ancestor of my future happiness…1-16-18

 

Fluidity, Power & Release

Grateful sitting fireside last night, my girlfriend cooking dinner. Friendship “can be sustained over the years only with someone who has repeatedly forgiven us for our trespasses.” ***  Thankful for her immutable presence in my life, I sat quiet, peaceful, heart and soul awash with considerations, invitations, conversations garnered over a three day retreat with poet David Whyte.

At one point, my friend remarked on the observable change in my physical presence over this last year. I clearly have experienced a radical internal shift and in a long mirror, I see the marked change in alignment. But this friend, who has known me well for a long time, was naming something different, an appearance of fitness not visible to me. A genuine friend is a perceptive witness and is in a unique position to offer up what they see. It is such a tender gift. With this singular remark, in that ripe moment, I became aware that I was well into my second hour of cross-leg sitting on the floor, something that would have given me great difficulty a couple years ago. I felt the incredible ease of sukhasana, a lightening bolt moment of awareness of how deep and enduring a bodily shift has been created.

Over the last few years, I’ve stood beside my friend and watched her physical presence shift in the other direction. I’ve gently served as time-to-time witness, breathing with her through fear and sadness and frustration, fading resolve, spikes of concern. She was a gym rat but has let go of even that. Last night she asked for help. Deep breath. Working with friends is special. I learned years ago to gently listen, never to offer. As much as I love someone and want to support their healing, it is so vital to make the first step on our own.

I inquired about time and motivation. Opened the door to a home-base session: an hour daily for a year—20 minutes for loose, long and strong, a brisk walk to bring all that in motion. I described a 90 minute appointment in my studio—history, assessment, hands on treatment, self care instruction, cell phone video creation. She expressed enthusiasm. Did I whip out my calendar? No. I made the simple request I voice more and more these days: sleep on it.

Lay in that half dream state of first rising, rest in this place, in this body, at this threshold and ask yourself “how can I be the ancestor of my future happiness.” I love this fundamental question and the endless ways we might answer it with deep and very personal commitment. Maybe you want to write a novel, create a canvas, sing from the rooftops, dance your heart out, continue to dream. What can you do today that will shape your tomorrow? Maybe, just maybe, the answer is to embark on a committed self-care journey, to invest time in the temple of your body. The only one we have. Any appointment we make with ourselves and keep day after day for a year’s time, no matter the realm, will provide a myriad of dividends we cannot even begin to imagine. This I know.

If you are intrigued, read on please. I am on this planet partly to do this work with you, from “deep in the soul…the place where my self meets the world”. For sure, we can do that one-on-one. And if you love to dance, you are in for a big dose of this medicine in Fluidity, Power and Release. Reports have it I emerged dancing from the womb. To boogie, to express freely, to let go into the music…well, I want to do this right up to the end. Don’t you?

By now you know that caring for my body is primary in my world. To continue to dance and be as active as I want to be, I keep negotiating the slippery slope of tending this moving vessel. Rollers & balls, subtle core centering, focused release: these are tools that make a difference—to injuries, in dance, in life. Plus I’m endlessly fascinated how the fresh & creative in our dance lurks beneath the comfortably habitual. This is one way into that magic place. We’ll travel back & forth between the worlds of dance and self-care guided by this body of work that fuses all I’ve learned on dance floor, yoga mat and treatment table. You’ll leave feeling like a million bucks and we’ll have a ball getting to that place. Money back guarantee.

This is restorative, inspirational, emboldening. What do you want to create in 2018? Let’s do it together.

Love, bella

***all quotes are from David Whyte


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