Shudder is the first word that came to mind when I sat down to write today, so in the spirit of letting the words flow freely, I’m sticking with it.
What am I shuddering about? Yesterday, I sat down to watch the Zoom recordings captured during my training sessions for the accreditation process. Viewing them, I saw myself, not as an upright elder but as a timid, beaten down female. My only hope was that the cameras had distorted how my body looked.
What did my teachers think about my body shape?
One of them had been quite frank with me, commenting that yes, I was hunched over to a degree, but suggested that if I could be patient, the practice of TCC might straighten me up. Typing that, I realized that I inserted the word might. What she actually said was: “Your body is what it is and that is what you have to work with now.” Her voice was kind and did not express any of the horror I personally felt while watching the videos. Some of them, I could hardly watch, as I appeared to myself very misshapen.
Another of my teachers fearlessly encouraged me to stand tall, repeating her posture instructions either hand gestures or pithy phrases that got the point across. I tried hard to really hear her but it wasn’t easy, as my inner critic interpreted her kind attention as judgment. I had a deep sense that slouching was sinful.
One of the last things our facilitator asked us to do after we learned we had passed the course was to list three things we wanted to work on as we continued our journey. The first one for me, copied here just as I wrote it in my ink-stained journal (this particular one’s cheap paper didn’t hold up to the ink from my rollerball pen, which penetrated the cheap paper and left unsightly blobs on the next page):
Feel being held up by a string – alignment – give my dantien space.
One of my teachers said that it takes twenty-one days of daily concentration and awareness to change. I wonder how long it takes to strengthen muscles and stand up straighter, even just a little?
I’m on day seven of twenty-one. Stay tuned.
IMAGE: A shudder producing sign from my files.
