Posted By Default Admin |
I want to
bare witness and open dialogue for the experience of living, for the experience
of practicing, for the experience of practicing together in the classes at One
Body, and specifically for the experience of cycling class. I started this blog
after a particularly hair raising (in a good way) ride in April and I have been
chewing on it since then. By now several classes have come and gone and I have
wandered off to Roma for the 2nd annual Gyrotonic Conference. All is well. I am
a feeling it all, physically and emotionally, learning to trust in the process.
It blesses me to receive myself through you and I invite you to share your own
story of riding this thing we call life however you can.
I was thinking, and feeling, and thinking about what I feel and what I notice,
as I examine the life I am living. As I learn to trust what I am given, I meet
support or resistance according to my opinions. When I allow Grace to find me,
my judgments are suspended, and in that space, All that is left is trust. It is
All that is left and it is enough. Trust allows me to see through my opinions
to the plain truth. It enables me to see, and know that what ever is occurring
in this moment, is certainly arriving in response to my genuine need. And the
way it is arriving is perfectly designed to help me learn how to trust It. My
part is simply to meet the moment and everything It has brought along with It.
When I practice welcome, my wellness finds the means to come to me.
Humbly submitting myself to a practice of learning to trust, locates my real
strength. This strength is my truth and It is the only thing I need to face the
fears that hinge on my doubts about who I Am in Truth, and my purpose relative
to that identity. So my learning in this world is not about acquiring knowledge
but is more a process of elimination or surrendering what is not true. When I
let go of what I think I need or what I think I know, when I suspend effort,
when I surrender my opinion, I find my home. Like Dorothy I can click my heals
and forgive any time I choose, and in that instant I uncover the Truth that
there is no place but home.
Surrendering to Truth is a simple process when I let it be simple…and I can
generate a lot of drama when I don’t. We all know what it feels like to extend
ourselves without feeling solid ground to extend from. It’s kind of like
jumping on ice. We know it’s not a good idea but with every reasonable
alternative buried in our fears, the only thing we can see to do is to get
really busy building reasons to do it anyway. This is usually uncomfortable,
sometimes it is terrifying, and it is always exhausting.
When I am able to look at the truth of It, my suffering never comes from
outside of me. It always comes from my own decision to hold myself separate
from the Love that I want, the Love that I need, the Love that I Am. So how do
we find the way out of the bed we have made? From within a thought system that
believes we need to do something to arrive at ourselves, the answer to that
question quickly becomes immersed in grand plans to escape, strategies to win
the war. When we are under the influence of doubt, we grab for the grand
accomplishment that will reconcile our shame. Mother Theresa said there are no
great acts, only small acts done with great Love. So we hear again It is not if
we win or loose, It is only how we choose to play that creates our experience.
We cannot buy an experience. We cannot hand someone else our experience. We can
only hold intention by intending, and wait for the truth to rise out of the
ash. I can tell myself it is impossible to fall out of God’s Grace … and I must
tell myself that every time I feel shame and guilt rise. People ask me how may
times a week they should exercise, and the answer is you should exercise your
demons every time and place they show up. Practice small acts with great love
whenever you feel afraid. The perfect amount of times to tell myself that I am
loved is relative to how many times I feel the influence of believing I am not.
Some days are smoother than others and that is another opinion. So what I am
interested in is remembering, every time I forget. What I am interested in is
building a practice, in establishing a system that helps me remember. I am
interested in spending less time swinging out over the ocean of shame and guilt
that can open up when I leave my doubts unchecked. And to do that, I need a
practice to help me stay awake.
Finding liberation from the patterns that seem to hold us prisoner is what we
all say we are after. Experiencing real change requires a real change of mind
and to do that we have to subject our plans to the fire of scrutiny and the
simple and consistent commitment to surrender. Again, easier said than done but
we must employ some form or practicing right action, of trusting our mind and
our limbs to the movement of Love through Faith. And it is the experiences from
this practice that will change our minds and transform our lives.
It is good to have a plan but whatever the plan; it is only the means to an
end. When we arrive we do not continue to invest in the vehicle. It would be
like flying to paradise and never getting off the plane. Even so, in this world
where we believe we need to do something to be free, we cannot arrive at the
end without the means.
It is impossible to think your way out of an insane thought system from within
it. Given that, I depend on miracles, and they usually come in the form of my
friends. So pick a plan, give it the intention of freedom (Peace of mind) and
be honest about choosing your friends or honest about accepting the ones who
are honestly contributing to the cultivation of real freedom.
It is essential to have friends to help you stay honest and while no body can
do It for you, there have been countless songs and poems about the importance
of friends. Nothing feels impossible in the company of friends. A trusted
friend is the often the means to deliver an idea that would be dismissed out of
hand. The miracle of forgiveness is just more possible to see and accept in the
company of others who are sharing the intention to trust the wisdom inside of
us, to trust the reality that We Are, together One Body.
A three-strand cord is not easily broken and two or more gathered is a powerful
dynamic. The only real place we can join is around the Truth. This common unity
is the source of strength and encouragement we need to ride straight into our
established patterns of thinking. The music in class, the arrangement of the
bikes, the design of the building and everything in it has been employed to
encourage the movement of the breath in order to find a view inward to Our
collective Wisdom.
The cycling classes at One Body can absolutely kick up the dust and It is
really good to have friends to look to for encouragement when the dust of our
objections is blurring our vision. When we find ourselves at the cross roads of
faith and fear, the cross roads of staying calm and pulling up our feet, it is
the miracle of trust that enables the miracle of Truth to choose for Us. It is
the miracle of trust that allows us to stand and face the moment, no matter how
hair raising, no matter how long it seems to drag on, no matter how extreme our
objections become. Trust enables us to stay long enough to let the moment teach
us what we cannot quite see yet in the face of our opinions and the established
habits born of those opinions.
When I practice trusting that the Truth is absolutely living in me, I find the
faith to surrender opinions rooted in fear. I find the faith to withdraw my
investment in my best efforts and I find the trust needed to let the life I
have built fall to dust, revealing the life that Love is intending for me to
know. This all sounds pretty tidy and we have to go beyond theory to realize
the gifts of practicing surrender. Sitting at the computer reading this, it all
sounds like a great idea. What could be more simple- stay calm, trust,
surrender and be happy.
What I know about challenging my conditioned mind, the surrender part, is that
giving up my opinions is not without sensation. The lies do not go quietly and
the experiences of testing my capacity to surrender them, is not typically an
easy one. I can be quite attached to what I think I know, quite adamant about
what I think will serve me. Sometimes it takes a real storm to loosen my grip
on what I have decided. So I pray to be delivered and often find myself cursing
the means that arrive to deliver me. So I pray for release, and before that I
pray to know how to pray, and I pray for the acceptance to trust that I can
hear the Truth if I listen, no matter how loudly my ego is objecting, and I
pray to receive myself as a friend to my hearts intention.
In the land of relativity, big deception takes a big storm to bust it up. And
you never know when the big storms will hit. Monday night’s ride felt like a
fire storm for me (in a good way) and while I am writing now to bare witness, I
am writing at the same time, to ask for your witness. It is something like
looking around and asking if anyone saw That! The experience of our evolution
can feel really big and it can be difficult not to try and defend against it
without the help of our friends.
My practice is not about learning to work harder. I have been teaching movement
classes for almost 30 years now and based on my experience with thousands of
people, it has never occurred to me to coach anyone to try harder. On the
contrary my teaching is aimed at finding the faith to trust something more than
our efforts and the patterns associated with our decisions about what we think
we need to be O.K. My practice is not about how hard can I work. Prizes for
enduring pain and living to tell about it is not what I am seeking. Witness for
how much I can endure will only serve my belief that my best hope is to learn
how to endure. My practice is about examining my mind and challenging every
unforgiving thought that is binding my body. My practice is about surrendering
the burdens that tie me up so I can dance to the music of my heart. When I bare
witness to this intention I find witness for this intention. The only way I
know to feel the presence of what I am, is to look for it in everyone I see and
keep looking until It is All I see. This is my hope, this is my vision.
As I was riding Monday night and felt the Spirit moving, so to speak, I marveled
(once again) at the witness I find in each of you. Every time I felt my old
patterns bracing to meet the challenges being presented, I found, through your
company, a way to see past them. I was able to see another way represented in
each of you and, through your company, I was able to locate the gentle strength
to respond to the moment, as it arrived, with all the different rhythms -flying
down hills and climbing mountains. It is a miracle to me to feel the presence
of another way emerge, even in the middle of the swirling sensations that kick
up when we test our bodies and minds. I am learning more about responding with
ease by remembering I am not alone, that I cannot, in truth, be alone. I am
always encouraged to see my friends witnessing the trust that carries us all
past our ideas of separation into a fuller view of our One true Self.
I have had several of you drop me a line about what was happening for you
during class. It is always helpful for me to hear from you. We build this
practice together. Companionship makes the experience of personal
transformation feel more possible. When I am inclining toward panic I find calm
with the help of my friends. When I am feeling uninterested and starting to
fall asleep, I find a reason to care with the help of my friends. It is good to
have friends and it is priceless to be in community. We certainly do no thing
alone and are never alone in experiencing the effects of our thinking. The
honest intention that arrives each week for cycling class, for Gyrokinesis
class and Gyrotonic sessions, are a gift of immeasurable value and I thank you
for your presence and for your courage.
Miracles always feel like a surprise as they are outside of my conditioned
thinking. Thankfully, my life is full of surprises. Class Monday night was
(another) reminder of what is possible outside of accepted conditions.
I am aware of the challenge I am presenting in class, to you, as well as
myself. I am aware of the intolerance I am demonstrating for mindlessness, in
you, as well as myself. I am aware of the ways I am trimming the sails so to
speak, and calling to you, in no uncertain terms, to be, and to be present, to
be, and to be on time, to set clear intention for your self and take personal
responsibility for that intention in the name of the human race, to let your
tongue be still and your mind be clear. I am aware that without clear and
unwavering intention, We cannot travel into the mind field of our conditioned
thinking without becoming lost in it again. Priorities are essential, and while
I am clear that I am not personally responsible for your experience, I am
dedicated to offering all that I am in the name of sorting the wheat from the
chaff. I am willing to be the voice that invites deeper consideration; I am
intending to be an example for another possibility. I am teaching what I want
to learn and I only know that every resentment I allow to live in my mind will
choke out my joy. I am aware that less than complete intolerance for
unforgiving opinions yields nothing in the name of my Happiness. And so I offer
my intention in the form of my teaching and in the name of collective
happiness.
Every time we gather, I am humbled by the collective response, including my
own. Every time we gather in the name of health and happiness I am encouraged
and delighted to witness the group take a pass on half measures and keep
traveling inside to the real source of strength. The capacity to stay together
by remembering we are absolutely together is so clearly demonstrated for me in
the class dynamic. Witnessing this is an absolute miracle to me. It is a gift
to me, a blessing to me, and to the world.
When we try to articulate the experience of opening our prejudice and letting
the breath in, when we attempt to describe the events of transformation, we
challenge the capacity of one of our primary modes of communicating- our
language. And while the truth is living in us, our opinions are living there as
well. Everything in us is woven into our words and we perpetuate what we think
is true, every time we speak. Searching our minds with the intention to weed
out the negative thoughts is the practice. And conscious living requires a
dedicated practice. Seeking an understanding of the Truth in us, and seeking
the capacity to describe that Truth perfectly and consistently through our
words and actions, is the work.
And so we sign up for classes, and use the time in class to examine the
thinking living in our minds. Together we invite the fire that cleans the dead
wood off our words and clears the confusion hitching up our bodies. Through our
practice together we allow the capacity to speak and act with Love to emerge
and inspire us. Sometimes the practice feels like a forest fire, heating up our
opinions and exposing the Truth by throwing a torch into our survival
strategies. Practicing together is a bigger torch than I can muster on my own,
and the fire we generate together is powerful and important. Much was burned
off in class Monday and It is still smoldering for me physically and
emotionally.
I am speaking the new words that are rising from the ash, repeating them to
myself like a baby learning to speak. They have been washed clean with fire and
sweat and the gathering of beautiful hearts seeking the plain truth about what
it is to be alive. Together we learn that together, we find the rhythm to Live
by, the Light to Love by, the Truth to hold us.
We all need loving witness as we move in this adventure of life... Monday’s
class was a big experience for me. I am still feeling it, and I am thankful,
for your presence, for your faith, and for your willingness to show up and
trust what comes by trusting your capacity to meet It with patience, with
certainty, with community, and ultimately and simply...with the Breath.
Your choice to respond instead of react, to reach in when you feel a need
instead of grabbing outside yourselves, teaches me that all I need is a
reminder of what is possible. I have found this phrase on my mind since Monday,
peppered with images of each of your sweet and faithful faces...All for One and
One For All! We go, and we go, together!
Practice until you know Peace and no thing else. I am riding along side you,
grateful to look over and see you there. Bless this practice and may it bring
Peace to Us All.
