Recently I was speaking with a dear friend who just got back
from an extended vacation intended to refresh him. As he returned to his job and daily
activities however, he found himself more demotivated and uninspired than ever.
“I just can’t seem to get back on the horse”, he said.
When I was in Costa Rica on the Qoya retreat two years ago,
one of the activities I chose was horseback riding. I got thrown off a horse when I was 12 so I
prayed for a calm, easy, gentle giant to return to riding. My friend Becca on the other hand, saw a
spotted looking thing with a punk rock haircut and a walleye. “I want that one!” she said. (Becca is a brilliant jewelry
designer and has great taste for the eclectic. She owns a fabulous company with her Mother and sister called POUND. Check em' out.)
That bronco threw her off onto the rocky beach within 40
seconds.
In that moment, Becca had a choice to make. She could be afraid of horses for the rest of
her life, go back to her room and lick her wounds (justifiably), or she could “get
back on the horse”.
What would you do?
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| The bronco in question, Becca after the throw & a signature POUND treasure |
Becca choose to get back on the horse. The key thing is though, that she made sure to
choose a different horse on which to
ride.
I often talk about how the double edged sword of living in
such a conscious age is that while we are given so many tools to practice
acceptance and improve our lives, sometimes we can use these tools to drive
ourselves crazy. Rather than choosing a
different horse, we change the saddle, brush the horse, feed it carrots, and
get frustrated when we get tossed off over and over again.
In my own journey, I saw this play out dramatically in my
work life. I worked at a corporate job in my twenties and
stayed about three years past the point of when I wanted to leave. I hated my
job. I felt like my soul was dying, I wasn’t sleeping and I had severe anxiety. When I encountered people who were passionate about their work I wanted to punch
them in the face. But every day I would
write effing gratitude lists for my job, or I would buy flowers for my
desk. I would do all sorts of things to
rearrange the deck furniture on this sinking ship. The whole time I thought something was wrong
with me that I couldn’t get back on the horse of productivity and
professionalism. What I realize now is
that it would have made everyone’s life easier: myself, my family, my co-workers,
if I had just listened to what my intuition that was telling me: find a
different horse.
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| I was raised on a horse farm, so I know about these things. :) |
A very common question I get about using seduction as a
spiritual practice is “how do you seduce yourself into something you don’t want
to do?” Well, that is a contradiction in terms. If you don’t want to do something, it has
not, nor will it ever seduce you. It first
has to become more attractive.
Let’s take working out as an example. You want to get up in the morning and go to
the gym but you just can’t seem to do it. If this were me I would probably get myself
some hot new workout clothes, find girlfriends to meet me at the gym in the
morning, reward myself with a smoothie before my workout for even waking up,
put gold stars on my calendar for every day I worked out, keep a special set of
fancy bath products in my locker and worship my naked body in the mirror after
my workout with sandalwood lotion. The
possibilities are endless!
However, there is one key factor that I am leaving out: at
this time in my life, you couldn’t pay me to join a gym.
To me, gym culture feels violent, boring and stinks of
self-loathing as a means to create transformation. That ain’t Kitty Cavalier. (Note: there are
people reading this who love the gym and I honor you. It’s just not my journey right now.) For me, I don’t exercise. Instead, I connect
to this temple that houses my soul with pleasure based movement. Qoya, dancing
in my living room, morning stretches in my bed, chasing Winnie through a grassy
field, the occasional yoga class, lifting my leg to admire it and flexing it to
feel musculature. All of these “work me
out”. But I have given up on having a
“workout schedule”. It just doesn’t
seduce me and never has.
Photo by Jodi Jones for Qoya
That being said, I spent at least 30 years of my life trying
to fit into what exercise is supposed to look like. I bought the gym clothes. I arranged the
buddy meet ups. I made the smoothies.
But after so many years of trying and failing to “get back on the horse”
it has become clear to me, that that is just not my horse to ride.
By accepting that fact, my body feels ecstatically happy and
freer than ever. All the mental clutter
of self-judgment for being so bad for not exercising is gone, and what has taken its place is the time and energy to focus on the things that
really seduce me. And when I do that, I
look back on my days with great love.
Ahhhh, seduction. You
get me every time.
Whirlin’ and Twirlin’,
