Corrections

I have been taking a somatic ballet class on Tuesday nights with a teacher whose delicate touch and guidance is dramatically different from the teaching style in which I grew up. There was a fraught tightness that motivated all technique in dance, ballet in particular. In trying to be precise, one often found oneself pulling up, contracting muscles, seizing rather than allowing a slow development or growth. There was an urgency to master a movement or position that often resulted in holding one’s breath and raising one’s shoulders to the ears.

Photo by Ardian Lumi on Unsplash

Our teacher said, rather than making corrections, might we consider…

Might we consider, take into account, examine how our bodies were working in pursuit of achieving a particular goal. Might we consider that we have fought ourselves, added tension and stress into our bodies to achieve a task that likely could be done with more grace and simplicity. Might we consider, redirect, realign with a purpose that allows for forgiveness and grace for ourselves when we ‘fail’ and create new pathways for ‘success.’

The girls’ dad hears every comment as a correction, a reminder of his inferiority in his own mind, which he must conceal. His face immediately contorts into the little boy in France being told time and again of his shortcomings. He is prepared for attack and insult, says ‘I’m stupid. I screwed up’ before I’ve finished, or he defensively lashes out, thrusting a question or request back at my throat to silence me. Before he is able to listen to what I am asking, shame sticks a knife in his back and tells him to fight.

In the shame spiral that is becoming all too familiar in our everyday lives as well as on the grander scale of national, international, geopolitical landscapes, we are collectively less and less able to consider, and more and more reactive, expecting that we are being scolded, told we are wrong, rather than beginning the process of untangling ourselves from the mess of our own making.

He is not the only one. I use him as an example only to illustrate how challenging it has been to connect more deeply. How the protective wall he’s thrown up, and is most likely unaware of, has prevented us from considering together. I am all too familiar with the desire to hide from my own shame.

Ours was a household built on my father’s shame, a weight he carried from his childhood that, though discoverable only in small flashes, offhand comments, and flickering sadness in his eyes, that descended from the top of the pyramid down to our little feet. It showed up in anger and frustration at our inability to remain quiet or still or even keeled, failure to immediately grasp a challenging task, riding a bike, hammering a nail, driving on the highway, becoming disengaged from conversations with adults meant to be impressed by our order, grace, and rule following. It only became apparent in my teenage years that the shame in which he’d dressed himself was not mine to wear. By then, I’d found my own.

I was/am incredibly self-critical and quietly berate myself for mistakes big and small, but also for miscalculations, misunderstandings, being human, wanting or needing more or less, becoming physically or emotionally exhausted, needing to course correct. As a girl, it was hard for me to say I’m sorry, admit I’d gone too far, possibly hurt someone in the process, because of the fear I’d completely disintegrate, turn to dust, if I didn’t hold my woven story close, pulled tight like a widow in a Victorian novel, clutching my sweater or my cape or my shawl close to me.

And so, we are here, in a moment in time where the clutching of our pearls, our capes, our hearts has prevented so many from reconsidering. Too wrapped up in remaining intact despite the inkling that perhaps we might have been wrong, jumped to conclusions, judged too poorly or harshly. We want to keep doing things, going through the motions ‘as we always have’ so as not to fall apart, expose ourselves, admit that perhaps we are afraid to be met as our truest selves, wholly imperfect, contradictory, protective of wounds that still fester and ache that are too sensitive to the touch.

Standing at the ballet barre, our teacher suggests that we might consider how little effort we can exert to do the same action that we have, since we can remember, muscled through with tension, contracted muscles, clenched fists, glutes, abdominals, wherever it is the body continues to keep the score. We are reconsidering how ‘it has always been done’ and finding the grace and relief that release allows. It is both vulnerable and restorative.

Most powerful for me is standing next to others, watching in the mirror as each dancer realizes his or her moments where they hold, where they are unforgiving, where they are punishing, and see them let go. Witnessing this release is easier to become excited by in others than it is for myself. I feel myself blush when commended, with pride but also embarrassment for the freedom of being gentle with and loving myself publicly. I fear that until we can collectively admit to wanting the love and grace inevitably or intentionally denied us, we will continue to fight ourselves and each other.

I have made many a call of apology, admitted to unnecessary rage when cornered or hurt, begged forgiveness for lashing out or punishing what I struggle to see in myself. I have received such apologies too and ended relationships over the lack thereof, no longer wanting to do this hard work without reciprocity or acknowledgement. All of this is hard and nothing to be ashamed of. There is no path forward without clearing the brush.

When I have found myself unable to course correct or sadly, when the interest in resolution or reconciliation is clearly one sided, I finally started looking at myself, at what I may have done to get us to the place where we are unable to move forward. Like looking in the mirror and seeing myself pulling up in my glutes and my quads, putting strain in my lower back, I search for the internal places where the chain reaction begins and works its way through me. I ask where I am hurting myself and in turn repeating the same patterns expecting a different outcome.

I know we are all waking up to the same hellscape. Every day the same, and it feels perhaps easier to curl into one’s old habits, wearing out the groove of our familiar patterns even if it hurts us. Or,

We can consider

Stepping into each moment with grace and permission to be imperfect, admit we are here on this planet for more than this, forgive ourselves, release what no longer serves, exhale into creating harmony, and realigning with purpose.

It is true that my body is weary, having been molded by a practice both beautiful and brutal. But I am choosing to meet her anew, allowing myself to consider another way to move through space, bearing witness to myself and others trying to do the same.