Reflections after a Retreat
When I was planning the first gathering for Becoming mBODYed, it initially was a workshop. At some point, it became a retreat, and I’m not sure how that happened. Perhaps it was something someone said or a mistake in the PR materials, but it stuck. Once I realized it, I got a bit concerned, as “retreat” has different expectations than a “workshop,” at least in my mind.
I knew that I wanted to debut Becoming mBODYed at this gathering, and of course, in my mind that meant I had to develop something new. Over the three months of prepping, everything I tried to put together kept “evaporating” from my mind. It was the weirdest sensation. I couldn’t follow a thought through to its conclusion. Nothing was sticking.
In my frustration, I realized that I didn’t need to create something new. This gathering was about sharing what I was already doing. Becoming mBODYed has developed within the community, which is building around mBODYed. This retreat was about sharing this work publicly.
As the days approached, I wanted to do that academic and professional thing: present a schedule of topics, what I was going to be talking about, and when. Again, boy, was I in for a surprise. All efforts to do so were met with cloudy brain fog.
As Friday night arrived, I surrendered.
The retreat began with me saying, “I’ve tried and tried to create a schedule of events and topics, like this is going to be some type of conference. Bravo, academic brain! But to no avail. I have realized and surrendered to this. I know what we will discuss and explore, and at least I know how to begin the discussions. But I'm at a complete loss where they go, how we get there, and when we arrive. I have had to surrender to the knowing that our destination will take the energy of all of us who have come here to do this work.”
What followed was transformational for us all. A group of 12 individuals had arrived to do deep work in a community. Academic teachers, hobby musicians, actors, dancers, music school administrators, and professional performers came together to create a supportive, empathic community, a place of safety for us all to ask meaningful, challenging, and transformational questions. Every exploration, however fun and active I tried to make, led to profound discoveries and opportunities for change.
Specifically,
Friday night, we explored attention and permission. We played with how attention affects our movement and discovered that we can intentionally decide how we want to direct our attention, and it makes a world of difference in how we organize.
Saturday, we explored the concept of expansion in our bodies, mapping the expansion pathways and how they associate with our identities. We experience our dignity through our length (height), our safety in the spaces we are in through our ability to deepen into our back, and our width is an expression of our sense of belonging, and finally, our perception of time as our enoughness.
Sunday, we mapped the physical pathways of expansion in our body, including the location of joints that allow balance and movement, and the structures of support such as our spine and legs. We spent the afternoon putting everything together in movement explorations, games, and performance work.
While we each had our insight into our identities and the choices in our lives, I wanted to share a few that came to me during these three days.
1 - Somatic work is sacred work.
It is healing work. Doing it requires accepting responsibility and accountability for the work and its transformational possibilities. There is no halfway. It requires you to surrender to the process.
2 - Becoming mBODYed is both content and process.
To teach the content requires you to commit to the process. Inherent in the content are the ideas of nonjudgmental curiosity, safety, belonging, and authenticity. To teach those, you have to BE those. When you ARE, the teaching flows.
3 - Communities are sacred!
I have gone through some of the most profound transitions in the past two years of my life. I discussed this in episode 1 of the Becoming mBODYed Podcast. I have never felt like I belong entirely in the various bodily organizations I am a member of; I’m a bit of a renegade. I don’t accept the status quo. I’m always looking for improvement and change.
I’ve also lost my relationship with the music world since I can no longer play the clarinet. My place in the clarinet and performance communities and the relationships I have built in those spaces around our mutual activities are different and quite unsettled.
What I didn’t realize was central to the core of mBODYed, and what mBODYed is doing is community. I and those teaching and learning with me, WE are creating and nurturing a community of love, support, healing, and authenticity.