Clean + Simple

I confess I find meditation challenging. That’s why I have a collection of almost two dozen Tibetan singing bowls, hand-hammered, seven layers of metal, each one a work of art, and I listen to the sound. Focusing on my breath while the bowls sing helps me to sit still long enough to access a meditative state.

Another place I meditate is as I’m doing simple tasks, almost mindless, really. Things like cleaning out drawers, organizing files, weeding in the garden, sweeping, dusting, things like that. Sometimes I joke that you can tell how much mental processing I need to do by how organized the drawers are in the kitchen and bathrooms.

Lately I’ve been going through paperwork and files. It all started because someone offered me a beautiful custom-made room divider that I decided to use as a privacy screen for our youngest son, who has been living in the garage for the past 7 years, as a way to define his space. To  clear out enough room for the piece, I dug deep into boxes and files of old tax forms, class designs, and stored client records.  Best practice advice I found is to keep 7 years of records. With current clients, I kept the original intake and assessment, any medical records and the first few sessions and then shredded the intervening years.

This is kind of boring stuff, really, and to get it all done without letting it build up (like I did) requires consistent attention. I realized that you can’t get it all done in 1 day. You just can’t. It started to remind me a little bit about movement practice, and how consistent daily movement practice is, in my opinion, the single most influential activity we can do for ourselves.

Back to the cleaning out old stuff and paperwork that’s no longer needed: it feels like it’s clearing out stuck energy to me. As I’m clearing out the stuck energy, I’m creating kind of a vacuum, if you will, where positive energy and creativity can flow inward and be expressed through whichever modality I’m working in at the time (be it teaching, training, or creating).

A couple of people have told me that they are also inspired in this changing season (as we start seeing the days shorten, the sun rays lengthen, and the weather cooling off, teasing us into winter) to do what they called Swedish death cleaning. Now I don’t know if this is a literal thing that Swedish people do before they die. It could be true but it makes me think: what type of death are we talking about anyway? Is it perhaps a symbolic change of seasons? Perhaps more the death of one part of our lives to welcome in another part? Perhaps it’s the death of things we no longer need that no longer serve us, so that we open up the energy for things that will serve us. Letting go of old habits, old ideas, and attachments frees up energy.

If I take this into a movement practice, I think: simplify, go back to the basics. We have a lot of fancy inspiration available and so many different variations of movements coming from different traditions. When it comes down to it the human body can only move in so many ways, in so many directions. Maybe if we drill back down into the basic skills that we all need to own in order to be comfortable in our bodies, it’s kind of like cleaning out the clutter and getting back to the roots, the values, and I mentioned consistency earlier. Consistency is what makes real Change happen. 

In this season, as the trees burst forth in color and shed their leaves, as our gardens push out the last of the Summer vegetables and prepare to go dormant, I feel a push of energy directed at clearing that which no longer serves me, to simplify.  Clean and simple.  

Movement practices can be similar; as we add props and choreography, we add interest for sure.  Perhaps, though, we may forget the simple pleasure of an uncomplicated movement: picking up a heavy weight over and over again, simple Footwork on the Reformer in all its richness and connection in the body, a basic yoga pose held for long enough to feel the expansion of energy in all directions.  

Returning to the basics in any movement practice can be a refreshing way to simplify, revisit basic skills and deepen our understanding of our own practice. We can also take the opportunity, if we teach others, to deepen our students’ understanding of their bodies and movement practices.  It makes sense to me that any time we repeat a class, or practice a movement, we are re-learning with new eyes – our perspectives are different so we go deeper, increase our understanding, further refine our practices.  

This brings up another thought; what does it mean to have an advanced practice, or teach an advanced class?  Could “advanced” be simpler than we think?  Let’s think about that.

Peace and love,
-Gwen

Want to dive deeper?

Join Gwen in Foundations or the Safe Movement For All Spines Mentorship.