(Contracting + Blooming)∞ = Growth

Permission from flowers and jellyfish

oubaitori

(n) an ancient Japanese idiom about how flowers, like people, bloom in their own time and in their own ways.

I started practicing hot yoga again recently. It feels damn good for my body and mind to be in community practice again. Though 1-2 days after my first couple classes, I was experiencing more tightness in my body; my hamstrings hurt as I’d reach for my toes and my lower back ached. How the F*CK am I less flexible than I was 24 hours ago when I felt so flexible in class!?

It’s easy for me to feel confused and frustrated at my body when this tightening happens after small and big expansions. That’s my initial reaction actually when things aren’t as bloomful as the day/month/year before- and then I can fall down the hole of, this isn’t helping me, there’s no point in it, or arggg, how can I fix this immediately?!?

But I have to keep remembering what I’ve learned over and again: like a flower spreading its petals, contracting is needed for blooming, both are needed for growth. And neither is static.

Staying with my hot yoga practice a bit longer and resisting the urge to dismiss it due to my body’s contraction, has lead me to feeling lighter and more fluid overall.

I want to talk about the contracting that happens as a natural and ever-cycling phase of growth.

Much of my work with clients lately has been bringing compassion to the contractions. Like the contractions that come before a birthing body pushes out new life earthside, we all experience contractions (perhaps a lot less painful?) as we birth new ways of being and relating in the world (a world that continues to be on fire with genocide, domination, and disregard for earth’s life on so many levels).

In its simplicity, contracting is a process of becoming smaller or shorter. It can be a space of safety and protection; when the flower is budded, its center is not exposed to the elements. When we are contracted, we might be more quiet, still or less vulnerable. When we live in a world that can be incredibly harmful and threatening, this contracting may sustain us and keep us alive.

Contraction could also be a wall we habitually put up; one that ends up separating us more than simply protecting us. Sometimes, we might reinforce or get stuck in the contraction, and it could become a chronic state that causes more harm to us, like a constipation. This contraction may not feel choiceful, and perhaps requires deep patience and creative nurturing to find its dynamic nature again.

When we allow the contracting and the blooming be a dynamic dance, we are in the balance and process of growth.

When we can normalize this contracting and open up to the wisdom it offers, tension can melt, faces can soften, deep exhales can release, hearts can open. Permission can be given to be free in our budding and our blooming.

During the first 3 days of a healing retreat, Shae* experienced a level of intimacy and pleasure through gazing in people’s eyes and sharing affection with folks in ways they had never before. However on day 4, Shae wanted to run away and hide in the Redwood forest. They couldn’t look at anyone or acknowledge them without fear and a racing heart, even agitation and annoyance. Perhaps this is the contracting of a heart on the edge of new bloom.

After an expansive, unfamiliarized or mentally, physically, emotionally STRETCHY experience, contracting could look like:

• A Freeze response like paralysis, slowness, passivity, emptiness, need for rest

• A Flight response like avoidance, fear, dissociation, numbness

• A Fight response like tightness, judgment, insecurity, guilt, agitation, distrust, an inflamed inner critic

• General or specific anxiety

• Feeling small or even young

• Exhaustion or grief

• A “vulnerability hangover”

These growing pains are real, and the contracting allows Shae’s nervous system to adapt and acclimate to a new reality of intimacy. But if Shae judges the pain or smallness of contracting as a problem, or assumes that they are not cut out for this type of affection and connection, they can miss how protective, natural and wise it is for their heart and nervous system regulation to take some space amidst the trees. Releasing judgment about the contacting will make it easier for Shae to eventually return to the cuddle puddle, when they’re ready during the retreat or well after.

Judging the contracting as wrong can cause second arrow suffering like:

• Feeling dominated by the inner critic

• Imposterism or feeling a like fraud

• A gnawing sense of unbelonging

• Ruminating on the past

• Grasping for moments of expansion

• Impatience or urgency

• Scarcity mentality

• Lack of motivation

• Lack of self-compassion

• Resentment with ourselves or others

• Co-dependence with external circumstances

Tania* thought she’d feel relieved and at peace once she turned in her draft of her dissertation during the final year of her PhD program. Instead, she felt even more anxious than while she was actively working on it. The waiting and anticipation of feedback from her committee left her with antsy impatience and dread. She was counting down the days when she’d receive their reply. In the days after she submitted her draft, she was beating herself up for only having enough energy to get out of bed, feed her cat, and maybe read some fan fiction. Perhaps this space of rest and emptiness that was available to her can be seen as a necessary contracting phase of growth?

When I- perhaps we- don’t recognize the inevitability of contracting, we can easily problemize it and fall prey to the inner critic’s attacks; we can even avoid blooming in attempt to prevent the pain of growth.

When Tania brings awareness and permission to the natural discomfort that can come with this contracting (especially after all the active work she’d done on her dissertation), she could let out her deep sighs. She could lean into the rest that’s there for her, and be with a sense of emptiness and spaciousness that allows for new emergence.

Jellyfish contract the circular muscles that line the undersurface of their bell to swim forward. The motion of the bell from a relaxed position to a fully contracted position results in the movement of their jelly bodies through the water (much like the muscles in our bodies contract in order for us to walk, dance, speak and breathe through space).

As more violence and death fall on the people and land of Gaza and Sudan and around the world, I sit humbly with the inquiry of what does this natural contracting look like in our activism? Perhaps it’s different for each of us.

My activism requires me to allow my contracting; to allow my anger and confusion and deep sadness when I see what’s happening in Gaza or engage in conversations where people are actively avoidant in acknowledging the suffering; and to do so without trying to “fix” reactively and immediately. I am required to recognize and hold the pain and urgency that causes my body to tighten and feel small or helpless, without rushing or forcing anything because of it.

When I give permission to my contracting, it almost automatically softens a bit, even subtly. My nervous system settles over time, and I access a little more of my capacity to engage socially, to give care, to meet what’s in front of me with presence. Then I can create, write, hold space, embrace, discuss, connect, and Love.

So dear reader, if there are ways in which you feel contracted right now, perhaps that contracting is natural and needed for your expansion in ways beyond what you have known.

Sometimes, contracting may look like only being able to wake up and feed your cat. And maybe…maybe that’s okay? May we allow the rest and space that contracting demands, so that on other days, we can wake up, bloom forward bigly and sustainably to also feed our communities.

(*names changed for anonymity)

Some questions for reflection:

In regards to your work and career, relationships and social life, activism and community care…

• What might blooming look like for you right now?

• What might contracting look like for you right now?

• How do you meet yourself when you’re in the phase of contracting? (are you accepting, nurturing, judgmental, critical?)

• What would it be like to give permission, space and freedom (to yourself and others) to bud and bloom?
  

Free Gatherings in May:

AMPLIFY VOICES: May 6th to the 9th, various sessions via Zoom AFFIRMATIONAL DRAWING: May 15th @ 10-11am PST, via Zoom

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