In InterPlay we say that if we are to have health and well-being we cannot possibly hold everything alone. We propose that we all need help and also that we may actually feel lifted up or gain some relief by sharing our troubles and concerns with others. We call this practice On Behalf Of.
Today, I ask you to hold me and what is resting on my heart right now. I also invite you to share your cares and concerns with me via the comment section of this blog. We are in this together and I guarantee you will feel better knowing someone is holding it all with you.
card from the Interplay Inspiration Deck w/ purple coneflowers
when you call On Behalf Of there is always time for a cup of tea and a bit of conversation. shewill make time to stop and listen. if you are at her house she will offer you special paper and a beautiful amethyst fountain pen to write down everything that is troubling or upsetting you. She places all the papers in a dragonfly jar on her kitchen windowsill. every week she opens the window on a bright sunny day and sends the concerns off to the light. she sees everyone who has shared their pain with her bathed in warmth and love. On Behalf Of knows that health and well-being come more easily when one opens up and shares with a friend.
Don’t be afraid to share with me or someone else who cares about you.
….between your eyebrows with your fingers, throw your hand up in the air and say, “WHEE!”
This is the gift of letting go of my hard focuser and taking a soft or easy focus. The peripheral vision has to be engaged and more of what I am looking at invited in. When I see only what is in front of me I am extremely limited. My fears can run rampant and make me believe that, nobody likes me, everybody hates me.
remember that childhood song? it ends with, “I’m gonna eat some worms…big fat juicy….ok, you get the idea.
My time at the InterPlay Leaders’ Gathering was an amazing exercise in letting go of fixation and my belief that the world is conspiring against me.
well, maybe just a few people, but “world” sounds so much more dramatic!
While at the gathering, I decided to use my tools and apply them to myself: noticing, witnessing, body wisdom, and incrementality. I let go of a bit of fear, allowed myself to be vulnerable, and wonderful things began to happen: people showed up to support me, meaningful connections were born, and The InterPlay Inspiration Deck found a whole new audience.
The principles and practices of InterPlay work, if you use them! When I make them more than just words on the page, or concepts that I study and memorize to spew out at appropriate times, especially to show how “wise” I am, then life shows me its magic!
hmmm, maybe life is conspiring for me and not against me.
Like all the other wonderful things that I have learned, read, and studied over the years, I am finally at a place of truly living and embodying the teachings I have spent years studying. It is a daily practice as some days flow and some days don’t. Many times I am in awe and just as many in tears. I see myself behaving in new ways and also see the same old me, doing the same old sh_t!
As Easy Focus says,” Good noticing Anita. Now, get on it , get off it, and get over it!”
Stan‘s niece wrote and said that she pulled the card “HOLD IT LOOSELY AND LIGHTLY” and really needed that message yesterday. She is having a great time using the InterPlay Inspiration Deck which is making me realize even more the power of it as a daily practice. Whether you know InterPlay or not, these round cards are a way to get more out of your day, every day!
For me, this message to remember to hold things loosely and lightly is so important. I am SO NOT a technology person and the whole world operating on Facebook, Twitter, blogging, etc. is not really comfortable for me. Comfortable is this easy chair that I am sitting in right now. My morning coffee by my side, my dog curled up in my lap, the heavy rain and wind providing an awesome background for this Monday morning. Discomfort for me is the way I cannot figure out how to write this post directly into the blog, cannot figure out how to “tweet” people on a regular enough basis so that I would get hundreds of followers like my friend, Gretchen, and my complete inability to post things with pictures on Facebook or any other techy tool like that.
AHHHH, taking a breath as that was quite a long sentence.
That is what lack of comfort feels like in my body: one huge run on sentence!
So, for this moment, I borrow the Hold it Loosely and Lightly card, I grab my tight focuser and release it from my tight knit brow, take one long slow deep breath, and I exhale twice as long.
The wind and rain have stopped. Another Monday miracle reveals itself to me!
Our Monday night InterPlay/improv dance class does a movement meditation on the theme of “easy focus” to a loop I created in the moment before becoming the videographer. Enjoy.
…And here, we do a favorite InterPlay improv form called postcards on Easy Focus. The round cards we’re holding up are from The InterPlay Inspiration Deck (created by Anita Bondi who also teaches the Monday night class).
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