The Weight of Compliments

Yesterday, I was having tea with a dear friend at my favorite tea cafe, Samovar. We both were expounding on all we love about the training we are both immersed in at the moment, a year-long in depth study of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) at a stellar school, NLP Marin. (She's actually several steps along from me, in her post-Masters training and I am only about half-way through.)

NLP is many things: it is the study of the structure of how human beings create meaning and thus, how lasting change (where you don't have to remember to be different!) can occur. It is (at least at this school), a deeply respectful study of how human beings are wired, from neurological, bio-physiological and emotional perspectives. It has offered me a way, in working with clients, to get at areas I've never been able to get at, often in minutes or hours, instead of weeks and months - and in the most elegant, respectful and heart-centered way...

My friend said something quite interesting. She told me how, for her, sometimes generalized compliments are a weighty thing to bear.

She is not shy about hearing things about herself, good or bad, despite what that might sound like, at first glance.

For example, if someone says, "You are so nice!" or "You always know exactly the right thing to say!" it actually can land as a big weighted responsibility rather than the sweet compliment it was meant as. (I am nice? I ALWAYS know EXACTLY the right thing to say? What about when I am not, or when I dont'?) All of a sudden, you can feel labeled by the compliment, as though from here to eternity you've got to uphold "NICE" or "ALWAYS KNOWING EXACTLY THE RIGHT THING TO SAY."

What happens when you are not nice? When what you can offer up is not nice, but a howl or a cry; when the truth of the moment is that you are confused or ugly? All of a sudden, your truth or expression of the moment seems to be some kind of going back on a promise, albeit a promise that was put upon you, rather than declared by you.

Please do not misunderstand me; I am all for compliments and acknowledgments! In many ways, my relationships with others and myself are built from the sweet stuffs! But there's a further refinement offered here, by my wise, wise friend: to be specific about what has moved you about someone and to say it specifically about the here and now, and specifically about how it affected you, rather than in general terms about the person in the abstract forever.

How much more of a true gift is something like, "What you just said was so nice, and made me feel OK to vulnerable with you." or "That struck me as the absolute perfect thing you could have said. I just saw that in a completely new light." How much more generous to speak the sweetness or profoundness of the moment, but leave out indications of now-and-forever, always, and from-here-on-out.

Which offers a clean, open space for compliments to be exchanged, whilst fostering the generous stance that we can be changing beings, different from one moment to the next; freedom to be and speak the moment - profound and wise at one moment, mundane and bitchy the next; not weighted down by the heavy monikers of generalized proclamations, but buoyed up by the invitation to over and over, always anew, express what IS.

The Weight of Perfection

My boyfriend has not been afflicted, as I have, with the disease of perfectionism. He is indeed an amazing human being, with superman-sized powers in many of life's important areas; he believes in excellence, but not in perfection. I've been steeping in his wisdom as I peel apart excellence from perfectionism, as they've been melded together in my mind for most of my life.

The dance performance (www.beforeplaydance.com) is only a week away, and boy, we sure could use another week, which is always the case with performances. Regardless, I wake up each morning with a surge of adrenaline, out of a dream that would make both Jung and Freud proud - a dream that carries all the turmoil, doubts and vulnerabilities of each and every way I relate to dance. I am in a soup-pot, boiling off dance karma, as my boyfriend likes to say.

I think about next week, and am saddened and pained by the knowledge that it will not be perfect. I have invited openly and enthusiastically my community to this personal creation, and it is difficult to know I will not have perfection - or the pretense of perfection, or the hope of perfection - to hide behind.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be inoculated against this disease; I've been chasing after it as long as I can remember and haven't had a moment's peace or ease while doing so. I'll gladly trade up perfectionism for excellence, trade in perfectionism for rejoicing in what IS, peel off perfectionism for the simple nakedness of who I am.

Apparently the best way I could figure to wriggle my way out from underneath the oppressive weight of perfection is by burning, burning, burning.


This from a card, from my mother, wishing my luck with my dancer performance, which sets right again my relationship with dance:


Don't you
hear it?
she asked
& I shook
my head no
& then
she started to dance
& suddenly there was
music everywhere
& it went on for a very long time

& when I finally found words
all I could say was
thank you.

Leave Some Room at the Table For Failure

I've been thinking a lot lately about giving failure a bit of a break.

As I mentioned in my last blog entry, I'm eyeball-deep in a creative project that has me, at each turn, face all the ways I am inexperienced, inadequate, lacking or failing. After some months of making myself wrong for not being experienced, adequate, fine and winning, I started giving some thought to why failure is such a scary concept and such a scary experience.

A friend said to me:

"Without the possibility of loss, there is no game. I am a poker player and I sure would like to win all the time. When I play no limit poker, there is always a time, often multiple times, when I have to go "all in". Sure I could lose it all. And HAVE. But, damn, it's such an incredible game. And I only have like 80-100 years to enjoy myself. I opt for a rich, full life. The only question is whether you will go for the whole pot or be deterred by your fears of loss. It's ok to be afraid. It's scary to allow yourself to be so fully vulnerable. You are doing it right and at the right speed. Trust your instincts."

And then, in a moment of clarity and brilliance, I said to another friend:

"I'd like to, in this body, in this lifetime, dance with all of it. Not worry whether am doing it right, growing, healing, or making art, or being happy; to let the sad, lonely and crimped up parts have a place at the table just like the glorious parts; to have them be welcomed and contribute to my sense of peace and rightness with my self
and my mind, not diminish it."

I'll leave it at that, and I'll leave some room at my table...

Running Uphill Backwards

Wow, I haven't written a blog entry in months! If there was an award for slackingest blogger, 'twould be mine. Somehow I just haven't felt like documenting my journey at all, and have just now made some sense of why.

I've been moonlighting with my former carreer as a modern dancer and have been working since February on creating a dance performance with four other dancers, custom-created music, set pieces on which we dance, costumes, lights, a small black-box theatre and a reception to follow. I thought it would be a fun lark, and a fun show in which I'd get to have a fun time dancing. What I created was not only the above, but another self-designed obstacle course, everywhere I turn is another former demon to face, everywhere another ghost of my dance past. I have to marvel at the intelligence, elegance and thoroughness of my design - it's been a non-stop test at every twist and turn, speckled with some quite wonderful and enjoyable moments, too.

I have a lot more to say about this, which I will in my next entry, but to explain this blog's title: a friend of mine emailed me to tell me about a dance show she created that will go up a few weeks after mine - and her title is thus: Running Uphill Backwards. Nothing could describe these last few months, except if I added in, Running Uphill Backwards In High Heels, With a backpack, Two Suitcases, Three Lunchpails and a Cellphone.

Somehow I have more of a sense of humour about it since I've named and identified the shape and scope of my hard time. It tends to work: when I know, ah! this is what's going on, this is why, this is how big and how long - then somehow I am able to relax into the painful, strange, uncomfortable and magical ride of it all.

Prioritize YourSELF

In the Winter 2008 Newsletter I just sent out, i included an article titled, "Sweep out the Chamber of Your Heart," and then got this notice from my friend and colleague, Monica.

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When Things Begin

I made the transition from 2007 to 2008 in Las Vegas, Nevada with dear friends. Thank goodness for the dear friends part, since my first visit to Las Vegas did NOT impress. I suppose it had much to do with awesome levels of jet lag, but I am still stuck with the thought that Las Vegas is not an armpit city, it's more like a crotch.

Before I digress more into the un-virtues of this strange fabricated city of vices, I'd like to share my thoughts about our New Year in general.

It's always struck me as strange that we celebrate the passing of one year and the beginning of a new one in the dead of winter. "We" meaning, of course, those who celebrate on December 31 - January 1st, as opposed to September-ish for the Jews, April-ish for the Thai Buddhists and February-ish for the Chinese.

To me our New Year feels like a still and dark and dead time, with not much newness stirring atall, but this year I got it. Things appear to begin in a time like Spring, when fruiting and flowering and blossoming are obvious and generous indications of something amazing afoot! But this is not when things begin. Things begin in the dark and quiet of a womb, of a deep patch of soil. Things begin with the dormant seed's first struggle to become un-dormant, to turn potential energy into actualized energy. Things begin in winter, literally and metaphorically; and they begin at the time when we have no proof, only uncertainty and query.

New things start in the cold and dark of deep sleep, with a tiny, imperceptible spark of fire and flash.

I love this. And I love listening to the giant quiet of winter, listening for the tremors of beginnings I can't quite see, can barely detect, but now - after many seasons of doubt - trust.

Spontaneous Quantum and Newtonian Ritual

So, I've been going through it lately. Usually I can simultaneously go through something while also having some outside perspective on myself so as to direct myself to get support, clarity or a direction in which to move. Inotherwords, to go through something but also shift it. Not so as of late - overwhelming stuff, complicated, and loud, loud voices in my head, none too flattering.

At least now I have some perspective on what's going on with me: I have some splendid plans and goals and desires for the near and far future, and they are great and grand and will require a me that is larger, greater and grander than the me I am at this moment. The process of growing, expanding, shifting is uncomfortable, painful even, strange and disconcerting.

So, you want to hear one thing that helped?

I had a coaching session with my dear friend, who is a high-end corporate conflict-resolution coach, paid over $10,000 a day for his expertise, ability and heart. (No, he didn't charge me $10,000!)

In knowing him, I have observed that there is a way he speaks and relates to people that powerfully conveys his value or the value of whatever he is talking about. I originally set up our session to get the inside scoop on how he was so good at this: knowing his own value, or the value of whatever he is behind, and conveying that powerfully and masterfully. And also, to put it bluntly, because I suck at these things he's so good at.

I got that, and I got more.

There are two things I go from my friend, the wondercoach. First is a distinction from NLP (Neuro-Lingusistic Programming) which says that for a shift to take hold, it has to be both "Quantum" and "Newtonian." Quantum, meaning on a cellular level, a level of our make-up, our past, our energies; Newtonian meaning on the level of causality, of concrete steps, how-to's or everyday tools, methods and means.

Part-way through the session I was experiencing a strange thing: extreme emotion and so much varied sensation in my body that was almost too much to manage, all not directly related to what we were talking about. I felt like somethings had fallen away, some parts of me had been rearranged and replaced with clearer, more powerful parts. I was experiencing quantum shift.

A while back, I asked another friend of mine, a holistic nutrition counselor, environmental activist and witch, to help me with a ritual. I wanted to dance again, after 3 years of not dancing professionally, but I wanted to go forward without any baggage I've accumulated over the years from my relationship with dance. It was profound, silly and strange at times; it was relevant and seemed pointless at times. But at the end, I was altered, changed. The baggage I wished to let go is gone. Amazingly gone.

The process and effect of my coaching session are so similar to my witchy ritual. There is great power in speaking what we most want to walk into, what needs to be left behind in order to do so. And the result is an irrevocable shift, both Newtonian and Quantum.

The second thing I got from wondercoach came clear as he explained his process around value: illicit what the person you are relating to WANTS MOST, what has MOST VALUE TO THEM; then continue to listen to them, ask questions of them and speak to them (this is the important part) AS THOUGH THEY WILL HAVE WHAT THEY WANT MOST. If your listening and speaking toward the person is in the light of them already being having what they want most, the reality of it exists. They easily walk into it, embody it, create it, see it not only as a possibility, but as an inevitable reality. And the things that come up are then the things that can be looked at and examined to have fall away, as impediments to having what it is you want.

And then I realized this was how he had been relating to me. He was careful to illicit what I wanted most, and spoke and related to me from a place of believing with the utmost clarity that I would have that.

And it was this that created this powerful shift in me.