Stretching Lessons: The Daring That Starts From Within - Suggested Discussion Questions on Section 2: "Opening"

For those who are unable to complete the reading prior to our meeting, I provide a list of passages and questions from the reading so that you have something to reflect upon. These passages and questions are simply a guideline to jump start conversation. As always, my preference is that you spend the entire evening sharing your answer to the final question.

• Pg 38 "Letting go can be acceptance."  We should make contact with the very thing we wanted to let go of—give it more space to be there in our lives. She added, "We spend so much time trying to fix ourselves—rather than having ourselves. The more you can feel in your body—the more you can release."  Why, I wondered, would I want to accept the very thing I longed to let go of?  Just as I was about to raise my hand and ask, she said "We only get good at what we practice.  Nothing changes if you never do anything different." "Change comes not from more effort—it comes from an inner softening." I didn't really understand what that meant, but I did like the sound of softening and the feeling in my body when I imagined an inner softening. In that moment I had a glimpse of ease.
• Every time I read this passage it strikes a chord in me.  Though the first note is doubt, after all "Doesn't acceptance=giving in?", as I continue to read the notes move towards hopefulness ... that my resistance to "not giving in" does lead to a constriction within me associated with "fighting, struggle, effort", and by persisting in this practice, I already know the outcome.  It leads me to ask the question, "Let me practice operating from a place of quiet, calm, assurance and see what the results are."  Doesn't mean that one is better that the other ... just that I have options on how to be in a situation.  What are your reactions to this passage?

 

• Pg 43 I also knew that unconscious beliefs have even more power to affect outcomes than the ones we are aware of.  I did want to contribute.  I wanted that enormously. But I didn't want to exhaust myself and run on empty in my desire to help others.  I longed to find another way—and I felt that longing in my body.  I didn't know what to do.  Rather than make a black-and-white choice, I began a practice.  My intention was to listen to my inner voice.  No matter what was happening on the outside, each choice, each destination, small or large, would first have to make sense on the inside.  I began designing my life from the inside out.  All I knew and all I could trust, was to be as true to that interior voice as I could and then act from that place.  Years later, I heard M.C. Richards describe it as: Integrating one's inner search with one's outer practice.
  • The concept of having your own practice pervades this section.  Often we equate spiritual practice to worship, daily prayer, or meditating, but an extremely powerful spiritual practice can be about consciously practicing a different outlook, perspective or way of being and observe the outcome. Forgiveness meditations, appreciation journals, no media-sponsored news for 30 days, 21-day complaint free pledge, laughter yoga ... what are some other practices that you've encountered that fall within this approach?
  • These practices come from Yogic and Buddhist spiritual traditions. Current research shows that the brain does grow new neural pathways when you undertake something new, which lends scientific support to this ancient perspective.  Knowing that, is there a practice that you would like adopt for 30 days?   

   

• Pg 48-49 "Each of us has our own unique motion," Nancy said, "as unique as our thumbprint."  I smiled, thinking I had the rhythm of a racehorse.  "It's okay to be a racehorse, Sue, but you don't have to run every day in the Kentucky Derby," Richard added. Then I stopped daydreaming and heard Nancy say: "Opening up will come from slowing down.  See what comes alive from resting."  Whenever I think it will be good for me to rest, my "I WON'T" voice surfaces, I fear that if I stop, I'll never get up again. ... Just like the TV commercial says, I'd take two Excedrin, get into bed for half and hour, and STOP.  I would lie there, very still, until the headache went away.  I've always given Excedrin the credit. It never dawned on me that stopping had made the difference.  Nancy raised a question when I first started stretching and I have now taken that question into my body and made it my own:  If we never pause long enough to get to know the silence, how will be know the possibilities it contains?
  • As I grow Integrative InSight, "seeking balance" has been a 2-year practice for me ... between my business, my personal relationships, my self-care, my community, my health.  Reading this chapter was timely, as it finally dawned on me that in making "seeking balance" my practice, my underlying assumption is that I am ‘out of balance", and so there is a constant balancing act between all of those aspects of my life.  As the balancing act is constant, it feels exhausting just thinking about it.  So as of last night, my new spiritual practice is "rhythmic flow", something my stretching teacher told me 8 months ago (thank you, Saul).    
  • What were some of the images or language that you noticed about yourself as you read this chapter?

 

• Was there a particular passage that made you stop and either consider or appreciate?