Practice: Confronting Change
The little loving nudge you need to keep going
Last week I published a piece about making changes to your life the slow way.
I talk about how gentle consistency counteracts the hustle, by welcoming in the meandering and “figuring it out” required of any sustainable change. You can read that essay here.
Vulnerability is Inherent to Change
Today I want to talk about the practice of moving through the stuck parts when it comes to making changes. At some point (normally at more than one point) in your progress from here to there, you will come face to face with the sticky and uncomfortable parts of yourself. In my experience, this is the place where all the tricky emotions start to come crashing in: doubt shame, fear, disappointment, frustration. It is, also, usually, the point where the reason for these big feelings has less to do with now and more to do with then.
That time when you felt rejected or embarrassed or unlovable.
That time you were rejected, or embarrassed or unloved.
What happened in the past, influences the present. Especially when the present is full of an unknown future and that unknown future contains risk. Risk asks us to be vulnerable. Vulnerability is defined by Brene Brown as “emotional risk, exposure, [and] uncertainty”. When you courageously step into the unknown, vulnerability knows you, impacts you, and ultimately changes you.
But you have to allow vulnerability to do that changing. It’s easy, the moment the past rears its ugly head in the present to want to shut down the accompanying feelings. Sometimes, depending on the nature of the past, you do want to shut down your feelings and come back to them at a later time (maybe for a time in a safer, more supportive environment). Other times, however, these stuck and uncomfortable parts of yourself, you can handle on your own. They just need a whole lot of care and love to move through.
So your practice today is inspired by both the need to step into vulnerability to make changes and to create a caring and loving space to be vulnerable. It is inspired by a quote by John O’Donahue in Anam Cara, which is as follows: “We do not need to go out to find love; rather we need to be still and let love discover us” (p11).
Instead of being still though, we are going to dance.
Pick a song. My personal go to is Dan Deacon’s Snookered and of late anything by the Magic City Hippies.
Move. Get into your body. Feel and allow those emotions to run through you. Step into the risk and let the risk’s melody carry you.
Shake it out. Shake away what is holding you back. The stagnant energy. The fear. The threat of failure. The old stories that keep you in old habits.
Punch it out. Punch, kick, push away the self doubt. The self consciousness. The masking. The anger. The boundary violations.
Let it go. Breath full, flow, sing, scream, release the tension. The tears. The words bound up in your throat. The memory. The idea you don’t have agency.
Pause. In stillness. “We do not need to go out to find love; rather we need to be still and let love discover us”