Learning to Live with Impeccability

"One of the great challenges of finding your sacred purpose is that it shines a light to those areas of your life that are not alight with the same vibration. When the soul is on fire, it burns through everything that doesn't truly resonate with it, leaving only karmic ash in its wake. This is the up-framing nature of a growthful path- that which distracts us from the path, that which doesn't share our new resonance, must be shed so that we can continue to evolve. It’s not always easy to say farewell to relationships and familiar ways of being, but it comes with the territory..." Jeff Brown

I am grateful for the rich tapestry of experience that has been afforded me on this journey I have accepted. Even when I find myself taking 2 or 3 goes around the same block until I finally get it - they are 2 or 3 separate micro journeys for me to receive more refined insights. Sometimes I do have to ask the same question more than once. With patience and love I am discovering my place here and my role. With impatience, I trip over myself, get up and take the necessary steps back. I am rarely what others think they know. 

I am driven to do what I was put here to do. 

Compelled. Every. Single. Day. 

I have come to recognize the difference between what will require diligence, focus and commitment and what I should run from. And who does not belong in my life. Thank you, Kindred for that reminder. I will probably need reminding again, but now I know the sensation. 

My body tells me. My body tells me every time. 

I also, finally, see the strange gift my parents gave me...

Curious how when I'm following my path, it may not always be easy but I am filled with a sense of knowing. I may be terrified of what is coming next (my new workshop, Love Your Body, Love Your Life! next weekend), but I am absolutely certain I'm on my path. This is mine and this is what I am here for. The workshop may be a rousing failure, but that won't change anything. I have true friends attending and with the help of their feedback and my own insight I will have the tools to tweak, adjust and even make changes.

This is far from my first workshop and I don't remember ever being this scared! I have been guiding students to move their bodies for almost half my life (trivia: did you know that I started my career in somatic practice coaching gymnastics?). This I can do and all of the workshops I've shared in the past have been connected to the concept of moving bodies to improve movement and fitness. Movement to get better movement.

This time, movement is going to play a slightly different role.  Movement to get better. Nope, I didn't forget to finish the sentence.

Movement to get better.

Movement as Medicine.

Move to Heal.

As Debbie Rosas Stewart (one of the creators of Nia) has said on numerous occasions, "Feel to Heal"

  My path. My life. Sharing my gifts. In August this was spoken publicly and acknowledged. The most interesting thing about this particular train of thought for me is that while this is my path, it's not about me. What has recently been revealed to me is that the work I am intended to share is mine to share because of the gifts I have been given. It has far less to do with what I am comfortable sharing, working with or with what I already know. So while it's lovely to imagine that I'm doing what I've been put on earth to do - the really lovely part about it is that it's going to take a tremendous amount of work!

I am here to remind anyone who wants to know this:

Your body will not lie to you.

Your body will not lie to others either.

Your body will not design coping mechanisms to soften the clattering of information hitting you every second. It doesn't need to.

Your body will not deny, avoid or put off giving you the information you need to have.

Our bodies are designed to give us all the information we need in order to take care of ourselves. We can dishonor this gift by overriding and disregarding Sensation, the language of the body, in order to make mental decisions. 

Or we can remember how to listen and remember how to live in these remarkable bodies.

Rediscover how to Love Your Body, Love Your Life!

Surrender

My wonderful friend, fellow Nia teacher and frequent partner-in-crime, Kim and I, were discussing workshop possibilities for the upcoming months and a thought occurred to me: 

every class is a mini workshop

That is my overachieving style of expressing all of the learning opportunities in each and every Nia class.
Nia is so rich. Occasionally, I'll bring a focus to class and the spirit of Nia reveals what the focus is actually going to be! This is my workshop!
That was the gift of this morning's class. I decided that as a group we would focus on the Upper Extremities of the Body: Personal Expression using Hands and Arms. I went in with all sorts of bracelets and rings to share with The Sunday Tribe.
We spent the first 20 minutes going through the 5 Developmental Stages. Every time I opened and waited for a pearl to communicate the focus I had chosen with my class, I received something different. After a request or two, I realized that Nia was suggesting I go in another direction and I had a choice: I could persist with my original focus and drag myself and my students through a class that would be dry; an experience in which I would sweat over every cue, struggle with over thinking and move with no pleasure and no Joy. This idea just did not seem incredibly appealing, so I surrendered and let Nia lead the dance.

Not very many people know this about me: since I am accustomed to leading movement and not accustomed to having a dance partner, I tend to lead. Some times, the universe asks me to follow. This is a recent discovery and I'm learning to hear that mandate. I often miss it the first time, though. What a lovely magnet. A hiccup in my life. One of many.

I am learning to surrender; to release that which is not mine to hold onto. I am often challenged to differentiate the two.

After spending the better part of my life stepping in, being consciously proactive in response to childhood experience, I have discovered that I have achieved overcompensation and now I am out of balance.
I am often so busy moving forward in certain areas that I tend to miss the message that:

• some things are not mine to move forward or 

• I am not ready to move them forward or 

• I have not met the person with whom I am to move them forward.

Now, before class rather than asking myself what the focus and intent for class will be, I send that query out in to the universe - to Nia - and wait, quietly for a response.

Not the same as doing "nothing". Relaxed, alert and waiting is something.

 Stillness. Waiting. Quiet. Empty. Clear. Not Doing. Simply Be-ing.

Getting out of my own way. Resting my ego. On my Path.

Welcome to the new Workshop Sandbox!

Saturdays at the Indian Boundary YMCA: Nia Body Journeys

Learn the Routine: R1

More tomorrow...