We know that flexibility is good to have in the body. Less likely to break. This principle holds in architecture, against winds and storms. I think I have a certain flexibility in my demeanor. Someone wants to change the restaurant for a dinner plan; now problem!
I hold Rigidity as well; in my thoughts and fears. When it comes down to it, most of the places I am rigid are due to fear.
A Flexible Mind…
Is this where it start?
Where my ease with change has come from these last couple of years?
Developing Muscle
Here in the darkest of days, I’m seeing better than ever.
You know when you’re learning a skill, there is the slog of doing it and then a fun new discovery of embodiment and then it’s is easier? And, then there is the doubt and we’re no good at it the next day, then (if we stick with it) there is the slog/new discovery over and over again until we are doing the thing w/o so much effort and concentration.
Ask any singer in training, anyone learning to play an instrument or sport. Any creator - painting, writing, dancing - we tend to use this learning cycle with skills that involve the body , because we are teaching our body and mind to do something; it has to be built into the muscle fabric.
And, one day last week, it struck me: it’s the same with any new thing we do - even in learning new ways to think, to believe, to be.
Developing Flexibility of Mind Muscle
The mind requires the same flexibility that benefits our bodies. Dare I say, maybe even more important. Like dominos falling, I could see the evidence of the practice of flexibility in my life.
And, like the domino, it was helpful for me to see how easy it is to reset once fallen; the falling didn’t break or burn me to the ground.
In reverse, as if watching a video of falling dominos being played backwards, I see how the practice of letting go, of needing to be right all the time, finding compromise in relationship, have created this more flexible mind that I’m housing and how much easier and nicer it is to be in my own head.
Remembering moments of enlightenment along the journey of the last few years, I wonder - like muscles building - did I retrain my brain how to think; how to feel. Kind of. I’m seeing the results of rewiring in the brain that comes with healing from trauma.
What does a Flexible Mind look like?
I’ve just started working on my 3rd EP. The 2nd was recorded in August, coming in February. The 1st released this fall; recorded a year ago. In this time (just over a year since I began), I adjusted and learned a lot.
The biggest shift I noted when answering questions for this 3rd project was my openness, and wonder (rather than fear) of not knowing.
You know when you’re new at something, you don’t know what you don’t know? That tends to make me more rigid, timid, risk averse. I don’t know something = anxiety.
So, in this one thing, the projects of recording my songs, I have increased my flexibility.
I have loosened my reigns of expectations.
I have opened myself to risk of trying more new things.
I have learned to trust my babies in the hands, hearts and minds of others.
When my latest producer asked me questions last weekend, I was surprised to hear myself answer in such open ways. Any instruments you definitely want/don’t want? Meh. I had loose directives. I felt strongest to uphold the intention and feeling of the song more than anything. Open to changing lyrics, adding sections, changing form? Sure! I couldn’t imagine that when I began last year.
Curiosity was my the Key
This year, I became more curious; about everything. That feels like the key to my flexibility and openness. Well, that AND getting some relief from the barage of grief and stress that came with 2020 forward.
In fact, I don’t think I would have come to this place of curiosity, if I hadn’t had to go through the mourning, the agitation, the giving up, the letting go, the tear it all down to the studs, finding self-acceptance and self-compassion tools, looking for the light, for play, for joy.
I latched onto curiosity sometime last year, and it has been the thing I’ve played with this year… why is something happening? why do i feel this way? why am i crying? why am i getting hot (peri-menopause aside; it’s getting blurry!)? Asking what is behind the thoughts and feelings? I’ve been strengthening my curiosity muscle, and it’s brought more ease.
These last 4 years feel like 8, right?!
The amount of change, grief and joy packed into each one bursts beyond time.
This year, 2023, was definitely a year of blooming for me.
2022 was Awakening.
2021 was Enduring & Grieving…
2020 was Holding On for dear life!
As packed in and epic as these 4 years have been, I look back and see them in 4 seasons. Maybe that’s why they felt so long.
And, here we are in the dawning of the time of hibernating, dying and resting and I feel like bursting and blooming all over.
Tulips and Sunflowers in Winter! 🌻❅
I had an odd, unexpected period of hibernation at the end of July; hence my seasonal mixed signals. If that was like my own personal mini-winter, here I am 5 months later, inner azaleas sprouting open.
Fruits & Blooms of Flexibility
I can see these fruits of flexibility in recording my music. I see them in my intimate relationships. I see them in the work with my beautiful clients.
How does it show up with my clients? Knowing that I will be safe when I don’t know something has made me more flexible, which makes it easier to say “I don’t know”, or “let’s figure that out together”, or not get shaken when someone disagrees with me.
Yes, being right used to be a survival mechanism I relied on; desperately. When complex PTSD (c-PTSD) lives in one’s body, the constant scanning for danger is as common as breathing. Somewhere along my development, I associated bring right to being in control, and that made me feel safe.
You can imagine how tricky that is in relationships! And since all parts of my life are about maintaining relationships, my rigidity got in the way a lot. Luckily, that part of my personality that’s ok with not choosing the restaurant, helped me present a lot more flexible than I felt.
I see the fruits of flexibility in noticing my feelings and in being able to identify and process them and move forward. I don’t get stuck as often, or as long as I used to.
I notice the flexibility in my own singing!
I notice it in my own nervous system, as I’ve continued to educate and embody the experience of regulating between activated (triggered) and calming states.
And, it is this work, the nervous system work, that feels like the root. The biggest, oldest, gnarliest Herculean roots of ease that I am embracing in this season of rare blooming in winter.
It is the grounding of this root, and feeling the flexibility of the branches in the wind that has created more ease in my life, weaving through my personal and playful and professional relationships. Even, the estranged and strained ones.
The hard things don’t stop coming; the world still has dumpster-fires all around; there is bountiful injustice and pain everywhere.
AND, when we each do our own work by creating more flexibility and creating safety for ourselves, and those around us, we weave another thread into the healing blanket for the world.
There are a myriad of healing modalities and tools to be found when you do the seeking. The magic that has made a profound difference for me the last few years is my own inner child healing and learning how to co-regulate and self-regulate my own nervous system.
So many of us didn’t get that as children, so we end up living in survival mode for most of our lives, figuring that ‘this is the way life is’. I’m so grateful for my awakening 10 years ago; to find that life could be, that I could be… different.
Hey, I didn’t say it was quick and easy. It’s just definitely worth it!!
What season are you in?
Don’t think about the weather or the holidays.
Are you ready for the hibernation and waiting for re-birth?
Or, are you itching to bloom too?
I’m usually a New Year naysayer - I’m often under the covers!
But, here I am, wide-awake and excited for what’s to come. If you’re ready to jump into something now, what is it? What’s got you bursting?
Let me know if you’re curious about the nervous system work I’m doing, and especially if you’re curious how voice work plays into it!
Blooming or Hibernating, remember to rest.
And, if noone has told you yet, you deserve it; you don’t’ have to earn it.
Happy Winter Solstice!
💙 julie