Me and my friend Irving Mansfield. Nothing forced. Feeling free in a bikini.
Blog
F is for...
F is for force. For feeling. Fun. And fatigue.
Last time I wrote I introduced a bodysherpa’s alphabet. I started with the letter J and talked all about my friend Julie, her son Jaron, and joy.
And I’ve been struggling with K ever since. Noodling about a trip to Michigan where I ate kohl rabi and went back to where I spent summers as a kid. It never really came together. And so I didn’t write at all.
Sitting in meditation this morning I wondered why K had to come after J anyway. Especially as I hadn’t started the bodysherpa’s alphabet with the letter A. And yet I was suddenly forcing myself to be linear. To follow directions. To color in the lines.
I was forcing it. And it didn’t come.
It has been my experience that when I push things to happen, will them, twist, contort and follow rules that aren’t my own…it usually doesn’t work out particularly well.
Unfortunately, I still do this…sometimes, more often than I’d like.
Forcing a writing.
Forcing my body to look a certain way. To fit into a certain style of clothing – modeled for a long, angular, flat-chested figure. I’ve been doing it for years. Holding on to someone else’s ideas about beauty and my body.
Forcing feelings. Trying to push past anger, past sadness. To be in a state of grace and acceptance long before I’m ready. All the while punishing myself for not being further along.
It’s exhausting. Expending so much energy trying to be other than as I am in this moment. And it isn’t much fun.
This is true in massage and bodywork too. Those who have spent time on my table know that I don’t force. I coax. I cajole. I encourage. But I don’t force. I tell my clients that change happens over time. On occasion we both notice that immediate-gratification "wow-that-is-different" sensation. But more often little changes build up over a period of time until it’s hard to remember the pain and dis-ease that was there before.
Today I’m breaking the rules. It begins by allowing F to follow J. Then maybe I’ll let myself cry on the train while reading a particularly heartbreaking passage of my book. Or I’ll let loose with a rant while on the phone with a good friend. Perhaps I’ll buy something drape-y and gorgeous and goddess-like to wear. Who knows? I’m trying not to force it.
Bodysherpa Exercise
What about you? What are you forcing in your life?
Are you:
- Putting on a "good face" when you desperately need a good cry?
- Staying in relationships that don’t support who you are today because "there is history" or it is too scary to be alone?
- Sitting in a toxic desk job dreaming of being a trapeze artist?
- Living in a body that isn’t yours? Too big? Too small? Or denying that it is just right as it is? That it feels good now, regardless of what magazines, or your mother, says?
What constraints and absolutes are you ready to let go of? What does it feel like – just thinking of shedding someone else’s rules? What is the first step?
I’d be delighted to know.
Be well,
P.S. Please note the change of my email address - lesley@bodysherpa.net