“Moving beyond my amateur doggy paddle. Learned the breast stroke today.”–Oprah
Yes even the most famous and masterful among us push through resistance and fear to overcome a personal obstacle or try something new. (Hmm, maybe that’s why they’re such masters).
Reminds me of a next door neighbor I had back in the 80s who was a preeminent emergency room doctor. During off-hours Jerry would practice his piano, study Russian, and direct plays in his tiny basement home theater (yes, complete with stage, sound, and lighting) and perform for select audiences.
I wrote about Oprah’s life after Harpo in my last post (worth reading if you didn’t see it). Her story of going back to basics at this stage in her life captured my imagination.
I thought of the countless times I resist acting on a passion or a deeper yearning. How my perfectionism gets in the way. My fear of failing. My fear of getting it wrong. My fear of not being liked. My fear of being rejected, ridiculed, shamed. My fear of taking up too much space, making too much noise, asking too much. Or just the plain old memory of fear gumming up the system.
All that fear. God, it’s exhausting and nauseating to see it laid out like that! I can feel my whole body contract, and my breathing grow shallow.
So I came up with this one minute practice to help move through the resistance and get our flowing mojo going again. If it moves you, you can try it and let me know how it goes.
Take a piece of paper and jot down your answers to these questions:
- What is one thing that you’ve been wanting to do, be, or have; something that comes from a deeper yearning and keeps popping up (and you keep shoving back down)? Even if all you can identify is a feeling of not-knowing, or stuckness, write it down.
- What happens when you lean into the yearning? What thoughts, feelings, sensations, resistances come up?
- What happens when you lean into the resistance? Just scribble it all down as a way of releasing the fear, charge, stuckness.
- What is one thing you can do today – or right this minute – that feels good that could satisfy the yearning in a gentle, baby step sort of way? If nothing inspires you, just pose it to your higher self as a wonder question. And if that still yields nothing, just pick up a broom and sweep the floor for a minute with the intention of moving some energy to reveal what’s behind the block.
Repeat the one minute practice every day for a week and see if it doesn’t lead to more clarity, inspiration, energy, awareness, ah-has, openings…flow.
And let us know how it goes!
Photo: Tomáš Záhumenský
