The return to the mat was a victory in the sense that I declared it a priority, made time for it, and when the time came I arrived intending to participate fully. I downloaded the video that @zenpeacekeeper so generously created for the #215800 participants, and arranged the space such that I could see the screen and move on the mat without kicking things off of tables, and came to it very pleased with myself.
Before much time had passed I was grappling with grave disappointment.
Both of my knees are prone to hyperextension and are easily injured. One is still recovering from a contusion which apparently take months rather than weeks to heal. My physical therapist has suggested it might be imprudent to expect to kneel ever again. And yet the video, appropriate for beginners, asked me pretty early on to sit on my heels with toes bent under.
As Marianne suggested this might be an intense stretch for the feet, I struggled to arrange myself in anything remotely upright with my upper body while keeping the weight off of the knees. The result? I squatted with my toes bent under as requested, but with my butt about four inches off the heels in order to accommodate the pressure in the knees while leaning forward at such a preposterous angle that to actually perform the arm stretches would have looked like a convoluted pranam to the opposite wall - angled as I was with my torso more parallel than perpendicular to the floor. Eventually I gave up, but not entirely. I sat on my butt and did the arm stretches.
As we completed the sitting-on-toes segment and moved on, I felt the sting from not having thought this through- how had I entertained visions of myself in strong and solid warrior, triangle, and pyramid poses when “easy sitting posture” and child’s pose are beyond my capacity? And most importantly, how was I going to come away with at least a modicum of self-respect so that I did not cast the entire enterprise in the unmitigated disaster category? I’d just have to mitigate it is all.
To mitigate - to make softer, less severe. To lessen in force or intensity. What would need mitigation after all- the fact that my knees interpret child’s pose as punishment? Or the fact that I maintain my well-learned tendency to see failure of any kind as an occasion for punishment? Ahhh, I remember now. We never know what kind of work we’ll do on the mat, do we?
Once we hit the mat, all bets are off. It’s like open season for transformative occurrences. And in the beginning at least (it’s the only perspective I can call mine) it may take unexpected forms. While I’d envisioned the exquisite tug of sinews releasing to the ends of their tethers, I was instead confronted with the daunting task of being gentle with myself.
I can’t speak for all survivors but I imagine it’s a shared trait - being gentle with myself does not come naturally. At a gut level gentleness toward myself is interpreted as a weakness of sorts. It’s seen as a cop-out, laziness, or abject failure, all of which point to unworthiness. To be gentle is to accept less than perfection, which is simply not an option - regardless of peril to equilibrium, well-being, or sanity.
This “inherited” perspective is little more than the athletic drive to increase performance, only inverted and convoluted by its application to the psyche instead of the body.
Huh. What a terrifically surprising turn-around. What a stunning revelation. My task on the mat this day was not to force, coerce, or subdue anything other than the tendency to drive myself away from gentleness. I had come to the session prepared to use all the determination at my disposal in order to NOT give up on challenging poses; to prove myself worthy, to make myself proud.
Instead I found I was being directed to apply every iota of athlete’s mind (just keep going, just keep going, just keep...) to insist that I sit on my butt instead of my knees. It took precisely the same amount of determination that it takes to go another round of any physical exercise - another lap in the pool, 10 minutes on the bike (another 100 words on the page, come to think of it). There was an insistence, a pushing (“just a little bit more, come on- you can do it”) into gentleness that absolutely happened for the first time on that mat. Never before has it been preferable to refrain from possible self-damage in the effort to prove myself.
Surprisingly, this act of self-preservation made it not only possible but exciting to get back up and engage when the poses on the screen were within my ability.
Instead of wallowing in self-defeat and bemoaning my physically induced limitations, I was able to revel in the parts that I can do. I came away feeling physically more solid; there’s more space in my movements and strength in my stance. Today my body is achy but not broken.
What did break on that mat yesterday was a lifelong limiting assumption that I must be treated harshly in order to excell. No amount of intellectual understanding was going to teach me that; no level of skilled counseling could have made the experience so tangible. Ah, all the benevolent masters of the universe must be having a great chuckle at my expense - and I gratefully grant it to them:
In order to imbibe the lesson of gentleness, I had to be brought to my knees.
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