My revered teacher Dr. Richard Strozzi-Heckler speaks of “what wants to come to form” and my favourite philosopher Dr. Eugene Gendlin talks about the felt sense allowing something new to form when given the attention it needs. The acclaimed dancer Isadora Duncan speaks of standing quite still for long periods of time, waiting, questing, seeking to discover exactly and precisely what movement wants to be expressed. What’s required is a pause, a stillness, plenty of patience, a deep curiousity, perhaps trusting that something will indeed come forth. That there is “always more.”
In my own experience, as well as with clients, that all important pause is often a good idea and much harder to access, especially amidst the holidays we’ve just navigated, often fraught with expectations and family tensions. So I invite you to pause now. Really pause. Even if it’s just a deeper breath, allowing your eyes to wander from the screen to whatever else is alive (another person, a four-legged, a plant), perhaps closing your eyes for a moment to take in “how am I?” I wonder what you found. For a few seconds I allow my gaze to wander to the trees I can see through the window, the stark outline of bare branches against the backdrop of the darkening sky, the two day old moon, from waning to waxing now. My body would prefer to be outside, kicking through the leaves (and I promise myself I will complete this and do just that).
My tempo is slow and steady so pausing comes more naturally to me than some. It’s no coincidence that I seem to attract clients who would like to access that slower pace. And as we sit together and “co-regulate” that can form. I perceive the reduction in their frenetic thinking, hear the slowing of their speech and breath, sense the slowing of the heart-rate, relaxation in the musculature, a general decrease in activation, the autonomic nervous system switching from sympathetic to parasympathetic. Maybe a sigh comes. Perhaps an uncrossing of the legs, a a deeper settling into themselves, whether we’re seated or engaged in a standing practice together. I deeply appreciate these moments. It’s why I love spending time with others who aspire to such spaciousness in their lives.
Only with space can something new come, something more.… An opportunity to decompress, unfold, become expansive, develop compassion for self and others. I end with an invitation: what might materialise if you allowed some space today, this week, this month, this year?
Further inquiry: See page 158 in Dr. Eugene Gendlin’s A Process Model for more on Isadora Duncan; Word of the Year (rather than New Year’s resolutions); and the value of Reviewing the year behind us.