March 2017 | Page 3 of 4 | Sherisse Alvarez

On Asking Better Questions

It’s easy to get things done when we are feeling good. Easy to dream and reach and accomplish our goals. When things aren’t going our way we lose faith and forget the wonder of the universe. But where we put our attention matters, and what questions we ask is up to us. Naturally, better questions yield better answers.

When we’re in a dark place we forget that we have the power to change our view. In those moments all we tend to see is what’s right in front of us. Our minds are tethered to the grief or despair or loneliness we may be feeling. For some of us it may be linked to trauma. Whatever the cause it is helpful to know that thoughts are ephemeral, and that everything is always changing all the time.

In my family there is mental illness: anxiety and depression and schizophrenia. No one really spoke about this when I was growing up. It was a secret and secrets lead to shame and confusion. When I was old enough to understand, I started asking questions. I didn’t know what questions to ask, really, so I surrounded myself with people who might have answers. Eventually I figured out that a big part of why mental illness thrives in the first place is that it’s taboo, like addiction or money or sex.

When we start to take better care of ourselves we realize that there’s much we don’t know and much that we do. To want to follow our intuition and the path of wellbeing takes effort. We weren’t necessarily taught healthy habits and self-care is easier when it is modeled for us. If we are willing, we can learn how to re-parent ourselves. It can be a joyful journey with many insights and discoveries along the way.

Asking better questions reminds us that we have options and allows us to tap into our many strengths. When we find ourselves focusing on what isn’t working, we can take inventory of all the beauty that surrounds us, the abundance we already enjoy. We can pause and ask for guidance. Healing happens one day, one loving action, at a time.

In Search of Them and Us

We can be healthier than those around us. If our family members do things that disappoint us, we can look at how we exhibit these behaviors in our own life. We can decide whether they are serving us. If they’re not, how can we gently let them go? Once we’ve released these traits (selfishness or aloofness, for example) what do we imagine might replace them?

We may feel that certain voids will remain if we shed these unhelpful habits. But what we’re essentially doing is creating space for our autonomy: for new and healthy habits to form. We’re being intentional about what energies govern our own lives and relationships.

To mimic the patterns of those who raised us is a choice. We can use discernment and choose who we truly are and wish to be. If we are blindly following what we observed as children, we will continually be let down. Not because our family of origin is defective but because we are limiting and narrowing our experience.

The world outside of these four walls is quite expansive. I learned this on my first long trip away from home. I didn’t know it at the time, but my view from a window in Siena altered my perception in both subtle and dramatic ways. So did my early experiences as a stage manager in New York City. Through travel and work, the play space grew larger; the metaphor of my life took a different shape.

Distance from the familiar is often a useful tool for re-assessing where we come from and where we want to go. It repositions us in relation to our histories, gives us room to try on a new way of being, absorbing what is needed and discarding that which no longer authentically defines us. Veering off the familial path is not to abandon our ancestors. It is to inherit their wisdom while valiantly claiming our own.

Leave the Leaves

A recent walk through a local park brought these questions to mind: What aspects of our personality do we prefer to tuck away and keep out of sight? And how does our notion of perfection impact our shame and fear. What do we currently spend time omitting and what could we accomplish if we spent our energy in more meaningful ways.

While most of us gather fallen leaves and stuff them into bags that will be sent off to landfills, Madison Square Park in New York City has stopped this practice. At one of the park’s entrances there is a sign that reads: Leaves are important to soil and plant health. They act as insulation, creating a microclimate that protects plants and beneficial microorganisms from the winter cold. As leaves break down, they add nutrients and humus to the soil.

What if we thought about our own transformation in the same way? Realizing that all of our parts can be beneficial and useful. That they contain value and contribute to our wellbeing and, therefore, need not be eliminated. It is a new way of relating to what we sometimes call our imperfections or character defects.

We are encouraged to manufacture artificial personas that we present to the world. If we believe we have to destroy parts of ourselves as we grow and change we will work hard to create an image that is pristine but false. This benefits no one. Our traits and history, the things that make us who we are, provide necessary components for an integrated self and for renewal.

To “leave the leaves” is to do away with all the excess editing: to quit plucking and pruning. To support our natural cycles and rhythms and to nurture our own recovery process. Embracing the messiness, the beauty – the births and deaths in between.

Stretching Our Edges

Picture it. You, a year from now. Where do you want to be? What do you want to be doing? Imagine your movements, your speech, your relationships, your surroundings. Once you receive a clear picture, ask yourself in what ways you’re willing to stretch to get there. Get curious about the fears that are potentially holding you back and what resources you already possess.

A key component of stretch is accountability. Companionship is essential. We need to feel like we’re checking in with someone along the way. Reassurance that someone will be there to cheer us on helps us feel validated in our pursuits. Isolation is one of the antidotes to success. Thinkers and creatives spend a lot of time in solitude. It’s good to know that support and encouragement will be there when we re-emerge.

If we’re in constant stretch, we experience burnout. To expand we must also be able to contract. To flow easily between the various states of expansion and contraction, we practice integrating ease throughout the process. In this way, even when we are producing we are also receiving. We care for the doer so that action can still be nourishing.

If we don’t take adequate time for rest between periods of activity, our nervous system will always be on. This causes us to quickly lose a sense of balance. When there is no end in sight – a cycle of late hours and sleepless nights – the body will start to rebel. Most work environments promote this kind of behavior and we fall prey to the demands of high pressure roles. It can be hard to see when this happens since it has become the norm for so many.

It is comforting to keep doing the same thing: it’s what we know and though we desire change it’s simpler to follow routine. If there are things that we truly want to shift, however, we must create a loving plan of action. Slowly we become willing to stretch in ways that currently scare us. One year from now starts here with a tiny step. As we reimagine what is possible for our life, we invite others to do the same.

Spontaneous Humility

To be of service is to not only give your attention with an open heart. It is also to listen actively, share honestly, participate in the wellbeing of others. We can do this anywhere we engage with people: at work, during a meeting, on the bus, with strangers. Service is an opportunity to practice spontaneous humility. It grounds us in the present moment and has us hold hands with those whose lives we sometimes overlook.

Many of us spend our time “missing” those we don’t care about, and even those we do. We are blind to the needs and suffering of our friends and neighbors. In cities, especially, we cocoon ourselves and make others invisible. If we are numb to our own feelings and experiences we will grow numb to the world around us. When these apathetic states of mind take hold, we have lost our connection to our own true nature.

Giving to others also reminds us to honor our own sacredness. We cannot be of service to another if we are not taking proper care of ourselves. When we neglect our own health, for example, we are more stressed and less helpful in our day-to-day lives. We focus on what is wrong rather than on what we can offer.

Being of service with no agenda and no expectation aids us in recovering our sentience. As humans we have the awesome capacity to cultivate our sensitivity and deepen our sensuality. Intimacy gives us greater access to love, creativity, courage.

We may fear, deep down, that we will be exiled for such aspirations. That the cost will be too high, or that we will simply be awkward. The challenge is to do it anyway, to shed all that is truly and wholly not you in the name of all that is.

On the Other Side of Struggle

“Relaxing makes me nervous.”

-Unknown, from the book Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma by Peter A. Levine

What do we think struggle will get us? If we sit with the question and feel into our experience, we might say: success, fame, money, recognition, approval. All of these things point to a desire for connection with others. Being seen and felt and known.

Can we have connection without struggle? We may imagine that something will be missing. Struggle is hard work and we were taught that it is necessary to succeed, even to survive. We have been taught that things don’t come easily. That we have to prove we are worthy. What is it to just be? To not over-exert or over-give.

If we say we want ease – we believe in it – and yet we fight against it, how can we be happy? To stop and be with the quiet, to sit in the space of uncertainty, it has to be worth it. It has to feel compelling and capture our attention. What’s the calling? What are we looking for if we go to the desert or a cabin in the woods, or the solitude of an afternoon? Who are we hoping to meet and what are we wishing to bring back?

We sometimes think of serenity and healing as boring, and struggle as noble and necessary. We’re told it’s a sign of our strength and determination. I think we have it all wrong. The real risk seems to be in stopping, slowing down, getting still.

The experience of ease cannot be described, really. It must be embodied, lived. And our society doesn’t place as much value on reflection as it does on production. This means we don’t receive lots of encouragement for contemplative pursuits. We are generally not rewarded by our peers, partners, bosses.

The lining, though, is our own awakening and our continuous unfolding. We come into contact with a different kind of recognition: one that emerges from within and that produces, quite possibly, a more profound joy.

The Person, Not the Problem

In somatic coaching, we aim to coach the whole being. We acknowledge the issue or problem at hand but look deeper for transformative possibilities. What this gives us is a much more expansive framework from which to listen. We are not limited to a problem-and-solution approach.

Whenever we focus solely on the thing that is agitating or disturbing us, our thinking becomes rigid and tight. There is hardly any room for alternative views or unexpected insights. The situation appears to be good or bad, options are black or white. When this happens we literally lose ourselves. Like being underwater, we lose sight of the horizon. In these moments everything appears dark, murky. We feel isolated and trapped.

When we are able to relate to problems from the inside out, we start with breath and the clarity that already exists under the chaos. The physical sensations of the body. We shift our focus from out there to in here. It might feel like settling into curiosity before arriving at knowing. Being in acceptance even before we sense the outcome. Swimming rather than drowning.

To sit with questions or painful experiences in this way gives room for the intelligence of the subconscious to show up. We can be present – for ourselves and others – in a different way because our lens for understanding is wider. We do less work in relationship because we understand there is nothing to fix. This allows us to show up more fully, with less fear, free of expectation.

Resistance and the Feminine

You know it well: it keeps you hidden and small and disconnected, overwhelmed and under-nourished. It’s a heaviness in your chest, an ache in your belly. It dances you around indecision and procrastination, prevents you from initiating real change in your life. This monster called resistance prefers lights off, for the soul to remain in the dark.

When resistance is disturbed, it gets ugly and loud, creates symptoms and engages in a tug of war with us. It shuts all the windows and doors of imagination, cuts off all communication with source and the divine, takes us hostage. In this deprived state, it’s easy to forget who we are. Easy to forget that we possess infinite wisdom. That we are fertile. Needed and necessary.

To be fertile is to be in touch with that which wants to be birthed, that which stems from our feminine as well as masculine power. This is where our story, our author, lives and breathes; and this is the mind that is creatively curious as well as focused and disciplined. This is inventiveness and sharing those inventions with the world: a life that recognizes resistance but embraces the pleasure of exploration instead. That chooses power with, not power over.

Turning Toward Problems

When we get stuck on a problem we’re having, it can be useful to work through the issue somatically. We gain access to our intuition by physically moving in space and through the use of tangible objects. Creating safe containers for practice and healing invites our pre-cognitive awareness to come alive.

A teacher shared with me recently the following: the body is a process and not a structure. I realized that I hadn’t had language for that. I needed those words to help make sense of my experience. My felt sense of the body, in sickness and in health. The first time I met with a somatic therapist she invited me to take the chair I was sitting in and place it wherever I liked. This, too, was incredibly instructive and empowering. Healthy expression desires both: language as well as movement.

Restrictions, both physical and psychic, take time to un-do. They melt away only with patience and gentle, loving attention. When we find ourselves engaged in struggle, we can either turn toward or away. In a state of presence, we find the poetry and mystery of being. The “problem” opens, unfurls, breaks apart. In that dynamic space exists the field of our intuition, guiding us in the direction of beauty, inspiration and harmony.

Never the Perfect Time

Drop your awareness down, settle it softly on the body, somewhere near the heart. Notice the inhalation and exhalation. Notice, as you go there, where your truths reside. What your truths are buried under. Where they’re stuck and where they’re felt and known.

There is never going to exist a perfect time to pursue your dreams. I don’t mean this in a grandiose way, like quitting your job and flying to India to sit in a temple beside your guru – although that may be your dharma – but what I’m referring to is a quieter, more subtle revelation.

We live here, on this earth and in these bodies, for a time. I believe we have gifts and strengths we are meant to manifest and experience. We have ideas and visions and projects we’re meant to sink our teeth into.

Waiting can become an art. Postponing what we want and pining for change. What would it look like to stop delaying? To do the thing you have been putting off, today, here, right now. And to do it not out of obligation but as an offering, a gesture of loving-kindness toward yourself and others.