Learning to Fall with Grace

hong kong from the peakOften, I walk up a very steep hill. This is Hong Kong, which is much like San Francisco, we don’t kid around with steep. This is 123 meters of elevation gain in less than a kilometer… That’s steep. It’s so steep that it is cemented with horizontal lines for increased traction, the whole way up. Yep, steep.

I’m walking up one rainy, slippery day and I get that familiar gut wrenching fear that I might slip and fall and suddenly it occurs to me, do I have to continue like this? What can I do to interact with this fear in a friendly way, to change my stomach churning fear of falling into something less… scary. Less reactive and more active.

And so I began to let my mind sift through ways to walk into this fear, completely accept it and play in it, thereby allowing it to shift as it wants.

One way would be to practice falling down. Yikes! I immediately decided that flinging myself down on the rough cement probably wouldn’t feel much like play, more like scabby torture… So I’ve decided to teach myself some ways to fall down at home. On my bed. From experts. From disciplines like gymnastics, Alexander technique, modern dance, martial arts… surely one of them would be fun and easy. So, off I went to do some research.

Of course synchronicity meant that when I got home with this brilliant idea, I didn’t even get it out of my mouth before my partner related a story about his day teaching two of his students how to do forward rolls… I love synchronicity.

So, here we go with how to start a practice of learning to fall with grace… With any luck I will soon be past the stiff or spat reaction.

Preparing your play space

Find a space that allows you to dive inside and not get interrupted, a safe place for you to play.

Preparing your landing pad

Play on something soft. I tried my yoga mat on the hard wood floor first. Major ouch! Maybe two or three mats would work, but I decided that the futon would be great. Your bed could be a good surface, or some soft, leafy or grassy ground.

Preparing you

Realize that this can get intense. Think about trusted friends or helpers who you can call on if you get in deep and want some help. Also, follow your innate wisdom, dive when it is good to dive and stop when it isn’t. Take care of yourself by staying attentive to your needs and when you notice that you can’t be attentive, take a break!

Warm up your body and especially if you have any physical challenges, consider how to do these practices in the safest way possible for your body. Only attempt things that seem reasonable for you and adjust as you go… remember that you are incredibly wise and capable and fully responsible for your self, so respect your infinite wisdom… Be safe and compassionate!

Finally, check in and locate in your body your fear of falling, in your belly or chest or where ever you hold it. You can even rate it for yourself from 1 – 10 (minimal to maximum fear) or write down what you notice about it to see how it changes as you play. Some things that you might notice are size, shape, weight, texture, color, sound, frequency, emotions associated with it, etc, etc, etc. If stories come up, note down one or two identifying details and let the story pass so that you don’t get caught up in mental drama. You can also keep paper handy for anything that comes up that you want to let go of with some cathartic writing (and possibly burning or throwing away).

Ready?! Let’s…

Splay!:
The first method: Jiu Jutsu forward roll!
Beginning with an inspiring tigers growl, this video features an excellent teacher giving clear and simple steps for learning a jiu jitsu forward roll (or how not to fall splat on your face)…

Watch the video! and then here are the basic steps for referral once you’ve watched and understood his method.

1. Start on your knees (praying that everything is ok, you’re just turning your world upside down, no biggie… OMG. This would be a good time to check in with your fear of falling and invite it out to play.:)
2. Place one hand out and tuck the other hand under your body in the direction of the opposite knee. Breathe. Connect with your fear of falling.
3. Tuck your chin towards your chest, start moving your ear towards the floor and sending that opposite leg up into the air (now’s your chance to pee on any fire hydrants that are handy… letting lose your fears of falling, cause here it comes!)
4. Breathe as you roll forward onto your tucked shoulder (keeping your head and neck off of the floor), across your back and onto and over your opposite hip.
5. Smile because your fear is just a fear and you are alive to play with it.

Note that if, like me, you end up doing half a roll and lying sideways on your back, it helped me to focus on sending my ear down towards the floor and also lifting up the opposite leg. This combination helped me direct my weight diagonally across my body instead of straight down my back, losing momentum and unrolling half way through. Yep, more of a splat than a roll.

When you are ready, start from standing, the biggest difference being that you will bend your knees as you go down, rolling onto on your tucked shoulder with no added arm support.Try it! It is simple once you get the kneeling roll down. Took 5 whole minutes! Wheeee!

I got so caught up in learning the roll that I didn’t play in the fear much yet.
Off to see how that goes!

I’d love to know how your own play date with falling with grace goes…

Enjoy!,
Elena

This Blog is an Offering

ElenaDavid Deida remarked, “One of the biggest misunderstandings of all spiritual practices is that you have to do something to realize something. And if you think that, then indeed you do have to do something to realize something. But you don’t have to think that.
That’s the end of this evening. Any questions? (laughter)

It is always entertaining to me to find out what people think that they have to do, and it is twice as entertaining to hear what they think they are going to get from doing it.

I don’t know anyone who has gotten anything from any spiritual practice for sure, that I know of. I know a lot of people who have grown over time. Some of those people have done lots of spiritual practice, some have done none. I’m sure that you know that too.

I think that if you do spiritual practice correctly, it reflects and undoes your habits of closure so that when you stop doing those habits you are left in your natural state, which is wide open, loving, radiant, happy, sane.

But we tend not to do that. We tend to freeze up, and put barriers between us and other people, and barriers between us and ourselves in our mind. We might have 50 different parts of our minds speaking at the same time.“

The premise of this blog is to write about my personal experience. What’s working for me. I offer it as stories, a series of suggestions, things to play with. The idea is that some of it will be relevant enough for you that it will spark your own ideas that are useful for you in navigating your experience.

My personal experience goes something like this: at some point I stumbled onto the realization that neither running away from my problems (suppression, denial, distraction, etc, etc) nor the opposite extreme of wallowing in the drama of them was terribly useful for making them any better, for helping me end my habits of closure as Deida says.

What did and does help is first noticing that something is happening and then noticing from that objective part of me while I am also fully feeling it, accepting it and even being grateful for it. The exact results of this are variable, from the thought/feeling passing quickly to a lengthy succession of difficult experiences happening one after the other… pain, crying, etc. Some habits are easy to break. Others take more effort.

And it is not that these things go away and never come back. Indeed they are always available. The one thing that is consistent, though is that they get easier and easier to be with. I get more comfortable with them to the point that when they come I do not immediately react with running or wallowing, but have a choice about how to be in them… “Wow, I’m really frightened. My belly is a rock and my throat hurts. I can see an entire drama arising in my mind about this. I think that I will watch that drama like a movie playing in my mind and not act on it. I can see that it is not true, just what my mind is creating to make sense of this fear that I am feeling.”

This kind of liberation is an immense blessing. Not being ruled by fear, jealousy, greed, anger, pain, etc. is wonderful. And of course, sometimes I am able to notice and accept and sometimes I get swamped and run or wallow long before I ever realize that something worth noticing is even happening.

I’ve quit the idea that I will ever be able to achieve an enlightened, total awareness state using this method. That kind of spiritual state seems to happen on its own and in its own time regardless of what I do or don’t do. Grace, as Mooji says, just happens. So I do what I can to be as sane as possible.

And, in the mean time, I am reassured by the Buddha’s idea of The Middle Way, which contrary to its name is not, as I like to interpret it, about staying in the middle between extremes, but about allowing all of the extremes (including the middle). The Middle Way, as I live it, says that I should accept all parts of life, all ends of the spectrums; that sometimes I will need one extreme and sometimes another and sometimes I will need the places in between. The Middle Way, or Middle Path does not embrace one way, but all ways, it stays at the mid point of acceptance… accepting everything.

Finally, lately I’ve learned that enjoying this entire process of opening, indeed choosing to enjoy all of life, is REALLY helpful! And a lot more fun. Thus The Joy Lab was born. My life has become a laboratory for exploring joy, which I am happy to share with you in the hopes that it will help you on your journey as well.

We are rich resources for each other.

Enjoy,

Elena