If You People Please, You're Likely Expecting Others to Do the Same for YOU

I’m thinking a ton lately about issues of race and gender/sex/identity and how it’s all intertwined and how it affects my work and how I should/can change my work as I know and understand more. And I understand so very little, when it comes right down to it.

The more you know, the more you know you don’t know shit, right?

As I’m thinking about these things especially intensely over the last few weeks, I try to very gently enter into conversations that are about these topics and ask questions. For a while, it just seemed I couldn’t ask anything right or in the right way. I kept getting, well, yelled at in a variety of ways. No one was super mean but I was definitely getting my hand slapped, and I was getting more and more frustrated.

How can I learn if I can’t ask?

Then I had a private discussion with someone who lives these questions and who cares for me and was willing to kinda hand hold and be patient though very direct (which I respond well to). Thank GOD for this person.

But you might be surprised to find out what I learned or maybe you won’t be surprised at all because you’re further ahead on this curve than me and you’ve already been muttering to yourself as you read this.

I learned that, really, I WAS the problem. Or my approach was anyway. Even though I approached with love and good intentions and care, I was still expecting too much.

I was still expecting the person who is suffering to do the work for me. I was still expecting them to do heavy emotional lifting for me.

Here’s what I was extra surprised by: this was happening because I do this FAR TOO MUCH FOR OTHER PEOPLE in my own work and world.

People who have brains and can do research come to me with basic questions about trauma. I use my precious time and brain energy giving them all of the information on a platter. When they could just as easily go get that information for themselves, do the basic thinking for themselves, and come back later when they’re ready to have a genuine discussion with me as two equal humans struggling.

I hand hold people like crazy on the regular, thinking I “should” or maybe people won’t “like me.”

See that people pleaser woman shit right there?

So then when *I* am the asker, of course, I enter into the scenario with the same messed up expectations for the person I perceive as the “expert.”

Whoa…

What a crap ton of codependent shit right there. Can you see it?

I’m off to order a bunch of books about racism, white fragility, and the intersection of racism and sexism (because hello, constitution, written FOR AND BY white men).

I’m gonna go do my homework and I’m asking that you do yours too, okay?

Because I’m also gonna be recovering from all that people pleasing.

Battle Fatigue During Lockdown

This lockdown we’re all experiencing is tough. And if you already had some pre-existing mental health challenges, it’s tougher. Period. This shit is deeply triggering, even for the healthier of mind among us, so it can be downright dangerously triggering for those of us already battle fatigued.

I’m one of that group who is battle fatigued and who is really struggling to find the next level of courage and strength that I need right now. So if you’re reading this and nodding, you’re not alone.

From the outside, I look okay. You know what us overachieving, perfectionist, high-functioning depressive types are like. We don’t like anyone to really know what’s happening.

It might even seem that I share a lot. I share a TINY percentage of my actual day to day struggle. A struggle that only my husband and maybe 3 other people really understands.

Each day is uphill and slogging through mud, for the most part. Each day is about getting a sort of personal “minimum” done, no matter what.

Then at night, in bed, I crash — physically and emotionally.

As is always the case, I’m not sharing this for pity. I’m sharing this for people who are even quieter than ME about their struggles, about those days when it really feels like they might not make it, about those times when the darkest parts of their minds start generating ways to get out.

I’m sharing it for those people who are even quieter than ME and so you’ll never ever know that every day is a victory worthy of a medal.

Every day that we are still here and still trying, we are growing courage muscles that I wish no human even needed.

And for those of us who didn’t make it — for the Vincent Van Goghs and the Virginia Woolfs of our world — it’s not that their courage gave out. It’s that the battle fatigue got too strong.

So right now… we need to extra watch out for each other.

Right now, the stronger among us must lend strength to those struggling.

Right now, may our compassion grow a safety net that lets no one pass through.

Virtual is Not Virtual

Maybe it’s because I was an early-ish adopter to this online teaching thing, trying to teach movement via streaming years ago when it truly sucked and then figuring out ways to do it regardless of the technology and then growing my ways as the technology grew and continues to grow.

But I’m seeing a lot of people feeling overwhelmed by suddenly being thrown into this medium and I’m grateful not to be needing to learn all of this at light speed.

I’m also seeing a lot of people who are new to the medium demeaning it. Stop.

The tech is only as good as the user so if you’re not getting much out of it, well, fill in the rest of this sentence.

As one of my long time movement students pointed out, because we are human our use of the technology still retains a sensuality — it’s just a new sort of sensuality that we have to explore and learn about.

Virtual classes... there's really nothing "virtual" about them. They're still powerful; they're still connecting spaces. There is embodiment even in this. There is sensual experience even in this. There is curiosity and growth and beauty.

And just this past week, I even had people working in pairs and you know what? It was just as beautiful and meaningful as ever.

My YouTube Channel is Expanding

I share a lot of videos in the Embodiment Sanctuary, my private Facebook group (which you can ask me to add you to), and sometimes it can feel overwhelming, right? I mean, even a GOOD video takes TIME to watch.

One of the #Treesters in that group pointed this out to me and I realized I already had a way to make this easier on all of us. I’ll still post those things in the sanctuary, of course, because it creates amazing conversations, but I’ll also be using my YouTube channel to keep them all in one place for your ease.

Subscribe to my channel but also go over there and check out the playlists.

Besides curating playlists of interesting/enlightening/helpful/amazing stuff, I also create original content, and I’ll be doing way more of that over this coming year. If you have topics you’d like me to cover, let me know here or over on Facebook or by sending me an email.

Helpful Beauty or Shit You Can Check Out to Stop Feeling Insane

We need beauty more than ever right now and so I thought I’d share a list of links for you to peruse and you know… ignore for a few moments that the world feels like it’s falling apart.

Cherry blossoms have to be one of my favorite harbingers of later spring and no one, of course, does them like Japan (photo above). Just looking at photos of Japanese gardens and architecture tends to calm me. So much so that I have a Pinterest board dedicated to it.

And if gardens on the dramatic cliffs of the coast of France are your thing ((ha)), here is a great selection of photos that just made me swoon.

If you’re a rock and gem and crystal nerd like me, you should join this public Facebook group because holy cow!

Need a sound bath, even the LIGHTING of this guy’s videos is soothing. (And remember that you can get distance work done by Nancy Bowden. You can do skype, phone, whatever.)

If you need some new music to dance to or to keep you motivated, check out my Spotify and especially look at my “liked songs.” Play it on shuffle.

If you are interested in the Enneagram and want to laugh and learn simultaneously, check out Abby Howe’s channel. (I’m a 4 and wow… SO FUNNY!)

This doesn’t get old. It made me snort yet again when I got the clip for you. AND his voice is just so damn…soothing.

Oh, my! Everything from Frida Kahlo to Pompeii is covered in some amazing online free virtual tours of current exhibits that none of us can get to. This collection is such a gift of options!

Furthermore, some of the biggest and best museums from all over the planet are offering virtual tours of their collections. I could get lost in these.

Here you can find links to opera, theatre, musicals, KABUKI, and more online for free!

The MoMA is offering free online classes.

And here’s a list of FIVE HUNDRED courses being offered for free by Ivy League schools.

On my YouTube channel (which you could subscribe to), I have a Dance Inspiration playlist. I’ve been collecting these for years now and it’s interesting to see what i used to find compelling compared to now.

Okay… that seems like a good start. ((HA)) This could actually keep you focused on good and beautiful things for a long time to come.

Is there anything you’ve found that you would add?

And don’t forget that you can ask me to add you to my Facebook private group, Embodiment Sanctuary, where we support one another in a private and safe space and where I share ways to deal with all the ick via body and breath practices and JOY.

Also I want to add… all of this is free. IF you are able, please support artists and solo-preneurs whom you know. A lot of us are not eligible for business loans or help (not that there’s a lot out there), and though we’re home, there are ways for us to continue to do our work if we continue to have students and supporters.

Life is Change (said the control freak)

“Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible, and suddenly you’re doing the impossible.”

— St. Francis

My view while I’m teaching via Skype and Facebook Live.

I’ve been offering things online — even live streaming — probably for almost 8 years, so that part of what’s happening was pretty easy for me to adjust to. And I don’t mind teaching online. I get to stay home in my little space and the overhead is, well, nothing.

It’s not been as easy for my local students who were used to being in the same room with each other. But they have learned/noticed rather quickly that community is community whether it’s 3D or not. The energy of our work is not dependent on proximity. It’s dependent upon trust and vulnerability.

But this is not to say I have not been challenged. I have been… BIG TIME.

This change has sent me (as I’m sure it has many) into a time of profound questioning.

What do I want to do in this world and why and how do I want to do it?

Am I spending my time well?

What if every moment of our time here really really matters (it does) and what it we treated it that way (we don’t)?

Recently, I had made some decisions about the “branding” of my work. (Branding is the word that works but it’s not my favorite.)

I’ve come to realize that those decisions were based in a fear about my own vulnerability.

I freaking TEACH people to allow vulnerability, to feel it, to know that it’s the only path to our truest expressions.

And I have discovered that I myself was still shying away from it.

I don’t think I would have noticed this so quickly if it hadn’t been for what we are going through collectively. I think I could have continued to fool myself about myself for quite some time.

But here we are…

Having our protective layers forcibly removed by circumstances.

Every generation has defining moments like this, and if we are lucky and if we are already a bit awake (though groggy), we will notice and we will evolve.

I’m trying to focus on the truth of that.

Social Spacing is Not Social Distancing

Today I went to the edge of our lake to breathe and think for a few moments. There were a couple of other people on the same beach, but they were well far away from me. Then as I was just starting to think about leaving, the man to my left started to move in my direction.

I must have looked like a flushed deer. I skittered and quickened all the while trying not to look like I was running. (I am teasing myself here so feel free to laugh.)

He yelled from behind me (well beyond 6 feet…too many feet for me to estimate), “Have a good day!” in a friendly and slightly amused voice. I waved to him and smiled, trying to convey, “Sorry… I’m not ACTUALLY crazy… just for right now.”

On my way home, I saw kids at the local ice cream eatery that opens on April 1st on the peninsula (locals know who I’m talking about) and they were working, setting things up, but a few were on break, in little huddles, chatting and laughing. HOW COULD THEY? was my immediate thought.

At a corner drugstore, 3 bikers in leather, smoking, stood within inches of each other talking and I had to work very hard not to yell out my window, “SIX FEET, IDIOTS!” (Yep…)

This is where many of us are right now… paranoid and scared and overwhelmed and so very anxious, tempers probably shorter than ever (at least in my case).

Because… we are social animals, regardless of introvert/extrovert distinctions.

…we need human touch to thrive.

…we need to be witnessed by other humans directly on a regular basis (hello, mirror neurons).

…we need to feel SAFE in our environments to create anything of real meaning over the long haul.

…and speaking of safety, so many of us feel truly triggered by the AnxiousAir we are breathing, feeding old anxieties and traumas and bringing many such things back from the dead where we had worked hard to relegate them.

Social distancing to our social animal selves is not easy. Period. We hunger for life to feel more normal, to not feel like there is a TIGER outside our door every time we need to go get food.

In the meantime, I’m trying to think of this more as social spacing.

Distancing feels too hard, too cold.

Spacing… okay… my personal space is definitely bigger than it is usually treated even when we’re not in this kind of situation so I can deal with that language.

Distancing, though, can easily become our reality if we allow it.

So try some of the following:

1. Check in with people who live alone. They are very vulnerable right now. Message, zoom, whatever.

2. Use all the tech we have for GOOD. Create Skype parties. Or SALONS… as in the old use of that word, people coming together to have meaningful discussions. Play games!

3. Get outside. Even if you have to look nuttily protective of your barriers like me.

4. Make sure you’re moving every day. There are so many resources online for this. Including me. ((ha))

5. Try to feed your body like you love it… our immunity is so tied to how we eat.

6. Maybe write letters to loved ones! Actual letters!

7. Spend time every day in a quiet space in your mind and recognize what is GOOD.

8. Light candles and send out prayers. People always mock this as silly and unhelpful (I have strong opinion about why that is NOT true…), but we are all connected AND it can help us to feel not quite so powerless.

Do you have anything you’d add to this list?

Anger

The lake was crazy today when we took a walk to see her. LOUD and VIOLENT in her waves and churning. The kind of water action that changes whole coastlines in amazingly short lengths of time.

She was mesmerizing.

And I kept thinking she was reminding me of Kali, the Hindu goddess that brings about death to make room for rebirth.

She’s a goddess that I have spent a lot of time with over the last six years.

I feel her rage inside of me, but unlike our lake or mother nature in general, I don’t feel like I have anywhere to put that sort of rage. I don’t have a coastline that I can recut.

Another title for Kali, though, is liberator of souls.

We can only be liberated once what is keeping us imprisoned is destroyed.

Right now, we’re in this strange, extremely uncomfortable (to put it mildly), frustrating, STUCK place, but it’s in these sorts of liminal spaces where it seems nothing is happening that everything is happening.

More people than ever are, for example, waking up to the fact that the way our current culture is structured is not working. People are dying from lack of healthcare and food. What about that is in any way civilized?

But we have, for too long, walked beside that fact, averting our eyes because it wasn’t touching us. Now it is or the possibility is more present than ever and that is enough to stir more than usual critical thinking.

People are waking up to the fact that a few people owning most of the world’s resources is maybe not only unfair but just, well, not longterm functional.

Raging, churning, screaming…

It’s a right and good rage. It’s a necessary churning. It’s a relief to be screaming and to finally be heard, even just a bit.

I have no answers. I have no idea where we’re headed or how to get there. It’s the nature of this space we’re in. All I have is feeling and observation, and for now, that has to be enough no matter how much I don’t like it.