Flexible as compared to blocked — Whole Being

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Flexible as Compared to Blocked — Selecting Flexibility over Rigidity Is Difficult, as for many, It Seems out of Control. Well, It Is! 

Learn­ing to let go, to go into the flow of life, is like tak­ing a zip line — one minute stand­ing, the next, fly­ing. And… attached to the line the whole time!

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We use the terms flexible and blocked to talk about Bodywork states.

• Flex­i­bil­i­ty is a state of free­dom of move­ment and the free flow of chi, or ener­gy, with­in the body.
• Being blocked, on the oth­er hand, is all about the con­di­tions that lead to being or hav­ing stag­nan­cy in the body, mind and spirit.

But we sure wouldn’t want to limit these terms to Bodywork — they also apply to the living out of our days.

Flex­i­bil­i­ty is the abil­i­ty to look life straight in the eye and to deal with it as it is. Flex­i­bil­i­ty is the under­stand­ing that I always have choic­es in how I think and in how I act.

Notice how fix­at­ed most peo­ple are on want­i­ng oth­er peo­ple to be flex­i­ble. They think that oth­ers should see their dis­com­fort, hear their com­plaints, and sim­ply stop doing (or start doing) what­ev­er they demand.

The blocked per­son expects to be giv­en a pass, sim­ply because they think that change is “hard,” or “impos­si­ble.”

Blocked, stuck peo­ple believe that oth­ers are capa­ble of change, (stuck peo­ple believe oth­ers are resist­ing change out of mal­ice, though…) while they, ever the poor “vic­tim,” have no choice, and are doomed to repeat the same behaviours.

Heav­en betide the per­son that sug­gests that they might sim­ply want to con­sid­er chang­ing their own approach to a more flex­i­ble one. No, blocks are earned hon­est­ly, and most folk sim­ply aren’t inter­est­ed in mak­ing the effort.

They are con­vinced that it is eas­i­er to change the peo­ple they relate with.
This is because a major aspect of being blocked is hav­ing fixed opinions.

Blockages develop “early on” and build from there, and are based solely on our beliefs about who we are, who others are, and how the world works.

I worked with a young guy whose par­ent­ing expe­ri­ences includ­ed a dom­i­neer­ing father and an over­ly com­pli­ant mother.

The son was 19, and has had major prob­lems with the police, in his rela­tion­ships, and at work. He had fixed beliefs about the supe­ri­or­i­ty of men (espe­cial­ly him­self,), and the flaws of “all women,.” 

He saw women as required to meet his every need, “Because that’s what women are sup­posed to do.”

When I lis­tened to him talk, I heard a lot of arro­gance. He was con­vinced that he had all the answers. His screw-ups were always the fault of oth­ers – oth­ers did not appre­ci­ate him or under­stand how smart he was. 

His per­son­al rela­tion­ships fol­lowed a sim­i­lar pat­tern — he assumed the role of “demand­ing par­ent,” as he end­less­ly cor­rect­ed his part­ner, while blam­ing her for every­thing that went wrong. And plen­ty went wrong.

When­ev­er I said any­thing about any­thing, his first words were, “I know that. Stop telling me what I already know.” 

When I asked him how some­one as wise as thought he was could be in as much trou­ble as he was in, he got qui­et for a moment, then blamed his moth­er, his girl­friend, and his friends. 

The block­ages and rigidi­ties were in place, and no mat­ter what went wrong, he knew who to blame. He was in ther­a­py, he told me, to make bet­ter choic­es — as in, pick peo­ple who would nev­er fail him.

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Bodywork and the move from rigid to flexible.

Many fear change – and stay stuck by not pay­ing atten­tion to their own voice. This imbal­ance is all about the com­fort of the famil­iar – the sta­bil­i­ty and famil­iar­i­ty of the unstable.

Peo­ple can be in dif­fer­ent places as regards what we call “let­ting go.” It involves free­ing up the “essence of life,” which we could call pas­sion. It’s about more free­dom, new direc­tions, and more intimacy. 

Here’s an exam­ple: I often hold a point a bit above the pubic bone with one hand, and behind the knee with the oth­er. This typ­i­cal­ly cre­ates move­ment in the pelvis, and phys­i­cal shaking. 

I thought it would be inter­est­ing to actu­al­ly iden­ti­fy the points, and check them out in Tra­di­tion­al Acupunc­ture: The Law of the Five Ele­ments. What I found was Blad­der 39 (back of knee) and Kid­ney 11 (top of pubic bone, slight­ly to either side of the mid-line.)

The blad­der and kid­ney merid­i­ans are a pair (The Water pair.) Here are some para­phrased details from the book: 

“Water is about (duh) flu­id­i­ty, flex­i­bil­i­ty, flow, and “[It’s] vital ener­gy lubri­cates life.” The sense organ is the ears. The emo­tion asso­ci­at­ed with the pair is fear. The pow­er gen­er­at­ed by Water is the capac­i­ty to cre­ate trembling.”

OK, so what?

Block­age of con­trol is rigid­i­ty of thought and action.
The release is flu­id­i­ty — and it is felt in the body as trem­bling, charge, pas­sion, and creativity.

Flex­i­bil­i­ty is the will­ing­ness to dis­card what isn’t work­ing. In the mar­tial arts, it is the abil­i­ty to adjust the response quick­ly and accu­rate­ly to the actu­al attack. In busi­ness it is the abil­i­ty to flow with the mar­ket­place and with co-work­ers, with­out demand­ing to rigid adher­ence to what may or may not be the case.

In all sit­u­a­tions, flex­i­bil­i­ty is about bend­ing with the wind, with­out breaking.

Be bam­boo.

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