Arriving, Turning Toward, Centering, Softening
Techniques for dealing with the trouble and finding creative intention
During this blisteringly hot summer of 2023 here in the northern hemisphere and elsewhere in the world with the extreme weather of climate change so present for many of us, I’ve been returning to foundational resilience practices and I’m hoping they will be supportive for you as well.
I find strength in these practices ways into motion instead of the paralysis of powerlessness. They support continued commitment to taking right action from a place of peace and intention rather than the fear, rage, and sadness that come through our bodies. Allowing those feelings to be present is important. And then what?
I started crafting this practice over the years in my teaching and then in 2015, when I finally started to turn toward my own fear and grief around climate change and the painful connections between anti-blackness, colonialism, misogeny, and environmental destruction.
Always evolving, this practice remains valuable to me today and I’m excited to hear how you use it or adapt it for your own life and well being.
Four Practices to Support Resilience
I have been writing and re-writing this little list for living in uncertain times often over the past several years.
For those craving short and sweet today, here it the outline version. It is already enough to get you started and free up energy for the work at hand:
Arrive, take time to breath and be with where you are and how you feel. Notice what you notice and let that inspire motion.
Turn, turn toward climate change or whatever fears you are avoiding at the moment, personal, political or both. Put your fear somewhere in space, turn toward it, and notice its contours.
Center, De-center, Re-center, around nourishing ideas, practices, people… who are the allies and ancestors showing up for you today? Where your focus goes, energy flows.
Soften into Intention, breath, release the tension in your muscles, act from there.
That’s the basic score (as the dancers in this community will know, the term score is a term we use in improvisation to indicate a set of instructions or instigations, kind of like a recipe for movement) and it may be all you need today.
Let’s Get Started
Feel free to move through all four steps—arriving, turning toward, re-centering, softening—or stay with one that really speaks to you, or maybe you just need the idea of this list, that’s ok too (thank you adrienne maree brown for this inclusive, permissive wisdom. I highly recommend her book Emergent Strategy as an ally for living in uncertain times if you have not found it yet, or even as a re-read this summer if you have. Or listen to her wisdom via her podcasts).
Let’s arrive
Arriving into presence
In this moment, this place, this community, wherever you are
Breath and notice any textures of sensation in your body
Spend a few seconds just being with those sensations
Drawing awareness to breath
Extending the exhale a bit longer than the inhale
In for four, out for six
Calming your nervous system and cultivating resilience
The first action is non-action as the Taoists say
Notice what you notice
Notice where each inhale ends and each exhale begins
Notice the spaces between the two
Arriving into bodily presence
When you are ready, play with a little movement
Moving from what feels good to you right now
Wiggle, shift your position, find a gesture that feels expansive?
Explore reaching, stretching, bouncing, opening your sternum, lifting your chin?
What feels good?
And as we arrive we turn
Turning Toward
Turning toward instead of turning away
Turning toward what frightens you
Climate crisis, rising seas, heat, uncertain futures
Personal or political fears
Big or small
Notice what images come if you allow your fears to be conscious instead of simmering under the surface, they are there either way
When you are ready, name a fear want to turn toward today
Name it and place it in the room somewhere with some distance from you
See that frightening thing over there in the room and
Turn toward it, see it, acknowledge it, breath with what is present for you
Take time with this step
Ask yourself what wants to be known?
What do you do when you don’t know what to do?
Listen to the answers that come
Take a moment to write or draw or move any wisdom you have received
Make up a gesture that empowers you in relation to this fear, it doesn’t need to make sense
Create a gesture of power, containment, clarity and repeat that gesture as many times you like until you feel a shift in your body
And as we turn, we shift our center
Centering, De-centering, Re-Centering
Centering livability and de-centering the human in a continuum of life
What are you centering right now? Who are you listening to? What thoughts are you believing? How might you re-center your life around thoughts that will contribute to a more just and thriving lifeworld?
What does it feel like to move off-center?
Can you find the fun in it? These can be radical shifts or very small sorting, shifting, and releasing shifts. What are you centering in your life?
Who are you watching, reading, uplifting? What are you paying attention to and where is your energy going?
Give yourself a moment to reflect and set an intention for a re-centering or de-centering action
Consider this offering from a beautiful critical history of our relationship to computers and computing and the stakes for our survival:
“We can craft other visions that will be conducive to the long-range survival of humans and of the other life-forms, biological and artificial, with whom we share the planet and ourselves” —Katherine Hayles
Try reading aloud the following mantras, see if some of them resonate with you, listen and follow what connects to your inner wisdom:
I am centering new visions or amplifying existing visions that support well being
I am centering those who are shifting and sharing power
I am de-centering white supremacy culture and bias
I am re-centering around anti-racism and meditation as daily practices
I am centering and uplifting BIPOC voices and creativity
I am de-centering racism, sexism, misogeny, ableism, homophobia, and violence in what I watch, read, listen to, and accept as normal
I am centering Black and indigenous voices each day
I am centering queer and non-binary voices each day
I am centering the work and voices of disabled people and communities each day
I am centering spirit and grace with unapologetic loving kindness
I am centering deep awareness of place and kinship with those around me
I am centering our plant friends and animal teachers
What else do you want to center or de-center in your life? What do you want to re-center around? How might it feel to be multi-centered? To be alive and well dancing off-center? To know your own center and move from there?
Use mine or write your own mantras and place it in your space to support your shifting centers practice
As we re-center we soften
Softening into intention, feeling into action
As you notice yourself tensing against something or striving to “make yourself change,” or pushing to take action, consider softening instead. Notice what becomes available to you when you simply allow. Allow the next right action to become clear.
Trust the guidance of your muscles and textures of sensation in the body. What feels like a yes in your body? What feels like a no? Where are you being guided today and what right action can you find that feels in alignment with who you are and your gifts on the planet today? Follow that and please feel free to share any ideas or inspiration in the comments. I’m grateful to be on the journey together.
Closing: Appreciate Yourself, Breath, Reflect, Gather
In closing, appreciate yourself for taking the time to work through this today. As always, please take what resonates with you and let the rest go and be in touch in the comments if you’d like. I love to know what you’re discovering.
Give yourself time to reflect, rest, savor and allow one intention or image or action to surface in your awareness.
What do you feel called to do today?
Or trust that the process is already doing great work within you and that’s enough for now.
No matter how large or small your intention, always listen to yourself and let your inner voice be your guide.
Acknowledgements and Resources for Further Exploration
Arriving, Turning Toward, Centering/De-centering, and Softening are some of the overarching practices I’ve developed during the creation of artworks and community gatherings with the Livable Futures community and in my teaching in higher ed over the past several years. This work is in community with many different knowledge traditions extending from my background in dance and choreography—always concerned with motion, sensation, and the way in which our bodies are means of orienting ourselves in the world.
Today this makes me think of a beloved text, Queer Phenomenology by Sara Ahmed, the generous intergenerational dancetheater community building of my mother, Alana Shaw’s work in Turning the Wheel, Simone Forti and Nancy Stark Smith’s approaches to improvisation and life, Lumos Transforms: Embody Change, Unlock Potential, Transform Our World, and always the queer Black feminist teachings of bell hooks, Audre Lorde, adrienne maree brown, and many others.
In gratitude and loving being in community with you all here.