It's showtime and I don't feel ready

Dear Soul,

photo by Georges Malher

Dear Soul,

It’s nearly“show time”, but I don’t feel ready.
What am I supposed to do?!

Hello?

Ah yes, ok, I see.
This urgency doesn’t serve me.
Let me slow down and see what’s here.

What’s here is different from what I think ‘should’ be here, a feeling I might call “complete readiness” - but that’s not the name I would give to what I feel right now.

What I feel right now includes a feeling I call “discomfort.” There are certain aches and pains in my body that I believe wouldn’t be there if I was “completely ready”, dear soul.

Hmm, I notice you seem unimpressed with my inquiry.

Is it not enough that I have invented an abstract ideal, defined it with words and then determined that my experience doesn’t fit into it?!

ok, ok, let me try again…

Ah.

As I was sitting in silence just now, a memory came, a felt resonance of lying on the floor at the beginning of a recent group movement experience.

It was “time to move”, but I didn’t feel ready. Luckily, the teacher was skillful. She invited gentleness, attunement and an allowance for experience to manifest itself in its own time.

In addition, she invited my attention beyond my body, out into the space around me, to notice the potential field of action. With her encouragement, I took my time, eventually coming all the way up to my feet, despite knowing that a “part” of me still desired to lie on the floor.

Now standing, the challenge of balance, the engagement of my antigravity muscles and the reality of being in a shared space with other moving bodies invited a new kind of attention.

An hour later, I dared to invite someone new into the dance. Together we romped and played like children, all memories of “not being ready” erased.

How did THAT happen?!

But what appeared just now - in a flash infinitely shorter than the time it took to find all these words - was only the resonance of that first moment of lying on the floor, not feeling ready.

What did my body already know, in that moment, before all these other thoughts arrived? What were you already trying to show me, dear soul?

Pausing again to feel what’s here now (it’s already a bit different after that last round of attunement), I notice a feeling with two different feelings inside of it.

Maybe I could name them “readiness” and “unreadiness.” These two vibrations are distributed throughout my body, an irregular pattern contrasting densities.

Staying in this space, as I sit before this keyboard, I can feel more of the “readiness” to the left of my spine and more of its lack to the right.

I invite breath and attention to the left to feel what “readiness” feels like. This part of me, dear soul, seems confident, expanded and absent of hesitancy. I like knowing myself this way.

However that is not how I know the right side of myself. Strains and tightness restrict my breathing. Here I feel weakness. Yet I also hear your wordless wisdom speaking, dear soul:

This, too, is me. This “not readiness” is not to be ignored.

Instead, I hear you silently calling me to a deeper listening. Yes, this is a place of greater mystery, of dissonance that doesn’t resolve and patterns that don’t make sense.

Not yet, anyways.

I feel you holding me here, dear soul, inviting greater stillness. You show me how discomfort and not-knowing can midwife a new intention, to further refine the quality of my attunement.

Strangely, I notice now that this listening has a different flavor of sensation than what my mind previously called “readiness.” Yet now it feels right to use that word here too.

In fact, having taken the time to feel the places inside that were already poised to speak as well the places who were not yet sure if they dared, it makes much more sense to declare that my readiness is “complete.”

I am “ready” now (a word that feels best in scare quotes).

My readiness doesn’t come from feeling the way I believe I should. It is sourced in feeling more of how I actually am in this exact moment.

As the music begins and I step onto the dance floor, I can bring this attunement with me.

Through the soles of my feet, I listen below the ground.
With my breath I maintain my body’s nourishment.
Opening my ears and eyes and the pores of my skin, I invite the world to make its impression.
My hand outstretched, I accept my partner’s hand, inviting her to take me as I am.

It’s showtime!

Life happens too fast to think your way out of every moment of uncertainty.
If the truth in your body is always drowned out by a flood of words,
confidence, spontaneity, connection and aliveness are hard to come by.

Learn how to presence your body’s wordless wisdom
through the art of somatic inquiry in an upcoming live session:

From Self-Critical to Self Confident: May 20 & 27
Relationship Detox: May 22, 27 & 29
Executive Decision Making: May 21, 26 & 29

---