Tags
baggage, Depression, Fear, get cracking, Kinesiology, monkey shit, personal truths, place of awesomeness, Poetry, PTSD, residual gunk, tide, Yoga
Every five or six weeks, I’m still doing a kinesiology session.
Been doing them since November-ish, as soon as I realised my body was trying to let-the-hell go of a whole bunch of baggage.
The first things to come out were the real obvious stuff – to do with being assaulted, the PTSD and depression, and the seemingly endless fall-out from those events and experiences. Then, getting in a little deeper – other traumatic events further back in my history, some of which I’ve talked about here.
Then there was the whole thing about dealing with a bunch of past life stuff to do with being a servant (yep, that’s right – no kings or queens in my past lives!). Which was like, “yep”. Of course. Makes so much sense of why I feel very strongly called to serve other people in the here and now. So, cool…
Most of this is stuff I’m very well aware of, and so the first few sessions were very pointed: excuse me, but we’ve got to get the residual gunk relating to X, Y and Z out of this body, stat!
Each session has been incredibly visceral, personal and physical. Or is that metaphysical? Lots of very strong energetic and physical sensations and experiences that have almost blown me away. It’s been hard and easy and overwhelming and affirming and a whole bunch of other indescribable things, too.
Right now it seems the focus is on what’s holding me back from moving forward. I’ve got a lot of fear around wondering just what the heck is next?
For the longest time I’ve felt like I’ve been standing in the surf at an ocean beach, the tide tugging at my legs. It’s been a constant battle just to keep standing upright. To not be overwhelmed by the never-ending waves rushing towards me, or dragged out to sea by a rip. In short, I’ve been expecting the worst, because a lot of the worst has already happened AND has kept happening.
But now I’m on this new path, or so I’ve been imagining. It feels positive. It feels right. It feels like I might’ve hit on something with the whole pay-off-my-debts-sell-everything-study-more-yoga-in-India-and-elsewhere-then-become-a-poor-but-happy-yoga-teacher-somewhere-in-the-world plan.
And hey, things seem to be moving very slowly but surely in that direction.
BUT. BUT. BUT. BUT. BUT. B-U-T!!!!
It has felt like that before. So lately, my inner questions have been things like:
- How do I get to where I want to be from here?
- How do I know if I’m even on the right track?
- Things have felt right before and haven’t been. So, what is it?
- Am I gonna be clobbered by barrels of monkey shit yet again??
- If I could plot my position with a GPS (like the wonderful Google Maps on my iPhone), just where in the heck would I be located on this new path of mine?
- Am I closer to where I want to be, or to WTF-ville?
During my kinesiology session this week, what came up for me was this idea of waiting. I’ve literally been waiting for things to get all fucked up again. Expecting it, even. Which is kind of dumb, because if there’s one thing I know about the mind-body connection from yoga – if you focus on something enough, it can happen. Even if it’s something you don’t want!
So DOH! Time to stop with the expecting of bad stuff. Sheesh!
Another thing that came up was this idea of grounding spiritual concepts. When we explored a little further it goes something like this…
In the yoga room when I put on my (invisible) yoga teacher hat, all the bullshit that goes with me being me gets swept aside. I’ve got things to say to my students about their practice that seem to come from I don’t know where – a place of awesomeness. I am not feeling like goofy-Svasti or clumsy-Svasti or Svasti-the-foot-in-mouth-chick. None of that.
It’s not like I’m pretending either. It feels like an authentic expression of who I am, and all those teachings I’ve had (and continue to have) over the years come pouring out to be shared. But I’ve written about this before.
Anyway, the point is that perhaps I need to start doing more to bring all of that stuff out of the yoga teaching room with me. It’s not like the teachings haven’t been crossing over into my life at all, because they have. But perhaps just not enough.
Thing is, in order to keep teaching, to teach more and learn more I need to do this work. I have to find a way to bring my non-yoga teaching/practicing time into harmony with the time I do spend on the mat as a teacher or student. Because if I can’t manage that, then what the heck do I have to share with my students?
But also this: if I can’t let go of my fears, they’ll continue to limit my physical yoga practice (i.e. the poses I’m afraid of doing). And if that remains limited then so does my meditation. And once again, so does what I can authentically share with my students.
So the further I go with these kinesiology sessions, the closer to my own personal truths I get. Which works hand-in-hand very nicely with my yoga practice and teaching…
Indeed it seems I have been waiting, but not just for the sky to fall in on me again. Apparently I’ve also been waiting to get down to the nitty gritty of it all so I can get cracking with moving forward!
And to finish, some snippets of poetry I wrote the other night on my iPhone – which is handy when I’m not near my laptop or even a pen and paper.
Not entirely sure if these really go together or if they’re separate pieces. I wrote more, too. But this is all I’m sharing right now:
Maybe the road is my home now
And maybe it never stops
Maybe my kind of happiness
Means I’m always unwinding the clock…
~
Oh, won’t you be my lieutenant
(Steady my way)
And I’ll keep an eye out
For things that can’t be seen…
~Svasti
P.S. Job is going well so far – it is blessedly uneventful. Everyone is nice and calm, and there’s no grandstanding or belligerence to be seen. And let me tell you how nice that is after five days a week of that for the last five months!