Too hard, too incomprehensible, too impossible? I get it.
6 movement strategies (and one bonus) that surprisingly apply to everything else
This newsletter edition started as a reflection on the link between sensitive personalities and invisible illness. It didn’t work. I tried to writing it four times and each time, it was more confused and garbled than the last.
I started again and again, pounding my head against a wall. As I worked, my thoughts were their typical (un)helpful selves: “You should have had this done 10 days ago.” “What are you doing?! This is three different posts Frankenstein-ed together”. “Maybe you’re not cut out to be a writer.”
As you can imagine, it’s not easy to work on a challenging piece with my choir of (un)helpful angels in the background.
This scenario is not unique and in fact, is often what people face in the studio. When clients begin learning very specific, very unfamiliar movements, even the most fit and athletic get stymied. You can be strong in the gym, on a bike, or zooming down a ski slope, but when you’re asked to stabilize your pelvis while moving your legs, you can draw a complete blank. What does that even mean??
And boy, does this get their (un)helpful angels activated.
Your body is a great teacher and through movement, it can teach you about yourself. Physical challenges can expose emotional patterns. Movement can be a metaphor for your life.
So today, in honor of all the ways our body challenges us, (and in fact, in honor of all our challenges), I thought I’d offer some of my best strategies for exercises that seem too hard, too incomprehensible, and too impossible to accomplish.
6 ways to work with challenging movement
Visualize your result. Sometimes, the best way to figure out a movement is to imagine you can do it perfectly. You may not feel it and the instructions may not make sense, but to the best of your ability, imagine that you’re doing whatever you think the movement is. Often, your body will figure out the rest.
Just do it. Do the movement, no matter how messy it looks, no matter how much your mind is telling you that you’re doing it “wrong”. Take a breath and trust that eventually, you will figure it out.
Break it down. Break the complicated movement down and then pick your battles. As you move your legs, is your pelvis rocking, your neck tense, and your breath jagged? Pick one thing and focus on that.
Go back to basics. Examine the challenging movement and find the fundamental movements within it. Practice the basics and then build up to the more complicated.
Do something different. Some days are not a great match for certain challenges. Change course and do something different.
Take a break. Enough said.
Examine what’s beneath the surface. As you face your challenge, observe your physical sensations and your emotional reactions. Maybe something else is going on. What the root of your challenge?
If you read this list, you’ll notice something interesting. None of this advice is specific to bodies or movement.
This makes my heart sing.
Everything that works for our bodies, works all other aspects of our life. It’s all linked. There’s no difference between your physical, tangible experience, and everything else. Any of these strategies could work for your writing struggles, your emotional ups and downs, or any thing that seems too hard, too incomprehensible, and too impossible to accomplish.
Bonus: Brian Eno’s “Oblique Strategies”
Back in the days when I hung out in the Humanities Building, a huge, ugly, concrete bunker that houses the art classes at UW Madison, I was part of a number of projects that were part art, part happening.
I was never the lead, always a follower. But although I wasn’t a main player, I was part of the brainstorming sessions to solve the many problems that inevitably come up with you are working on a crazy idea.
Each crazy idea required it’s own crazy solution, often testing the limits of our knowledge and abilities.
In the middle of these escapades, someone told me about Brian Eno’s “Oblique Strategies” deck. This is a deck of cards, each with a different statement that encourages lateral thinking. They were designed for musicians to overcome the times when they are stuck.
Use an old idea.
State the problem in words as clearly as possible.
Only one element of each kind.
What would your closest friend do?
What to increase? What to reduce?
Are there sections? Consider transitions.
Try faking it!
Honour thy error as a hidden intention.
Ask your body.
Work at a different speed.
If I got stuck in a project, I would draw a card. The card asked me to see my problem in a new way, sometimes an absurd way (as the cards “Change nothing and continue with immaculate consistency” and “Look closely at the most embarrassing details and amplify them” suggest).
Seeing things in a fresh ways can crack them open.
The next time you get frustrated with a movement you can’t do, ask yourself an absurd question about it. The more non sequitur the better. Maybe the answer will come to you from behind.
Threshold
This week, I’m starting a new project with Emily Conway of A Thin Space. Emily is brilliant. She’s very interested in space and how our environment influences our experience in the world. She’s articulate and insightful—truly a wonderful person.
Emily and I are starting a podcast called Threshold: Living the In-Between with Intention and Awareness.
Both Emily and I have spent decades navigating the land of uncertainty, the space in between where many and no truths exist. We do this in our personal lives, and we can’t seem to help doing it in our professional lives. Since we spend so much time in the liminal, we want to be in it with as much awareness and intention as we can manage.
During our live chats, we’ll explore questions with no clear answers, and solutions that shift and change dependent on circumstance and individual. We want to share our experiences, and we want to hear yours as we stand here, together, in the threshold.
Some of the topics for our conversations: What does it mean to be authentic? How do we speak from the heart? What does it mean to belong? And How to be in community (particularly as an introvert and/or sensitive person)?
Join us for our Live conversations in June:
Friday June 6 at 2pm CST
Friday June 13 at 2pm CST
Monday June 16 at 11am CST
Monday June 23 at 11am CST
How can you listen? If you are on the Substack app, you’ll get a notification when we start. If you’re a subscriber, you’ll receive an email prompt before the Live (Substack’s version of a live video chat) with a link to join.
Each Live will be recorded and available on our Substacks. Questions? Please reach out. I love hearing from you.
Julia Recommends
Our creative youth
A recent global study about the health of young adults reported that they are not doing well. According to a New York Times article, “young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 were struggling — not only with happiness, but also with their physical and mental health, their perceptions of their own character, finding meaning in life, the quality of their relationships and their financial security.”
This is bleak until you read about the creative ways that young people find happiness and joy. Watching jellyfish videos, talking to a rubber duck, and drawing maps are just a few of the ideas. I think we should take a page from these teens. There are lots of ways to nurture happiness—and it’s more important now than ever.
Merlin Bird App
I have a big maple tree in my small backyard. The tree is dense and it becomes a stop along the bird-safety-highway on my block. Birds fly from tree, to shrub, to tree, barely leaving the safe cover of branches.
This makes it hard for me to see my favorite neighbors—the orioles.
That’s why my Merlin Bird app is one of my favorites for this time of year. I can turn on the app it will hear any birds in my area, even before I can spot them.
This is great, Julia. What a gathering of helpful information. I’m going to use your list and the cards you mention next time I get stuck or am trying something that makes me anxious.