From Undoing to Doing (without doing too much)
Some definitions of terms:
Undoing: a dynamic request for less tension (I have noticed tension and want less)
Doing: indirect activation of balanced tone and support (I want to do something, solve a problem, rise from a chair, write an email, practice my instrument, etc)
Undoing is not deadening or “relaxing”. It is prioritizing lively quiet as our means on the journey toward doing. Doing is not exertion, but an open welcoming of broader support. We welcome the ground and the volume of breath as our ongoing connections.
We can develop a new stamina for active allowance/undoing as the basis of activity. True support is often invisible, and may seem “wrong”, as deeper systems below our perception are activated and external muscles quiet. We may not believe we are “doing” enough, when in fact we were in all likelihood doing too much previously in a habitual manner. Doing too much has become our “normal”.
We have typically learned how to learn from effort, not from ease. Now is a crucial moment to amplify ease as our means. We don’t have to know how an activity happens; we have to know how to get out of the way so the activity can do itself. Happy curiosity (a quality of great usefulness in our current crisis) keeps us from judging/criticizing as we move through our activities. The question becomes one of learning rather than of concluding.
Where is the ground? Where is my attention? How much less can I fix/do/be right?
We are unified fields of self, integrated, inseparable systems of thought, movement, sensation, emotion. If we can bring even a micro-moment of happy curiosity to our life’s activities, we can gain confidence and growing skill in undoing as our means to doing (without doing too much).
