• Taking A Breath

    Posted June 29, 2011 By in Blog, Studio Forum With | 2 Comments

    July Community Newsletter article by Chantill

    Hi there friends,

    Summer puts me in tune with the space between endeavors. It is filled with the extras we don’t usually get to do or more accurately what we don’t allow ourselves to do. Extra movie watching, a weekend away, a barbeque with friends (an extra glass of wine), all acceptable summer respites. For my son Charlie it’s water guns and video games. For me it’s an opportunity to say yes to spending more time with my family and more time outside, to more time in the natural flow. It also means more meditation and a more quiet mind. It’s like the “yes” button has been pushed and I do feel a bit like I am being carried on a wave. Going with it is the music of the day.

    In fact, I’ve had a strange, almost contradictory, experience in the past few weeks of feeling more space despite a growing to-do list. Kristen’s away for the next 5 weeks, Charlie’s out of school and there are ten times as many things to organize for his entertainment and learning, major studio projects, personal projects, travel, training, and on and on. Yet, with this new allowance to have space it feels like meditation in real life. Maybe for the first time I am having the true experience of my life as meditation.

    It’s like the pause between breaths. Notice that at the end of your out-breath there is always this undeniable pause before in the next in-breath. And I get that reading it and hearing it is nothing compared to the experience of really knowing that space, but I will – possibly in vein – attempt to impart the experience, if not value (should I be so arrogant) on you with words alone.

    The more I think about this modern life and the constant, multi-directional pull it seems to have on me, I realize that it is only that I allow it. And I am not the victim. No more complaining.

    We can blame technology, our work, our society, our partners, the age in which we live, but we always, always have a choice. Being pulled behind the cart is not the life I choose, nor do I choose to pull the cart everyone else is pulling. I don’t have to. When I listen for just one true moment I see that there are many ways in which I don’t line up with what I really want. Mostly it’s because I am afraid to be just as I am, with the gifts, talents, skills and character flaws I have. I am afraid of not doing it right as if there were some formula to follow so that I might end up with just the right result: success, acknowledgement, accolades, recognition, affirmation, money. And if I don’t get it right? Well if I am following the other guy I probably won’t ever get it right. “There” is nowhere I will ever be. Why should I want to be anywhere other than where I am anyway?
    When I sit quietly (and if you have a smartphone you should download a meditation timer – free – it’s too cool!) in my car or in my backyard or sometimes on the bathroom floor, I allow it all to stop spinning so that I can see to my center.
    When you see what’s really there all fear slips away and you know that things are just as they are meant to be. But you have to stop or something will do it for you - tragedy, emergency, crisis – and you’ll be forced. Can you stop? Can you see clearly? What tools do you have? Certainly because meditation works for me doesn’t mean it will work for you. But we all need help, a guide, tools to find balance. Movement? Exercise? Writing? Singing? Art? Making paper airplanes? What is it that makes you stand in the stillness between breaths and see your center clearly? Can you see your genius in these moments, your intuitive and true nature?
    There are several articles I am dying to read (waiting on a book swap with a friend) in Atlantic Magazine called “How Genius Works” in their first Culture Issue. These articles explore the process or workings of genius in some of our cultural big hitters: Chuck Close, Paul Simon, Tim Burton and others. This is what I see when I am still – something that is totally masked otherwise by the gibberish of busyness. That’s why I think my best ideas come in the shower. It’s quieter there. “It’s opener there in the wide open air,” so says Dr. Suess.
    Imagine for a moment something that feels bad. Anything at all. Locate it in your body and then spend the next 60 seconds breathing space around it. Don’t berate yourself or wish it were gone, just see it and make room for it. Fear doesn’t go away – so they tell me – but we can recognize it and other emotions for what they are, a part of us, and make room for them so we can continue to see past them, through them, to our centers.
    “So…be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray or Mordecai Ale Van Allen O’Shea, you’re off to Great Places!
    Today is your day!
    Your mountain is waiting.
    So…get on your way!”
    With gratitude,
    Chantill
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Comments (2)

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ritama » 03. Jul, 2011

I always appreciate your reminders to BE! This one was especially timely as I had just finished reading an email containing an exciting/slightly ‘scary’ offer for a new work opportunity. Sitting with the experience, breathing and letting it just be there was exactly the best thing for it. Thanks! And really, who can refuse Dr. Seuss? :)

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pcollective » 05. Jul, 2011

Ritama,
I am so glad you found what you needed in the moment. I recently also listened to a podcast about “being with the question”. It seemed very relevant to what I’d just been thinking about and is another great reminder to let things be just as they are even though we very much want conclusion, answers or simply to be somewhere else. Can we truly be with not knowing for as long as it takes? Congratulations on the work offer. I look forward to seeing you in the studio tomorrow! CL

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