Trust

I started rock climbing because I wanted to trust people more. As a neophyte, I believed that the relationship between climber and belayer had to be one of trust. It is. What I have learned about trust from rock climbing , though, is more fundamental. You have to trust in yourself before you can trust in others.

Without trust in yourself, there is no trust. Without trust in yourself, you have abdicated responsibility. This is especially true in rock climbing. The climber does rely on the belayer to catch falls and identify risks but the first onus is on the climber for the climber's safety. Trusting oneself is more difficult than it sounds. Self-trust relates to confidence and body-mind awareness. Trust is being in the moment, listening to the stillness, and acting accordingly. Because most of us go in and out of the moment, most of us go in and out of trusting ourselves.

And if we can't trust ourselves, every moment of every day, how can we trust others? Especially, when trust is one of the foundation building blocks of any meaningful relationship? The answer that I am pursuing is to act as if trust is present. Assume trust.

Trust will not be there every moment in my relationships with my family and my friends but if I act as if it is, it will be more and more often. This is true in the big important things in life, and it is true in the small things. I continue to explore my ability to trust myself on a daily basis, as I rock climb, as I navigate a hilly curve on my mountain bike, as I lift my heel in toe-stand in yoga, as I am open and honest with friends, as I communicate with family. Trust grows.

Fairy Tales

As I child, I read and I read and I read. Interestingly, I don't remember learning to read though I do recall the laminated paper tools we used for phonetics. I also recall that in grade one, we were divided into two groups and I turned whenever the other group read Jimmy's name out loud. (Jimmy being the main boy character in our primer, and sounding a lot like Ginny when pronounced by a six year old). I do know that I read all the books in the children’s section of our town library by the time I was 12. I spent so much time with books that I could identify the publisher by the smell of the ink and texture of the paper.

In grades six and seven, I became engrossed in Andrew Lang's coloured Fairy Books. There are twelve books in the collection, published between 1889 and 1910. The Blue Fairy Book was the first and then the Red. The most widely known fairy tales were selected in the early books with lesser known stories in the later ones. I read them all - Blue, Red, Green, Yellow, Pink, Gray, Violet, Crimson, Brown, Orange, Olive, and Lilac. Last night I read an essay by Barbara Sjoholm about "The Snow Queen" included in the Pink Fairy Book. Serendipitously, today I found my forty-year old, yellowed copy of the Blue Fairy Book.

As I grew older, I continued to read fairy tales and myth. I thought the value was in escapism not education. I began to realize the powerful influence that fairy tales have had on my values and decisions when I first read Women Who Run With Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. Estes is a Jungian psychologist who re-tells familiar tales and stories from around the world and then illustrates their import on the female psyche. I read her description of Hans Christian Anderson's "Red Shoes" and thought of Princess Diana. Brittney Spears also wears red shoes which dance out of control. "The Snow Queen", which is not included in Women Who Run with Wolves reflects the shattered shards of adolescence and dysfunctional families.

Classic fairy tales are no longer being read by children. Classic fairy tales are no longer being read to children by adults. Our society is lacking as a result. The tales are rooted in our history and provide universal lessons of risk, caution, and caring. Do cartoons, anamie, Air Guitar and Wii provide the same richness, just in a new cultural context? Maybe so, but certainly, the adult re-reading of old favorites is lost and symbols of the past, like the Little Match Girl and Red Shoes, are fading away. Adults need doses of fairy tales even more than children. Our prescription seems to be cardboard reality television and box office movies. Stories and magic in music, even the most popular, linger on and give me hope. Keep re-telling the old stories.

Blind spots

Lately, I have been very conscious of my blind spot when I am driving my car. I make an effort to shoulder check and look at the small but very dangerous spot when the car close on the right is not visible. Too often, I see a car when I did not sense one.

Lately, I have been wondering why certain people get to me, triggering thoughts or behaviour that do not reflect the me that I want to be. Yesterday in yoga class one of those people practiced next to me. I heard a noisy thunk as she hurled her mat onto the floor. I looked up to see who it was. I saw her and felt dismay. I resolved to focus on my practice, to get into the poses, hold them and move on. As I did so, I realized that what triggers me about her isn't so much her drama but her frustration with not getting the poses right or perfect. It seemed as if she wanted someone to notice her and compliment her - good work, good effort, good girl. I know that feeling and gradually over time the need for external recognition is diminishing in me. It's still there, though, and pops up when I least expect it.

Recognizing my blind spot in yoga class spawned other ah-ha's. There was a woman who spoke to me in the climbing gym about watching her climber while she belayed him on lead that triggered anger in me. I held back my snarky retort but it troubled me so much that I moved to a different part of the gym but did not enjoy the rest of my session. I realized that it was because she saw me as a middle-aged beginner climber, not an experienced intermediate.

With that realization came others... the guy who told me that some of my short radius turns were good; others not so. I became VERY passive aggressive (knowing short radius turns are an area of improvement for me), and challenged him to tell me specifically which ones were good and which ones weren't and what I did differently on each. It was a trigger-fest on skis. His lack of self confidence (which I would have seen were it not one of my blind spots) triggered my lack of confidence. I fired back. He volleyed in return. Good thing we weren't in cars, but at least in cars, we know to check our blind spots.

This is the lesson that I am taking away - check my blind spots. When I feel unease, I become less present and worry that I am not good enough. Instead, I need to open myself to the situation and ask myself what it is going on. The irony is that by worrying about not being good enough, that's what happens. Maybe I can tape a note on my nose that sticks up in front of my eyes. Check your blind spots! No - that would make me blind to other things...the answer is (with apologies to the Grateful Dead) to "keep on truckin".

Over and over

One of the colloquial, somewhat humorous, definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I disagree. It is almost impossible to do the same thing over and over again in exactly the same way. The key is "exactly the same way". Last night I was at the rock climbing gym and was stuck getting past an overhang. I was on top rope so I could attempt the challenge in several different ways. On my first try, I positioned my feet, one under the overhang, the other around the corner and reached up with my left hand to a higher hold. I successfully grabbed the hold. Now I needed to get my right hand higher and then pull my body weight upwards, past the precipice.

I moved my right foot to a hold about three inches higher, closer in to the wall, beneath the overhang. My chest and hips were parallel to the overhang and, relying on core strength, I reached up and over on to the higher right hand hold. I grasped it but then my hold slipped and I swung left in the air over the corner.

I repositioned myself and attempted the same move the same way. I didn't even come close to reaching the hold. A different outcome doing something the "same way". My friend who was belaying me, suggested moving into a backstep which meant bringing both my feet onto the corner wall, pulling my right side in, and then reaching up with my right hand. I tried and felt unbalanced. A "new way" and the same outcome: I wasn't yet past the overhang.

I reverted back to my original position which was comfortable and reached up for a fourth time. My hand did not reach the hold and again I swung in the air on top rope. I recall saying to myself "you can't quit, you can do this" and I reached up with my right hand in the same way as I had in my first, second, and fourth attempts. This time my hand gripped the hold and I pulled myself up and over, wondering why it had taken me so many attempts when the successful reach was so easy.

The difference between the successful reach and the unsuccessful reach? To people watching, there was no difference. A snapshot would have shown me in the same starting position time and time again. But, the snapshot would have been misleading. There were several differences. At the outset, I was not certain of my technique and not certain that I would pull myself up. A bit of experimentation convinced me that my technique and skill would allow me to pull up. The experimentation also gave me insight into the millimeters of difference in where I positioned my hands on the holds, and in the milliseconds of timing in reaching, pulling and moving my hands and feet up. So, millimeters and milliseconds made a difference. The most important factor, though, was my intent. There was no doubt in my mind when I made the final pull-up. I was going to do it that time. My intention was clear and my body and mind worked together to make it happen.

So, is it insane to do the same thing over and over and expect a different outcome? No. This is how athletes train. They do the same thing over and over, making minor adjustments (and sometimes major changes), until the movements are patterned and reliable. Still, almost every 500 meter run, every triple Axel, every ball pitched, and basket sunk has some minor variation.
The "insanity" is to think that it is possible to do the same thing the same way over and over. The truism isn't true . That said, I do agree that there are times when small change is not enough to produce different outcomes and when boldness is required, but that is fodder for a different day and a different climb.

Namaste

A new language

There's lots of talk about listening to our bodies. I hear the talk on television about workout intensity...I hear the talk in yoga class... I hear the talk among life coaches. I have been trying to listen to my body for a while but just this week I realized how amazing it is to really hear what my body is saying. It's as if I have been listening in one language and my body has been communicating in another, and this week, finally, I have begun to learn the language of my body.

In the past, I have listened to overt signals from my body. My toes hurt. My calves are cramping. I feel blocked in my stomach. These were real signals and my body communicated effectively, like a sailor waving bold semaphore flags. The signals were hard to miss. Sometimes they were easy to interpret (semaphore isn't that complicated) but other times I was off track.

What I have learned to hear over the past weeks is a deep knowing. My body is using more subtle semiotics. For example, I woke one morning feeling normal (which for me includes a tinge of anxiety). I went about my morning tasks and as I was walking from the kitchen to the dining room, I felt a deep sense of peace. I distinctly noticed it and observed it and briefly wondered why. Shortly after, a family member phoned with good news.

On Friday, I struggled through yoga class. I had to sit out poses. I turned red. Tears eked out of my eyes. I realized that there was a message in the signals my body was sending me but I focused so much on just getting through class that I did not try to understand what the signals were. Today I learned that, at the exact time, I was in yoga class, the final piece of settling my mother's estate fell into place.

That our bodies hold wisdom, that our bodies communicate physical pain, that our bodies hold memories of past injury, is becoming more accepted. My experience bears this out. As I have learned to listen to my body, through therapy and through activity, I have released much of my past. Perhaps, the deep knowing language is available to me now only because I have unclogged the transmission highways over the past nine years. This language of knowing is new to me It is nice to imagine that this knowing is a reward for hard work. I am like a first grader reading a primer, sounding out words. There is inherent joy. Drawing conclusions about why I have learned a new way of reading my body now is premature and unnecessary. I am just grateful for being and communicating.