How To Make Something Out Of Nothing

Last week in BodyChance, a woman wanted to explore bending.

It seemed like a simple activity. Even a little boring if I'm honest. Ho hum.

All about understanding the use of your legs: bending hips, knees and ankles. Blah, blah. She was interested, because when she bends, she hurts her back. She wanted to find an easier way. In her mind, this was a "physical" activity, not a "mental" one.

"What's the situation?" I asked.

***

At BodyChance, when you explore an activity like bending, we insist on putting it into a real life context. i.e. what is a specific situation in your life when you are bending?  

I do this for three reasons:

1. To connect learning to everyday life;

2. To notice how environment is influencing;

3. Because it is more fun to explore this way!

***

I asked her again: "Why are you bending?"

"Oh, usually I am cleaning up after my husband…" she explained, "He's so messy!"

We all laughed. This was in a group. All lessons at BodyChance are in groups. It's how you learn fastest. (I believe) Then she showed us how she did that. She was fast and furious: moving like she had to meet a deadline.

Watching her behaviour, I began to wonder…

"Why are you doing it so fast?"

"I want to get it over with!" she replied. Then I had an intuition…

"Do you want to clean up your husband's mess?" I asked.

"NO!!!" she said. "I hate it."

***

What happens to you when you try to do something you don't really want to do?

You get tension, that's what happens. You try to go in two different directions at the same time. You also see this in public speaking. People are thinking:

"I have to do this talk, but I don't want to do it!"

This creates a special kind of tension. You are trying to talk while you don't want to talk! This is a confused mind. Whenever you are confused in your thinking - you increase the tension of your movements.

Thinking (Mind) and Moving (body) are unified - two aspects of one behaviour.

***

"Why not leave his mess alone?" I asked. "If you don't want to do it, don't do it."

"But I love having a clean room!" she exclaimed.

So then I suggested:

"Then why don't you decide that you want to clean this mess? Because you love the room to be clean, right?"

***

This was a surprise to her.

She had been so busy scolding her husband, she forgot how satisfied she felt after cleaning their room. She liked that feeling. Now she realised:

She wanted to clean the room. It had nothing to do with her husband!

When you want something, it is not the job of someone else to do it for you. Her husband didn't care about a clean room. She did. Can you make your husband do it?

Hopeless. Never going to happen.

Who is the only person around here that I can change? That would be me.

She repeated it again, and this time she used more time. She was enjoying it. And the way she moved improved. She became more aware of her movements. She changed they way she bent…

She now had space in her thinking to remember everything she had learnt in her previous BodyChance sessions about moving her head and whole self as she was bending her hips, knees and ankles. We developed her understanding of those things. There was space in her mind to do that now.

It is important to understand how your legs have the job of lowering you down.

And you can more easily remember that once you stop fighting your Self.

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