The following is an expanded version of me talking shit a little meditation/reflection from one of the Zoom movement sessions I’ve been running for my clients and fellow movement explorers in this time of lockdown. I wonder if any of it will resonate for you? (~4 min read)
Let’s reflect on this today before we start moving:
You’ve shown up to this session because you must believe that there is something more your body can be for you, for you to live your life through, and there must be something more that you can be in this body you have.
Otherwise you wouldn’t have shown up, would you?
This is on of the first important insights to have, if we are on a journey of physical mastery. Which is the journey I am on. And I hope you are, too.
The first question is: What is this “more” for you and your body? And is that “more” an external result or image? Or is it an internal state?
Because if it is an internal state you’re after, then the exercises we do today don’t have much inherent meaning. Truly, it doesn’t matter if you’re doing Cross-Fit or Tai Chi, or COVID-19 Move with Monika sessions, if you can hold yourself in such a way that your body is already everything it needs to be, and you are simply showing up to celebrate it.
But if its an external state you’re striving for- getting out of pain, getting stronger, losing fat, more mobility- then the exercises, specific protocols, and metrics you follow must be very, very important, because these ideologies become a part of the greater image your are trying to secure for yourself, along with the physical goals.
When you strive for a result it becomes this whole “thing” that is no longer about you, but for seeking something outside yourself to reinforce the “I” you call yourself, currently. In this goal-striving state, there can be no transformation, just reinforcing what is already there.
And then, as a safe-guard, if you don’t indeed get the goal, now you have something to blame: The exercises, the coach, the protocol. Its got nothing to do with you or any failure to execute. And the majority of us would rather live this way.
But this is not the path of physical mastery that I’m hoping to point you towards.
Do you follow what I’m saying?
What I’m saying is how you hold yourself through this session, any movement session, is so much more important than the actual exercises we do.
You need to exist as the internal state in which you already have every capacity to attain whatever external goal. Only then, when you are doing this for you, by you, not by anyone else’ standard, paradoxically, can you attain any goal with a degree of sustainability and ease.
The important thing is not the exercises, but what you bring to them. The YOU you bring to them. Your awareness. Your curiosity. Your self-respect. Your desire to transform.
I personally don’t place too much meaning on the exercises I teach. They are just tools for the journey. They’re not magical, but you can work your own magic through them.
Putting the transformative power on an exercise takes that power away from you.
So let’s reflect:
What is it about yourself you want to feel different after we’re done? Who is that?
And know that if you have even caught the tiniest glimpse of who that is, it is because that part of you already exists, and is waiting to participate in today’s movement session.
The internal state I’m talking about is the deliberate connection to the YOU who is already enough, and who doesn’t need exercise either to prove it, or to make up for any shortcomings. Only in this internal state can you see how this any movement session can be a celebration of you and your body, not a penance. Not a thing to “make up for” this or that.
So I’ll ask again… What is this “more” that you know you can have for you and your body? Is it an image you cling to? Or is it a state you can hold?
Does movement help you find that state? Or can you hold it even before you being to move?
What is the part of you that is already enough, and can you let that part of you come forward in celebration today, as you move?
Just some humble thoughts from your friendly neighbourhood body mechanics detective.
Your reflections are always thought provoking Monika. Thank you for that. As someone who has never been particularly goal oriented, someone who has spent most of her life living in the moment, yet by necessity comes to your classes looking for relief from pain and the potential to move without pain, I have to work very hard to think about giving up seeking releif from pain in this. Your program is self rewarding in this, because I do come away with some relief. Perhaps I do not come to it with the goal of changing myself, but rather of understanding what in the way I move is causing me pain, and can I move it differently so that it doesn’t. However, the exercises are transformative, in ways I do not anticipate, do not come seeking.
Perhaps an analogy from art is here – sculptors are said to be seeking the shape within the stone, and the artist’s job is to remove the parts that don’t belong. Are you suggesting that the parts seen as “not belonging” to the scultors image, need a little love when they are in fact part of our own bodies?
Now that’s a little out there if you think about it too long. Very interesting ideas you have. Thought provoking, indeed. Thank you.