Bold Claim: “getting it right” is not the most helpful standard after one is done receiving report cards.
Many have been schooled - from kindergarten all the way up to whatever degree you consider terminal - in ways to “Get it right”. And the conditioning starts from an early age; perhaps many have been rewarded for getting it right beginning in pre-school. Your drawing got hung on the refrigerator, your “good” grades got you a happy meal, your AP test got you a whole college credit, your college diploma got you in the door for your first job interview and now…
Now, in 2022, in the “Real World” during a pandemic, there is less of a clear path of getting it right, but the conditioning is so strong that we apply rules from kindergarten to our adult selves.
If one’s standards are conditioned to be based on “getting it right” - how often are you meeting your own standards?
Suggesting here that this work of getting to know your own true nature begins with tossing out “getting it right” as a standard, and experimenting with other, perhaps supportive, standards that align with your true self.
These new standards might be something akin to satisfaction, curiosity, liveliness, or being awake. Daring “Happiness” to be mentioned in this list. Daring pleasure to be a standard. As human beings there is a tendency to skip over “feeling happy” and to go straight for “feeling better” - there is erasure of happiness, or an abandonment of even knowing what happy means because feeling better is what is wanted. Better is a treadmill that is hard to get off of and the comforting part of “better” is that even if it seems like “getting better” is a way around the right/wrong binary it is perhaps a full integration of the binary. We haven’t so much let go of that right/wrong standard as much as we have operationalized it into our driving force. - that inherently the now is not as good as what will be once things are “better.”
This is mayhaps a hard sell in January of 2022 in the midst of the Omicron, that we should stop working to “get better” - but the invitation is to pause, to ask the muscles at the back of the neck to let go of the back of the head, to let go of the tops of the shoulders and notice what it is to be alive and awake in this moment. Pandemic life hasn’t been terribly comfortable so even after allowing the neck to release, life might not be instantly perfect, and this is where practice comes in.
There is no right/wrong in practice, there is no “getting better” - so what are your standards when you practice? Whether it is with a recording, whether it is with silence, with movement, with stillness, with swirling emotions, with a wandering mind - practice can be a moment to be with things outside of the right/wrong binary. To be with the body as it is now, in this moment. A goal is not to be relaxed (though that may happen), not to get better at the practice (though that may happen), not to get it right, but to simply be with yourself.
Your standard for practice will most likely match your standards in life outside of practice - they will continue to mirror each other - so if in practice your standards are invited to shift to something less embroiled with the “right/wrong”, moving away from judging one’s own judgements then these new standards might start being met by simply recognizing that your morning coffee smells really good. This new standard might be recognizing that your body feels refreshed after a cool drink of water or a hot shower.
Each individual will have their own responses to this question of “what are your standards?” - and just like each and every individual these responses may shift, develop, evolve, devolve, or grow. Whatever practice you choose to experiment with - Alexander Technique, Mindfulness, Hiking, Reading… - checking in with if it is feeling supportive is a recommended approach.
And if looking for a bit more support from a teacher - please reach out at www.balancelab.com