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September 09, 2004
Sit up straight, young man!
I was able to avoid giving bodywork in Shiatsu yesterday by receiving first, and then we ran out of time. How perfect it turned out to be... I was much more confident with it today and actually did a good job with the techniques and some of the body mechanics.
Cassie helped correct my posture by actually putting her hands on my back and sacrum and guiding me into alignment. A light went on. "Ohhhh... so that's what alignment feels like." No one every did that for me before. When I was younger they would issue vagaries like, "Pull your shoulders back!" Huh? Turns out they really meant, "Push your sternum up and out." And no one ever showed me how tucking my tailbone automatically drops my shoulders.
So she could tell I was having some issue, and started to acknowledge what she thought it was, based on what I had said previously about the troubles I was having... and I realized, and communicated, that today it wasn't self-consciousness... it was consciousness of being cared for. Of having someone with the skills to actually help me take the time to do so. On an old issue that I had simply buried, given up on. Felt good, but also difficult to accept. "I really deserve this?" Yes.
I took my lunch up into the library, intending to work or be otherwise "productive"... and ended up reading Utne, first a cover story about time, schedules, and breaking free of their tyranny... and then other articles. I read until 5 minutes to Musculoskeletal Anatomy. It was really nice to relax for a while.
Musc. Anat. was fine. I scored high on the test, although I'm trying not to care about the score. (13+ years of schooling don't go away that fast, though!) I'm trying to focus on the things I'm not so good at, which happen to be the really important things: palpation, location, identification. Seeing with my hands and fingers. Feeling rather than thinking.
It's tough, but every time we palpate in class I learn something, and Soyka spent a few minutes with me today being very helpful... she also suggested reido before palpating, as it's the method she uses to bring her awareness out of her head and into her hands.
Tonight was the first "deep" heart circle, held in the Temple. There were only four students + the facilitator... powerful. I brought something to talk about, but when I started to take my turn, I wasn't feeling it. So I started to describe the experiences, the weird psuedo-depression I talked about yesterday, and my deep recognition I felt at the end of the first Playtime that I carry all my baggage with me everywhere I go... and soon I was feeling it.
I didn't run to this place, I wasn't trying to run from anything. But it turns out there was still part of me that wishes that none of it would follow. That by coming here I could have left some of it behind. "Why are you still here? GO AWAY!" They color my hope, for what value does the future hold if it contains this manner of relating to them?
I spoke of them as if they weren't MY issues, weren't any part of me, but some sort of Other. Intellectually I know that refusing to own them, accept them, and even love them more or less sentences me to continue walking with them. Unable to claim them, I cannot change them.
When I was invited to express love for these parts of me, I railed against it. And in that space, I couldn't think of a single part of me that I did love.
Now that I have a better handle on this, having expressed it, I will be able to move through it quickly... as quickly as I can actually find time and energy to apply some tools to it. Unfortunately, I'm currently experiencing Heartwood as sapping both of those resources to the point of imbalance.
Hopefully the weekend will help.
Posted by Josh A. at September 9, 2004 10:18 PM
Comments
Liked what I read. Reminds me of the reorientation I when through leaving my teens. Going from surviving in a Latino ghetto to becoming a serious student and recognizing my sexuality was not a phase.
I do love your humor. Sometimes humor is used as a shield to not talk seriously about one's feelings.
The photos of Hartweird, oops, we beautiful. You folks even have a Ecko queen in you midst; who would have thunk.
Posted by: Steven at September 22, 2004 08:11 PM