Popping in and out of balance

There are so many layers of consciousness and experience to explore, I feel like I’ve started a series with the sole purpose of sharing where I’m at recently.

My Mood in February - An 8 part mini-series.

I’m joking…maybe

The experience of my body is a story in itself. My work, my struggles with bureaucracy, my relationships and the things that have surprised me, the people who pop up in my life at just the right time, the media I consume and the synchronicities that arise between them.

Life is constantly speaking to me but it does so in the form of an orchestra of unlikely instruments. It sometimes takes some deciphering, and right now I am suspending my insistence that I know what it’s saying and accept that I can only guess.

I still seek to find the meaning, the coming trend, the hidden code in everything that happens, but I’m doing my best not to get too attached to any outcome. Rather than trying to improve or evolve, I need some time to just sit and enjoy where I am. For all I know, I may never be in a similar situation again.

My paperwork for my visa went through and I’m waiting for a result now. It sometimes takes up to 2 months but usually it seems that the papers going through means that at least you’ll get a visa. One can only hope. I haven’t heard anything since I submitted everything two weeks ago which is actually a good sign. I still have no idea so I feel like I’m still in the previous grade and move on to the next. Will it be very similar to the last grade or will some new features be opened?

My students are all changing their schedules which is usually a sign that energetically something is shifting. It is subtle but this feels consistent with the news which, perhaps this is just my bias, but seem much more dark and foreboding. The news: Deteriorating relationships between countries that could lead to more instability in the world, environmental disasters and talks of food or water shortages in wider parts of the world, currency crises and the supposed puppet masters trying to change the rules of the game while suggesting that we all eat bugs.

It’s important to remember that not everything is what it seems. 塞翁失马, a gift can be a disaster and a disaster can be a blessing in disguise. This idiom never ceases to come to my aid, just search “the old man and his horse” for the full meaning of the idiom.

I am not saying that every unwanted thing can be avoided, but each can serve as a chance to evolve and to put more positive energy out into the world. When it feels like there is no hope and everyone else gives up, that one person who keeps the flame burning has the power to change the course of history. For those who find themselves in such a position, it’s easy to doubt and stumble or to let it get to your head. I find it best to just follow the flow and not to get too lost in ideology or my own preconceived notions. I want to stay centered in my own experience, the things I can see directly, and touch with my own hands and my own heart. The things that happen far away are not without relevance but they are only echoes and any attempt to interpret them is much more susceptible to distortion.

In my case the distortion of thinking I know “how it should be”.

It’s funny that during a time of feeling such feelings and exploring such ideas, the entire weight of my body has shifted.

I have tight hips and I have since I was around 12 years old or even younger. I was told by a PE instructor and a doctor and at least one other so-called expert that I just had inflexible legs and that some people are naturally less flexible. Now I can feel as clear as day that my hips have been locked for most of my life and that it made me much more easily affected by other tightness in the body. That’s where a lot of my health issues started.

For the past two years I could feel clearly that the left hip was locked, there’s a tight pull between my hip and my spine. I suspect this to be something like sciatica that went long diagnoses because X-rays never picked up a bulging disc and I never experienced anything like numbness or pain in my legs, only stiffness. Besides, I had already been deemed as just “not very flexible”.

So yesterday, it’s as if the entire weight of my body switched to the right side. My right hip feels a lot of pain and the left side seems to be looser than usual.

Most people would be alarmed by this, but I know my body well enough to realize that my hips are trying to reorient themselves. As the tension on one side relaxes, the awkward compensation that I became accustomed to has lost its effectiveness and so my right hip is working as it should which is way more than it’s used to.

This is not medical advice nor do I think it’s 100% physically accurate, I’m trying to describe it a bit metaphorically to make it easier to understand. I am 100% non certified and proud of it so please don’t treat me as an “expert” in anything.

I just try to talk to my body.

But this is very interesting timing. To be aware of a shift in so many different aspects of life and to experience the very same thing in my body on muscles and tendons that have been stuck for decades, it’s something. I don’t know what it is but it’s something.

As above, so below.

I don’t like to talk about my health because it’s so difficult to explain to people and so many people have been wrong in thinking they had even a slight grasp on what was going on with me. I feel that I know better than most of those very professional professionals and even most of the alternative practitioners. I am not looking for advice nor pity. I am just interested in sharing the different levels in which I feel a shift occurring.

I literally feel it in my bones 😆

Meanwhile! I will be teaching a friend Japanese this afternoon. It’s the first person I’ve taught Japanese in at least 5 years. I love teaching Japanese and guitar because I learned both by myself and have a unique approach to both of them. I want to be able to teach more than just English.

I feel there are many things I can teach but I also don’t believe in forcing it. I can teach in my own way and I don’t think it’s important that I’m not a native speaker or professionally trained at teaching (although to be fair, I have 15 years teaching experience). My experience studying had actually proved more valuable though m.

My approach to all these things is to help the student be able to use what they know immediately but not to completely ignore fundamentals. Actually I believe the fundamentals should be the main focus but always in a way that is practical for use.

I also personalize everything so I prefer to work without any kind of material. This is often unsettling to people who spend a lot of money for classes (and I am not extremely expensive for US, Europe or this part of Asia but I charge enough that I can live without overwhelming myself with more classes than I can handle).

I think the most unsettling thing to potential students (other than English students) is that I’m not as far along in my studies as most would expect of a teacher. I am still not able to understand television or the news every single time in Japanese. I don’t see how that’s relevant though, as I’m only teaching the basics of Japanese. I can help you become conversational in a few months, that’s a fact.

The same goes for guitar. I can’t play a lot of complicated chords, have a deep understanding of music theory or a wide variety of covers that I’ve learned, but I can teach you how to jam and write songs that you like and to find your own style. That’s something that most experts can’t do.

I think what I’m an expert in is self-study, and in identifying problems and potential solutions for people who want to learn how to solve their own problems. That’s not easy to market, so I like that a friend has decided to seek me out and I hope I can make her happy with the results so she tells her friends 😃

This seems to be a great departure from what this post started as and what it seemed to be turning into.

Free flow of consciousness today.

I think there are just too many things happening (all while very little changes on the surface).

My partner is also starting full time work and has found a nice rhythm here in Tokyo. Friends are visiting Japan again and so I’m able to meet people I haven’t met in years. Two came by last week, and we even had a chance to jam in the studio. It sounded great. One is a translating tea wizard and the other an app developer, both beautiful souls and both….American!

I feel like after all these years of having very little relationship with my home country, that will also start to change this year. I have a few American friends but it’s still a very hard culture for me to feel home in, even though I was born and raised there. Too much noise, too much need to speak loudly to be heard. It would be nice to have a few friends there whose company feels like home, and I’m intent on building s relationship with my cousin and her family in Florida too.

As I’ve said many times before, the culture that you build with the people you care about is more important than the culture that belongs to a place or ethnicity. It may be a new kind of fulfilling to build something with other people from my home country that is completely unique and different from what we are used to.

I think I’d better end this. I can only change topics and writing styles so many times before I drift so far that we lost everything that came before, although maybe that would be a fun and meaningful experience in and of itself. (Feel like I’m channeling Vincent with this last statement)

There is more to say but that will be for part 4 in the series of an answer to the question “How are you?”

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