people are making their circles smaller when they should be making them bigger.

A lot of people are laying down to rest when we should be working on becoming warriors of distance and depth. We need our best selves right now, not some diminished and exhausted version.

I am exhausted; most of us are exhausted. But like a distance athlete, we must push through and find the next level of energy. We must take better care of ourselves so we can build the muscles necessary to meet these moments, because these moments are likely going to get harder, not easier in the near future.

I have no answers but I want to start the discussion. I want us to notice.

Practice as safe space

I used to tell people (when I was first embarking on this somatic dance journey and felt like I had just conquered two Mount Everests in a row by dancing my way to the least amount of depression in my life that I had ever known)… I used to tell people that their own bodies in the now were their safe space. Because right this minute, nothing is happening.

I still believe we can get to that point and that it also fluctuates depending on psychological triggers, freaking life life-ing, and things like overall health and the weather and so many other variables.

But… and this is a big but… your body as safe space just doesn’t work for a lot of people and it never will.

What do I mean by safe space?

Safe spaces are places and people in which and with whom we can be totally ourselves and be held with care. This can mean that we are tolerated through annoying times ((ha)), witnessed during big changes, and encouraged in growth. It can also mean we are called out on our own bullshit but we know that calling out is coming at us with love and compassion.

Safe spaces and people are not all sunshine and rainbows. Spaces that are too sweet are actually not safe, because the number one component of safe space (and people) is honesty.

If our bodies cannot be these safe spaces, where does that leave us?

What are the other options?

Movement As safe space

This is another tricksy one.

As I have said for a very long time: as long as there is breath, there is dance.

And I believe that. To my core. I have watched people with very little mobility left find so much beautiful dance.

But to say that movement itself is a safe space is unrealistic in light of what many will encounter via disease and aging.

Movement as safe space can feel like an insult in those contexts.

Of course, we too narrowly define movement and that is a large part of the issue, but that narrow definition is how most people understand it. To lose our favorite way of moving can be devastating and transitioning to a new way of understanding movement can take many years if it happens at all.

So no, movement itself is not the safe space we’re looking for.

Community as safe space

Ugh. Sadly this one can be too… fragile, too changeable, too… unrealiable.

Communities are made of humans and humans are unpredictable and we need something somewhat predictable when it comes to creating safe space.

That’s not to say that some communities are not our safe spaces. I myself have a few communities that I would put in this category, but even then, I have experienced moments when it didn’t feel that way. (Luckily they were safe enough to even contain those moments and move beyond them.)

And the grief that comes with dissolution of or betrayal within community is intense. Not safe (or at least not always).

Practice as safe space

After all of these years of observing all of these phenomenon, I have finally come to practice as safe space.

Practice as safe space contains all the other possibilities — bodies, movement, communities, other individuals.

Practice is malleable over our lifetimes but it also (when approached in the way I mean) is a constant companion, even as it and we change.

Practice is devotion to your own awareness and a commitment to living a life of noticing and learning and growing.

Your practices may change but you doing them does not. You coming to them in times of joy and grief does not. And though it may be profoundly challenging to maintain, your practices truly are your safe space — where you can fully meet yourself, challenge yourself, and learn an ever deepening love of yourself and therefore of others.

We are safe in our practices so that we can go out and meet a world that is often unsafe. We then go back to our practices for repair and rejuvenation to be effective in our lives. And that cycle goes on and on…

The world has me feeling quiet

From a class I just taught at the Columbus Museum of Art. The joy in this felt right in a post about Andrea.

Words come less easily lately. I am stunned into silence by this world we’re living in. My heart aches but that is often covered over by so much red hot anger that I forget how much it is actually my softness that is suffering.

I will try to get back to writing more regularly because I have lists and lists of things I want to put words to. And I know if I write about what really matters to me that over time more words will come…

For now, I am, like so many on this planet, grieving the loss of poet Andrea Gibson. They were a gift to us.

And this … the last line especially… feels like something everyone should read:

“My love, I was so wrong. Dying is the opposite of leaving. When I left my body, I did not go away. That portal of light was not a portal to elsewhere, but a portal to here. I am more here than I ever was before. I am more with you than I ever could have imagined. So close you look past me when wondering where I am. It’s Ok. I know that to be human is to be farsighted. But feel me now, walking the chambers of your heart, pressing my palms to the soft walls of your living.”

— Andrea Gibson