for those of you who don't know (and therefore must be quite confused as to why i haven't been around...which makes me wonder why you haven't called...:) i am not just back in the art studio drywalling something...i am in graduate school studying dance/movement therapy. well this is what happened last week in class...
we were studying a pioneer of the field who used a lot of imagery and so we were doing an exercise where we would move as different types of water to see what kind of feelings that produced and then we went a step further to explore moving as and with water in connection with how we feel about our situations right now, particularly in relation to being in school, etc....well for those that i am here you know i made the decision pretty quickly and i came up here with some grandmommie's car, some summer clothes and flip flops, a big yellow dog, and faith that if i showed up god would to and work out all those minor details...like where to live and how to pay for all this...oh, and i had a machete too...
since then there have been some setbacks that left me wavering a little in my confidence that i did in fact belong here, that i did need to follow my dreams even if it cost more than i felt like i was worth at the moment...
so back to the water...i immediately felt the need to not be the water in my movement but to dive into the water...then i laid on the floor and let my self sink to the bottom...after a while of imagining myself completely immersed i had the sensation of slowly rising to the top...so slowing that i was almost unaware of it until i realized that i felt like i was floating on top...i even did a few backstrokes!
the next step was to get into groups and talk about our experience from our own perspectives and then to explore it from a D/MT perspective and what we might do with it if a client had shared these movement experiences with us...
i immediately related my desire to dive with the fact that i have recently realized that i have to really press into and commit to this experience in some ways that i have not yet if it is going to be useful at all...i can't waver in my owning not only of its value but of my freedom and ability and desire to see it through. there was a reason i came here...a really good one...and if i have big dreams then i have to make big investments to see them realized....so on and so forth...
what i didn't realize until we were discussing it is that i have never physically dived..dove..doven..whatever into anything before - i never learned how.
so when my teacher asked what i might do with that therapeutically i said...i should learn how to dive!
and then i actually did.
it just so happened that i would be visiting someone who teaches kids how to swim...so i commissioned her help in my little breakthrough...
we started with the kiddie dive squatting at the edge and i learned the basic rules of keeping your arms over your ears and knees bent...before the day was over i graduated to a standing dive and for a big finish (with some coaxing/peer pressure from two wicked cool redheaded boys, a muffy, and my "swim coach") i went twice off the block! it was a small thing...and it was amazing.
i felt totally exposed and awkward standing there, i was scared, i felt a potential for FAILING that i have never felt about jumping into a pool or anything else. but actively taking my feet off the board, going into the water head and hands first, coming through the water and out so DELIBERATELY...yeah, it was extremely hard for me. and it felt really really good.
enter the metaphoric learning that resulted...
i can jump into anything and i am even pretty good at it...and also at the leap of faith kind of stuff...and i do think that is super important to be able to do...but when we jump our head and arms are at the back end of it...and with them our awareness and deliberateness in a way...and even if we land hard we still land with our feet (and maybe our bum)...diving is a whole different thing...it has a direction and intention that is totally different...and it makes us WAY more vulnerable. we really have to mean it.
i think this season of my life...and most of the ones to come after that are going to require a lot of diving.
i want to get really good at diving.
thanks brittany.
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