The main theme for our practices for 2023 was Letting Go (‘our’ as my sister used to be a huge part of hosting events with me until last year). As always, it didn’t transpire as intended. I’d meant to let go to create space so things that were meant for me could enter my life.
I know from sharing the practice of movement that I’m not alone in believing that sometimes it’s easier to hold on to things as a form of armour or cushioning against feeling, experiencing, and finding the truth. Just like a physical injury, often people hold on way beyond the point of healing, subconsciously avoiding moving in certain ways because they still believe the pain will exist, return, or become worse. We continue limping, or avoiding a whole set of movement, long beyond when the injury has actually healed.
It can be easier to conceal self, truth, or expression, so as to avoid feeling, which can cause further suffering. But of course, avoiding letting go of the cushioning just means we avoid living fully. I began last year intending to let fully go of the things, people and places that no longer served me, to create less pain. Yet in actuality, I created space for more feeling, and so experienced more pleasure and more pain.
Feeling is complicated. It’s like fire – it can be pleasurably warm, but also causes painful burns. Movement matters because it teaches us how to attune to the messages from the whole body – not just the patterned perceptions we hold in our minds. Movement teaches us how to feel, and so how to live more consciously in each moment.
We understand our whole body yes/no versus just what we think we should or could do.
“The truth was a mirror in the hands of God. It fell into pieces.
Everybody took a piece of it, and thought they had the truth”
Rumi
So, I leave 2023 with yet more letting go to do.
Yet, though I know this process can be immensely difficult, trying, painful and gnarly with emotion, I find myself full of hope.
Hope involves trust, as does letting go.
So many of you (at class) confided you found 2023 incredibly difficult and challenging for many reasons – personal and global. You found faith and consolation in community - coming together with others. Knowing that there are spaces where people are trying to just move and breathe through their own unique experience. We may have arrived feeling heavy, low, or depleted but we left with more hope and faith in ourselves, and in others.
Hope is always possible, even in the darkest moments. Winter eventually shifts to spring. Even if our hopes do not come into fruition, the very fact that we remain hopeful is enough.
Hope elevates our emotion, changing the energy and the potential of situations. It shifts us from a state of helplessness to feeling there are other possibilities, there is positivity, even in the most difficult situations.
It’s priceless and magic. Because hope is a little wave that trickles beyond self – when we are hopeful, we inspire it in others. It elevates our emotions. If we attempt anything with a dose of hope, we achieve a better result/outcome.
When we consider the reality of our existence, we know that magic is possible, and hope is a key to the magic occurring.
I’m not talking about delusional hope – we know when we need to let go of certain things, and what is no longer of service. I’m speaking about the hope and faith in ourselves and others. In knowing that even when it’s pitch-black outside, a little light (hope) can dispel it.
Hope is the antithesis of Letting Go, because there’s some aspect of expectation involved. Hoping that what we let go of, may find its way back to us. Or that it will allow us to let it go gently. It’s the yin to the yang of Releasing.
I like holding space for both – for life is a concoction of opposites, eventually balancing. Hope is a form of manifestation keeping us going even when we know the journey will be incredibly difficult, even near-impossible.
The year ahead…
Book club recommences – in person but you can receive notes online.
My sister and I are hosting an in-person workshop together.
Details to be included in the next newsletter.
