In the in-between
Take away the things to do, the labels to define and what’s there, in that pause?
Since the new year I’ve been…. let’s say, grappling.
By contrast, this time last year I was in full-on momentum. I was juggling freelance writing projects, creating community classes and solo-parenting my boys during the week. I’d also made a commitment to deepen my study of a few specialist areas which were a huge investment, in every sense of the word. And of course, there was day-to-day life in the mix too. There was no grappling to be done, just forward motion. I didn’t have to think about it.
In February, these two separate worlds of study - Pranayama & The Subtle Body and Trauma-Informed Yoga - come to an end. That forward motion that came from these external things has been slowing towards stillness.
In that stillness there’s an unknowing, a “now what?” moment. Trust me, this does not sit well with my natural disposition. My fab coach and friend, Kat, got it in one: “I imagine you’d normally be planning the shit out of this, Emma”. Never a truer word.
And yet, here I am, plan-less. In a liminal space.
When I was on retreat last summer, a glorious five days immersed in pranayama (breathing practices), where we’d spend three hours before breakfast simply breathing - a very trippy tale for another time - I became familiar with the subtle intricacies of the breath. Our focus was on the natural pause, the beat between the breaths. The pause at the top of the inhale, the pause at the bottom of the exhale. A sacred pause.
These in-between moments were hugely uncomfortable. In the example of breath retention, these pauses (known as kumbhaka), at first induced a visceral sense of panic. It all felt unnatural and I was fidgety, desperate to get out of the room and distract myself with breakfast. The end of that story is a happy one though, I fell in love with it. Seriously in love.
In that pause, there’s this quietening, a stillness. It’s so difficult to articulate. It feels like a delicious melting - where my body feels like warm butter, fading into the background, and my mind is so still. The jury is still out on who is to credit for this phrase (either Claude Debussy or Miles Davis) but it seems really fitting: “music is the space between the notes”. It’s in the intervals where the notes resonate and are felt. Yes, the pause between the breaths leaves a resonance.
So while I’m an advocate for the pause - the breath, the body (yin) - I’m finding myself in a space of unknowing what’s next and this is where discomfort resides for me, big time.
Just like the breath, the doing is easier in a way. We all try to squeeze in just a little bit more into the day, fill it to the brim. And yes, on that yoga retreat, focusing on the active inhale, the active exhale was so much easier than the get-me-out-of-here stillness.
Take away the things to do, the labels to define and what’s there, in that pause?
Stillness is revealing. A pause is revealing.
As my year of further study comes to an end, the easiest thing would be to dive into the doing. In uncertainty, my impulse is to reach for reassurance. Doing something - anything - is reassuring, right?
But, instead, I’m in this in-between. The beat between breaths. Curious.
In her book Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert writes:
“This is how it feels to lead a faithful creative life: You try and try and try and nothing works. But you keep trying, and you keep seeking, and then sometimes, in the least expected place and time, it finally happens… You might earn a living with your pursuits or you might not, but you can recognize that this is not really the point. And at the end of your days you can thank creativity for having blessed you with a charmed, interesting, passionate existence.”
I love this as it implies freedom and choice. It’s a moving and breathing thing rather than fixed and linear. The circular breath, inhaling and exhaling, is active - yet in the pause, in that stillness, sits you, your stripped-back, truest self that’s always there.
For me, I feel my truest sense of me when I write and create and nurture (I hope). As the learning from the past year starts to settle, I’m resisting the temptation to “plan the shit out of it” and label it. I’m hoping it will settle and unfold, breath by breath.