choice | The Embodied Creative

Ways to Create Spaciousness

Lots of us tend to rush headlong into what’s next. But what would it be like to create a kind of intentional spaciousness? This is not a squishy place, but rather a place filled with air and light and breath. What might happen if you intentionally slow everything down and ask yourself, “What do I want to do or be next?” A different quality comes alive with this question—one that contains desire, yes, but also trust and a belief that something will arise if I just quiet myself and let it.

If you say to yourself, “What do I want to do or be next?” invariably there will be other voices vying for attention. Some of these are likely to be critical in nature, “shoulds” or judgmental in some way, or diversions. Some of these objections or diversions might be necessary or true to some degree. You might hear: “I need the money, so

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How the Body Reveals Habit Nature

I wrote two essays that were published in my book, Water Shed: Aikido Tanka back in 2004. In re-reading both today, I see how much is still true within that writing. Often what we’re working on just keeps showing up, doesn’t it? Maybe in differing guises and in varying strengths, but nevertheless, present.

What brought me to this path of learning through the body, affecting change through the body, and writing with and through the body is meeting a teacher who has an unusual way of seeing and reading the body. It was through his observations and assessments on the aikido mats that I came to experience aikido as an art of body-centered learning, knowing, and transformation. I’d always felt it was that way, but none of my teachers had spoken of it in this manner until I met Robert Nadeau Sensei. A long time ago.

He was teaching an aikido class and I was

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