PUSH 'N PULL - the dance of Vulnerability & Defensiveness
December 2, 2011Yet again I have been dancing through life with physical immobility due to recovery from surgery for a groin hernia. I did not lightly or easily go under the scalpel. It was a challenge to find my way towards a peaceful acceptance of the necessity of surgery. I entered the hospital as if in a dream, watching this story with its interesting characters play out. My vulnerability was palpable to me, in this foreign world [I birthed both my daughters at home and thus had very little hospital [or even doctor] experience in the last decade and a half]. I chose to relax into softness and trusted the strength in this. Reluctant to wake out of anaesthetic, I heard myself say “no I don’t want to leave my friends”. I was amused at myself and who these companions I was in no rush to leave might be!? [I don't know, I'm thinking along the lines of little green men ... LOL!!! ] Later as complications and difficulties arose I relinquished what I simply could not control. The baseline of my emotional experience was a returning to Peace [a Nia brown belt practice].
If I thought I had been in a strange land, post-surgery, in a different situation, I got thrown a curve ball which proved to be the limit of my vulnerability. Disoriented and confused, I flashed fearfully and desperately into defensiveness and blame. It took time to peel away out-dated beliefs and find a way to an emerging truth. Eventually confusion transmuted into Mystery. Fascination replaced judgement. I received the Gift. I was nudged into humility and acceptance of my and others' current emotional skillfulness.
Sometimes I cannot understand it all, I can simply accept that I am deeply touched by an experience. This is not easy for me, my mind wants to dig in and analyse. Instead I can be energised and inspired according to how I receive the Gift. Each day I can choose afresh to surrender to loving and living the questions [a la Rilke].
It is humbling to see the places where I am very threatened by feelings of vulnerability and thus reflexively cover up or opt for provocation. Some places are still so terrifying that their only life is in the dark and outwardly my defences hang on.
The lessons I learn in Intimacy unfold simultaneously in my various relationships. There’s an exchange with a stranger in a lift, my ten year old daughter sees me openly cry and we both find ease with my humanness. There’s the evolving character of my over-a-decade long marriage which is in a new season of deeper sharing, understanding and tolerance. There are all the unavoidable and mundane exchanges which become touched by a more present and relaxed quality in me. There is the reconciliation with my daughter's school teacher [who had questioned my parenting approach] when she admits to the hurts in her psyche. I explain my philosophical choice neither to live from a wounded place nor raise my children to be defended. It looks like this gives her something to consider and I more compassionately understand where her criticism stemmed from.
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My daily living recently includes the experience of the Beloved, in various forms, touching me in tender Magical ways. In this realm I am shrouded in the presence of love and my life seems to unfold effortlessly and mysteriously so. There is no need for the push and pull, for fighting for what I want or do not want. What is important happens in the flow of my being.
What’s next my Beloved? Where will I meet you today? In which tree, in which smell, in which gaze, what piece of art, what act of connection …? What am I to see today? I ready myself for the Mystery …
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“There is only one romance, the Soul’s” W. B. Yeats
“What if Life is the Sweetheart” Willa Cather
“For me nothing is so exciting as imagining that Life is my lover, and is always courting me” Julie Hendeson
What should I do If love seizes me? Start dancing of course! Sweep love into your arms And press her to your chest When particles of dust Are touched by the sun They spread their arms and start whirling… To music no one can hear - Rumi Orders? And even if one of them suddenly pressed me against his heart, I should fade in the strength of his stronger existence. For Beauty’s nothing but beginning of Terror we’re still just able to bear, and why we adore it so is because it serenely disdains to destroy us. Each single angel is terrible. And so I keep down my heart, and swallow the call-note of depth-dark sobbing. Alas, who is there we can make use of? Not angels, not men; and already the knowing brutes are aware that we don’t feel very securely at home within our interpreted world. - Rainer Maria Rilke "The First Elegy"
Who, if I cried, would hear me among the angelic
Posted by Carmen Loureiro Hadas. Posted In : Musings
"When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It's to enjoy each step along the way" - Wayne Dyer
"This morning I attended a beautiful, energetic and life affirming Nia class at forty weeks pregnant....because I could! Part of the incredible beauty of this particular form of movement is that it will always meet me exactly where I am: if I want to work up a super-energetic sweat, that’s available, but so is a more gentle, flowing approach for quieter days. If I want to get funky and interesting, that’s great, but so is a simple focus on the basic movements. To me, this is what disti... 
Tanya Jane Sutton discovered Nia last year and I recently received an email from her with these touching words. She gave me permission to quote her here. 
