AIR: Affirmations A-Z
From Acceptance to the Zero Point Potential of Creation
Recovering from Covid Christmas which arrived amidst the Neuro-Storm 2023, I find myself right back in this place again. I’ve lost eight pounds of muscle mass in a couple weeks, so I displaced my knee and re-tore the meniscus from turning over under the stupid blankets. My lungs are full of crud and the simple act of blinking is giving me asthma attacks. I can’t breathe, yet the urge to dance is as as strong as ever.
As such, I reach for one of the tried & true tools of the Air Element.
AFFIRMATIONS
6/13/21
I really wanted to dance tonight, but my body is not ready. It's too busy healing a new tooth implant and regrowing bone into the hole from where they took the first one out. Dad and I also did gutters, leaf-blowing, deck repair, and home defense stuff today. All super awesome and necessary projects, but that doesn’t leave much energy for dancing.
It's been nearly two weeks since I truly danced. The spirit soars. The heart yearns. The muscles twitch and drum their fingers on horizontal surfaces, pacing impatiently.
The rest of the body wants chamomile-and-honey tea, fuzzy blankets, and the loveseat. It wants to keep lying on the studio carpet after baking my neck on the Denner roll to meditative tracks.
My mission tonight: to give everybody what they want.
While doing neck therapy, I had my meditation playlist on random and had enjoyed a few tracks from an old album that has played an extremely important part of my journey. It's this one:
You can get it for your very own here.
I found this brain-rewiring, heart-purring, soul-searching collection at Celebration in Old Colorado City in the mid-2000s. Many of the greatest healing tools I found while I lived there came from that store. I miss that store.
When I used to travel for dance, I would replace sleep with this album when my body refused to shut down for the night after landing on the other side of the ocean, and the melatonin hadn't done its job yet. I would also play it on the plane when I couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep, but I wasn't alert enough for reading, writing, or even watching a movie.
If you've followed my Dain Bramage adventures on Bella & the Beast, then you remember how crucial sleep is for me. Jet lag is a beast for anybody, and meditation was one of the only ways I found to combat it enough to function as an international performing artist and instructor with TBI.
MY FIRST ELEMENTS PLAYLIST
I also used tracks from this album as transition alarms between elements while I was first creating my Elements System. I had made a playlist called Love To Dance and filled it with all the songs in my iTunes that made me want to move, but had no memories attached. I only wanted songs I'd never performed to and that didn't evoke images of teaching, relationships, or any past circumstances.
They purely made me excited to move.
Then I grouped them by the predominant element each one evoked. But I knew myself too well. If I wasn't careful, I wouldn't realize that it was time to switch element, so I would be likely to keep moving the way I had been moving, especially if I was supposed to be switching to an element that was uncomfortable.
Back then, my most troublesome elements were Earth and Air.
As recommended by my mentor, Mona N'wal, this was the whole point of the exercise—to bust out of the movement quality ruts I'd been stuck in. So I inserted one of these affirmation tracks between each of the elemental collections in order to tell myself, "Oi! Change element now, missy!"
As a result, once I started sharing this System with my students, these affirmations wound up being topics we worked with and discussed in the circle at the start of each class as we handled the objects or drank the blessed water from the springs at Glastonbury or gazed into the fire.
This album of affirmations holds a sacred place in my heart, so when I needed to move tonight but wasn't ready to truly dance yet, that's what I put on.
I started at "A is for Acceptance" and let them all play in order. Whichever stance an affirmation evoked, that's how I stood. However my hands and body were inspired to move once the instrumental music came on, that's what I did.
We got to "J is for Judge Not Today." This is always the first affirmation I use any time I work with the full elemental sequence, starting with Earth. That has never changed since the initial time I started experimenting with it myself. As Deepak Chopra says on the J Track: "Creativity and Judgment don't go together," and I have found this to be true.
Feeling judged, either by myself or others, is one of the fastest ways to jar me out of my creative flow or prevent me from even getting in.
AIR ELEMENT: DEEP LISTENING
By the time I got to J, my body was tired. All it wanted was to lie down again. So I did. And that is one of the essences of the Air Element.
Deep listening.
Not pushing, because what I need most right now is to heal. My healing goes a thousand times more quickly and smoothly when I only push after receiving the absolute Fuck Yes! There's a time and a place for whupping ass.
Tonight was the time and the place for lying down, for letting soft words wash over me.
Then the tea craving happened. The air conditioner is going gangbusters because it's Arkansas in June and I have a house full of carpet. I would be content to marinate in damp heat, wearing nothing but a sports bra and a sarong but noooo. Homes don't like damp heat, so fuzzy socks, sweaters, and throw-blankies abound all summer long. I also drink hot tea at night, just like I do all winter, because I'm tired and chilled in the AC.
So into the kitchen I and my phone went. We were up to "O is for Letting Go of Opposition," which is what I had just done. My muscles have been huffing and snorting for days, exhausted and burnt out from the slightest tasks.
Equally huffy is my mental Little Miss Tidy-kins with her too-tight bun, cat-eye glasses, pursey lips, and clickity-clackity heels. "You need to work out," she's been snipping at me, scrolling through the app she's downloaded to keep track of all my stats. (It's replaced her old-school mental clipboard and is far more accurate.) "You've lost all that momentum you had going before this surgery. This is the 4,193rd time you've lost your momentum. You realize that, don't you?"
Yarp.
Covid isolation with its lack of external butt-whupping activities has not been my friend in this respect. I don't think it's been many people's friend in this respect. Neither is Dain Bramage. Neither is living in a body, really.
Doesn't matter.
Right now, my body needs me to resssssst. Sloooooow down. Chillll... Because come on, I might not be busting ass right now, but my body sure is.
Today I have to remind Little Miss Tidy-kins of that before she calls in my inner Lucy Liu.
This is the Efficiency Expert I have dominating my mind. She is supplied with stats, graphs, progress reports, and databases by Tidy-kins. And yes. She wields my riding crop.
If you don’t know exactly which of Lucy Liu’s characters I’m referring to—from Charlies Angels—g’head. Click on over and enjoy. I’ll wait. 😈
Dude. Seriously. You have no idea how vivid (and crowded) it is in here.
When I asked for a break, one of Lucy’s eyebrows lifted at me. Her hand whipped out. Miss Tidy-kins handed over the iTracker. Lucy swiped through the screens that track energy expenditure, bodily resources, and the list of things taxing them.
"This is accurate," she agreed. Whoo-TSH! "Respite required. Engage."
It took me a long time and a lot of diligent work to develop a healthy relationship with this butt-whupping, whip-cracking aspect of myself. She used to be one of the self-abusive, ravaging Beasties who used to run amok through my mind. But now she has been returned to her original purpose: self-regulation. We get along grandly now.
Mostly.
Affirmations play a big part in getting her to do the job I need her to do, in healthy, productive ways. She still has the riding crop, but she only uses it in moderation, because I've asked her to.
Hey, man, these things are all about consent.
So, no shit, there I was—cold and tired. I put the tea kettle on and cozied up to the stove as I listened to the next affirmation. P reminded me to be Present, so after the water boiled and my tea steeped, I hovered over the burner and baked some more. It's one of the tiny luxuries that makes me happy throughout my days.
Like relishing an orange and letting the juice run down my chin.
Like taking my morning coffee on the patio and watching the Bird and Squirrel Show. (That's different from Moose and Squirrel.)
Like getting fresh cherries when they're in season and eating each one as though it's the last one I'll ever get.
Like leaving the stove burner on after the tea water is done heating to warm my hands as though I'm cozied at a crackling fire.
That's something else I do all winter—and thus all air conditioning season. I'm such a freeze baby, constantly cold and my hands don’t have great circulation from my neck issues, so it's a little gift to myself that makes my day.
I grinned when Q came on. It delves into one of my favorite subjects: the importance of Questions over Answers, which really made my day the first time I heard this album. It was just a little ping of Synchronicity. "You're on the right track."
It pinged me that way again today.
So did the Muse—our hostess-with-the-mostest of the Air Element. Amidst "R is for Relationship," the Muse demanded kitchen dancing. Over my glowing burner, my hands wafted and spiraled and curled and rippled. The warmth helped. It felt great, which is how dancing is supposed to feel, in contrast to conditioning or training, which is supposed to feel wonderfully horrible. (Or is that horribly wonderful?)
After that, tea happened, and now here we are, typing away.
PLAYING WITH THE AFFIRMATIONS
Affirmations first came into my life as an official practice through the Artist's Way, back in 2000, just before the Fates chuckled, twisted their mustaches, and asked me, "Ohhhh, did you really mean all that groovy healing stuff? Cool. Let's upgrade. Crash course!"
Over a full summer, I did those twelve weeks of assignments. They were very personal, full of internal work with the foundation layer: relationship with myself. Later, the Deepak Chopra affirmations and other tools in a similar vein continued expanding that into relationships with others, and with Life.
Affirmations are a tool I reach for over and over and over again.
I listen to them in meditations
I speak them aloud
I journal them
I write repetitions of them
I make bright, shiny art of them
I make dorky, stick-figure art out of them
I collage them and plaster them on vision boards
I paste them into art books
I wear them
I leave myself stickies and fortune cookie papers and notes and tea tags all around the house
Am I ridiculous? Prolly. But c'mon. If you’ve poked around Bella & the Beast, and especially if you’ve been with me since Ye Olde Blog, then you know. There's a lot of history in here telling me that I'm varied breed of awful.
For a long time, I used to repeat those negative affirmations more often to myself than they'd ever been hurled at me. If I'm not vigilant, I sometimes still do. All those mean words and dirty looks are still gouged into deep mental ruts. Some of them live in my cells from when they were slammed into my body. I'm sure you have your own.
This was one of the main ways I stopped believing that notebook page full of the horrible things my classmates had written about me in that Slam Book they passed around in second grade. Seeing their thoughts written down in each of their blocky printing had branded these "facts" about me into my mind. For decades afterwards, my brain took them, ran with them, and honed them into “what was true about me.”
Bullshit.
This is the counter-remedy.
It's a constant process, and just like Little Miss Tidy-kins said, it's easy to lose momentum. It's a muscle like any other, just in the brain. It takes longer to build this strength than it does to lose it, but once I do the work of regaining momentum and rewiring it, it's easier to restart the next time.
BELIEVE: WAIT, THIS IS SELF-DEFENSE, TOO?
And here you thought the Self-Defense sections of Metal were going to be all punchy-kicky-sword-slashing, roaring, middle-finger goodness, didn't you? Hahahahah! Nope. Some of Metal is soft and delicate, because it is tied to Air.
We'll get to that.
But this is the foundation layer of self-defense: Self-Love.
The unshakable understanding that I am valuable enough to protect. Because standing up and saying, "NO," and then having to defend that boundary can be hazardous to one's health. Of course, being a doormat and a punching bag is intrinsically hazardous as well, so I have found the arts of self-protection to be more than a worthwhile pursuit. It takes skill, grace, discipline, and discernment to do it with compassion and as much safety as can be acquired in such an activity.
But first, I have to BELIEVE that I'm worth it to make it worth the risk.
This is another way that I ingrain the kinds of thoughts that I want to have about myself, other people, and life: I listen to them, I breathe them in, and then I move my body in the ways those words and ideas make me feel. We believe in being holistic around here, because it takes tackling this stuff from every possible angle to gain any balanced footing.
That's why one of the other essences of the Air/Space Element is Balance. It is the place of dichotomy: air…and the complete and utter lack thereof. The Void of creation…and its first inspiration. Yin and Yang. Like with every art I pursue, it's equally important for me to approach it from the two extremes of discipline/technique vs. creativity/inspiration.
There is all the raging and clenching fists, slashing swords and beating the snot out of the bag, speaking out about atrocities and exposing long-buried secrets—RAWR! That's one angle of approach.
This is another.
© 2021 Hartebeast
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I could definitely learn a thing or two from, ‘Air Element: deep listening’ as I am not the best at listening to my body and resting when I should. Thanks for the reminder :)