Focusing, Awareness and the Dance

I've been discovering Focusing lately--the book, the technique--and I've had some lovely results with it already. It works well for me in that it is body-0riented, allows a lot of space for my feelings while encouraging me not to drown in them or get lost in my thoughts and in analysis of my problems. It allows the wisdom of the body to speak. As I've started using it, I already find myself modifying it some to work for me.

Last night I did some Focusing on the feeling of a very angry child within who is holding onto my pain for dear life. I could feel that she is holding onto this because it feels like the only thing left i have to hold onto, and because it is a way of lashing out at life/the Divine for mistreating me, a form of revenge. "I will be in pain and shut down as a way of retaliating for being treated unfairly by life. I will refuse to shine and give my gifts to the world." It's a way of feeling some last shred of control in a world where i feel i have none, and of hanging onto something in a world i feel takes everything away. And it's a way of expressing my anger. It's a big Fuck You to the universe, and so that part of me says, "No way am i giving this up." I still feel robbed by life in some part of me, and i'm furious about it. And the anger is also a protection against feeling the loss too deeply.

I wasn't able to really shift it in a big way, doing the Focusing, but i was able to open some space around it, to bring some compassion and awareness to it. And that is very healing.

Awareness is the healer. I am seeing this more and more. It may work quickly sometimes or very slowly and gradually, but it is the gentlest and most effective healer--just bringing awareness to all these thoughts, feelings, behaviors. Awareness as a form of love and compassion. Like i tell people in my Contact Improv classes if they are feeling some pain in a part of their body, some stiffness or soreness or injury or lack of range of motion, to just bring a loving awareness to it, not to try to change it or need it to be different. This spacious awareness is both powerful and gentle, yielding and strong.

Sometimes i lose faith in it for myself, thinking i need something more dramatic to heal me, fearing i will never change these old bad habits, this painful conditioning.

Last night as i was feeling into wanting to hold onto my anger and pain in order to hold onto control, and the feeling of having no control over my life, i thought again about the metaphor of the dance that both my dream and E used. Life is like a dance. We don't know what's going to happen next. As my dream told me, the joy and fun are in the not knowing, responding moment to moment, feeling our aliveness and capacity for creative response. As E said, when we dance, we give ourselves fully to the dance, even though we know it will end. And this is how it is with life. Impermanence does not have to limit our engagement; it can enhance it. I've been having trouble with this.

But i realized last night that it's not true that i have no control over the dance. I looked again at how i am in my best dances. I have a tremendous amount of creative input and influence on how it goes; i can play with intention and allowing, as i have my students do in Contact Improv. We are not just passive subjects, being done to by our partner/life. We are half of the dance. So when i feel i have no control, it's really not true. I am a co-creator of my life. I can't dictate exactly how it will go, and that would take the joy out of it. But i can play with my desires, intention, creative input, and enjoy that play. In fact, life wants me to engage this way, responding with all of who i am to the dance.

Realizing this intellectually is one thing. Getting this in my body is another. This is where Focusing, dancing and other practices come in. I still don't want to give up my pain and anger.