MELTDOWN!

I'm quite certain I'm not alone...

Thursday was rough. I had a pretty big panic/anxiety meltdown, and I felt paralyzed by it. I have a great helper, who knows how to talk to me, but I am still the one who has to figure out how to rise up out of that quicksand and Thursday...I felt pretty damn stuck in it.

During such a meltdown, of course, everything gets exaggerated and nothing feels like it could possibly help.

All the tools in your toolbox suddenly seem like GIANT JOKES existing only to prove how awful you are or how little hope there is in the world.

Eventually I dragged myself off the bed.

During times like this, even *I* CANNOT bring myself to dance. It's THE tool, but even I just cannot.

BUT I can do other smaller things. If I can get myself to start with the idea of just 5 minutes of pilates -- something concrete and directed -- that can turn into so much more as the healthy brain chemistry starts to reassert itself.

Thursday, that was exactly what happened. I started with a video of 25 minutes of pilates (with no promise that I would finish).

Why a video? I need someone else guiding me; I can't possibly do this myself when I am feeling that badly.

From there, I moved onto a 10 minute core video.

THEN, only then, after 35 minutes of soaking my brain in some endorphins, was I able to approach some free movement, and even for that, I stayed on the floor.

I stayed on the floor and focused on my breathing and waiting and allowing and noticing.

The very basic principles of what I teach.

And as always, quite suddenly, I was fascinated by the workings of this body.

And as always, quite suddenly, I was out of the asshole brain and completely in the whole of myself.

Because here's the thing: your brain is just ONE ORGAN.

When we rely on it exclusively, we easily become rather dumb.

When we dive into the entirety of ourselves and tap into the wisdom of the full body ecosystem... that is the pathway out.

The Bullshit of Categories

There are a few different versions of this going around, but it doesn’t matter. They’re all misleading and have the potential to shame and you know how I feel about things that shame.

To think that a human can reside in ONE ZONE is ridiculous in the best of times.

To paraphrase Whitman, we contain multitudes.

At any one moment, part of me could be feeling fear around this pandemic while another part of me is busily diving back into a spiritual practice that is giving me hope and sustenance.

To think that we can move from one to the next and then to the next is just a JOKE.

It’s like that person that says to me, “Well, I’m pretty much done with the lower chakras and really working on my third eye and my crown.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

That person is in for a crash or will live in spiritual bypassing, one of the least spiritual places of all, for a very long time.

My overall point being: if you see things like this, yes, they might be helpful in showing you some potential red flags or challenges or they might help you see where your’e doing a good job, but other than that, pass on by.

You are doing GREAT.

A Positive Practice for Difficult Times

I feel like, if we took this quote seriously, if we really dug into what this quote is asking of us… I know this will sound like hyperbole but it’s not… I believe this could heal the whole damn world.

We need a change in perspective, or when this virus crisis is over, we will simply fall back to the way things were. And the way things were was not working.

But we can’t make external, societal changes without changing how we work on the inside.

We need a change in perspective.

Changing the way we work on the inside is the only way we’ll have a clue as to how we can change the outside.

Otherwise we are lost.

For now, let’s focus on what we love about ourselves and let’s follow that trail of bread crumbs.

The main thing I love about myself is my ability to be totally and completely FASCINATED by and in awe of life and learning.

So for right now, I’m going to deep dive back into my tantra studies that I lost track of in all the world-level anxiety. I’m also going to deep dive even more into my movement work which is somehow the one thing that has been really GOOD right now… at a time when it feels difficult to do much of anything.

How about you?

This Time is What You Practice For

Now we cannot distract ourselves and it might be proving difficult. But this is an opportunity to notice your pain, your grief, your challenges... all the things that have been asking for your attention but have been easier to ignore until this.

This is the practice. This is what we do every time we stand vulnerable to a piece of music or to the silence and we breathe and we wait. We wait for the body to speak; we wait for a truthful expression; we wait for the uncomfortable impulse and then we follow it, with fascination, to see where it might lead us.

It will always be to somewhere more interesting than where comfort takes us. Always.

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?

Revolution through Body and Movement Subversion

From a remarkable student who understands this work so deeply, Donatella, speaking to me in a note and shared with her permission:

“What you do (movement art for the purpose of returning to the roots of movement as instinctive ritual, emotional catharsis, self exploration, physical improvements to biomechanical issues, and trauma bodily effects) is a complete subversion of the institutions and cultural ideas of “dance.” Especially considering your body and age inclusivity. By your nature, you are not a dancer; you are a movement artist, subverting everything wrong with the current culture around dance and women’s bodies. Your practices don’t damage the body, rather your practices heal the body. You teach the core essence of “dance” forms such as Butoh, Modern, etc., yet you don’t instruct people on rigid techniques and leave them to try to fit inside that. You don’t impose a body standard or an “ideal.” You don’t police the body of your artists. You embrace them and teach them that every single body is built to move and feel joy. You don’t kick people out after an imaginary age where they’re considered no longer palatable. You fight to keep people moving their whole damn lives so they can be in their bodies, experiencing physical life to the very end. You subvert everything about most of the things you were ever taught as a dancer, because fuck that.”

Reading that… it’s everything in my heart about this work and said in ways that I would never have been able to say it.

When I say this work is revolution, I am not speaking in hyperbole.

Daring to love ourselves just as we are? Daring to show ourselves when the culture says only certain types should be seen? Daring to take up all the damn space? Daring to do all of this in a community of women who only hold one another up, never acting toward one another in the ways we are taught from grade school?

When we dare in these ways, we come to know our full power.

And that scares the shit out of “them.”

Why Embodiment Work is Not "Exercise," Part One of MANY

NOTE: this was written way before we were at all aware of what was to come via this virus.

"Embodiment" is not just experienced on the individuated level. There is the body of family and the body of a circle of friends and the body of our society and many other bodies of which we are all members.

Our society's body is SICK right now. Obviously.

The process of healing BEGINS in the individual body that has been turned into a "disposable worker" in a large machine.

The process of healing begins in the individual body when we start to feel and BE IN these bodies in ways that the larger machine doesn't like. Meaning, when we become aware of our power.

We do that through creative expressions that put us back in touch with our original selves.

It saddens (and angers) me that we need "studies" and "numbers" to "prove" the truth of such obvious underlying truths.

First, by elevating certain intellectual pursuits, we clearly tell children that being good at A is way more important than being good at B.

What of the children who are so very excellent at B?

Second, this then creates our culture of blaming the poor for being poor in that people who were valued more in school for being good at A are then more valued in society and paid more for doing A.

Those who were good at other things that went unrecognized... then what?

Low paying jobs for the most part. With no insurance, no future security, etc.

Those people are then told to go back to school to "get better jobs."

HOW IS THERE A CONCEPT SUCH AS "BETTER" JOBS?

Is not all human labor and creativity inherently dignified if we treat it as such? Is not all human labor worthy of a livable income. Take that a step further: are not all HUMANS "worthy" of the basics no matter what?

And humans should be valued based on what they're naturally good at? We are so far away from what we are meant to be...

As if humans should be "valued" over other humans in any way whatsoever.