Pressure, Patience and Progress - Pivot
This month's reflection newsletter that will be peppered with a lot of sayings you're already familiar with like done is better than perfect, practice makes progress, etc.
There has been a lot of activity and most of it has been internal, with me sitting on the couch in my apartment staring out the window looking at this alphonse mango yellow building only interrupted with text messages to friends or reflection dumps in my notes app.
Last month I shared my experience of being a true novice to flamenco and why I centered my sabbatical in pursuit of learning how to dance this style. In terms of updates, I still feel sorry for myself when I don’t get the choreography in the first go, compared to my dance buddies in class. I also don’t come from 2 hours straight of dancing or their background, and when I’m less obsessive over myself, I see them also have their sticking points with technique and drills. What’s new is I’m getting over myself a lot more quickly and if I’m getting stuck, my very kind instructor lets me know “quitate la importancia solo son pasos” (take away any importance you’re giving this, they’re just dance steps). She gives me feedback and one of the more recent ones she gave me was when I just stopped in the middle of the studio because I did not know how to marry the steps to the music and got lost trying to copy the other ladies. She said that even if I’m doing everything very egregiously wrong, I should keep moving because she doesn’t know how to give me feedback when I’m just standing in the middle not moving. She reminds me that I’m here to dance, that perhaps I won’t get it today but I might get it tomorrow.
Pressure
I put a lot of pressure on myself and it’s obvious to everyone around me. Sometimes it’s a lot of pressure that I notice it as it creeps from my brain to my body and gets lodged in my throat where I try to figure out if I’m going to cry again or if I’m going to brave it and try to reframe my thoughts. I’ve been getting really good at being present to notice this and honestly, that’s what mindfulness and therapy is about right? Being able to notice by yourself when you have unhelpful/untrue thoughts and to intentionally choose to let it be, not pay it attention, or reframe it completely.
Ted Lasso could be a monk or a guru: distilling really vital, profound information in small catchy sayings that you only begin to internalize after you’ve tested it out yourself. Monks are famously known for not saying much or not saying anything at all. Perhaps they’ve got nothing really to say or they know that ultimately everyone seeking guidance will figure it out themselves, it’s just a matter of time. My instructor is very patient and she tells me that she adds challenging components to choreography or to drills because she knows I’ll get bored or find it too easy. I immediately responded with a “que no!” (hell no - give me easy let me do easy) to which she just shrugs. But I know she’s right - it’s why I know I need a career that challenges me ever so often to get me out of my comfort zone otherwise I’m going to be the meanest, disagreeable, petty version of myself until I figure out a way to challenge myself. She tells me that when she was coming up in dance, if you didn’t get the rhythm and the form, you’d be sent to the corner of the class to practice until you got it and the feedback in those time was anything but kind and empowering. Honestly, that’s kind of how I pictured my time here: strict classes, 2 hours of dancing, with a guru popping you on your legs if you weren’t in unison in front of the whole class.
That’s how I learnt to be. It’s what I internalized when I was a child in school. It’s what I continued to source my motivation from in other areas of my life:
pressure to look a certain way, pressure to have a certain personality for different occasions
pressure to be the “best” in all the roles I fulfill (what others wanted from me/major people pleasing)
pressure to be happy with who I was (quién coño es priyanka? future newsletter in the works)
pressure to finally live a life where there was no pressure ever again.
It’s a daily practice, and many times during the day to discern what is coming from that place of pressure and what is coming from the place of presence. A dear friend who has been my fairy godmother but really fairy god bff noted that maybe I’m looking for purpose. Since arriving, I’ve been focused on making this be the sabbatical of my dreams where I do this one thing from scratch and I make the most of my time because I’m not ever going to get this again. I’ve been feeling the pressure of the clock ticking away because helloooo - it’s November?!?! And I feel the pressure of time (extremely exaggerated in my little anxious mind) and my tendency is to rush. The limiting belief here is that I need to make the most of out this time in a very specific way, and if I don’t I’ve failed and let myself down.
Patience
Shunryu Suzuki is known for popularizing Zen Buddhism in the United States. He wrote a book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind.
“If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything, it is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few. ”
I’ve always tried to position myself as an expert when I started something new. I think this may have been fueled from my need to please others and prove myself to the world that I was the right choice for whatever opportunity I was given. Definitely something that began when I was a kid. I’d find myself in situations where I’d inevitably perform the expert version of myself and when I’d make a mistake, take it incredibly personally and feel devastated. I couldn’t tell you the number of times I’ve received feedback in settings saying that Priyanka is great and takes initiative but she could stand to improve on going slowly, not rushing. Pressure can be helpful sometimes but in my case it became the only way I felt I produced any real quality work. I mean when you have job descriptions requiring “ability to work under pressure in dynamic situations while meeting/exceeding expectations” it’s not surprising that you live up to that. It determines your progress, development and paycheck.
So in response to that feedback, I’d pare down a little and still try to be an expert but do it quietly so if I made mistakes they wouldn’t be so obvious (see: stopping in the middle of the dance studio). I didn’t want to let myself down. But I also really didn’t want to let the people I cared about down, the people who sacrificed and supported me. I really wanted people to think highly of me, to validate that at least through my work I came through.
Progress
For as long as I can remember, everything I’ve done had to yield results. Somewhere along the way, I started to ascribe meaningfulness to all my actions. It’s like they give us humans the same manual or something *wink*. Progress is measured by qualifying results, identifying and defining metrics against goals and objectives. How fast did I run this mile? Is that number getting smaller because the goal is to run the mile in a shorter time. How far have you come in your time at this organization? Have you led projects successfully, managed enough resources, added new skills? What do your energy, money/resources, show for at the end of what you’ve been doing? Progress is also made up of failures, and when you’re a true beginner you’re going to have to fail quite a bit. And failing usually cranks up more of that pressure to do/be more/better.
Measuring progress really makes it hard for me to practice patience, because there’s always this pressure that the results aren’t ever enough because the goal post is always moving. What’s the point of measuring progress in the first place, when it isn’t acknowledged? Acknowledged here doesn’t exclusively mean recognized, praised, validated externally; I think it also means processed, accepted internally.
But it only comes to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything! - Rainer Maria Rilke
When I imagined this sabbatical, I was very adamant it be an experience completely divested from the experiences of the last decade. I wanted to do things for the sake of doing them, and even more risky, I wanted to do things because I wanted to do things. But it’s kind of hard when you’re so used to acting out of years of conditioning. The mentality is etched into how you show up and it takes a keen eye to even notice that you’re subconsciously “tracking progress” according to some arbitrary idea you had. I had the silent expectation that I would be free of this mentality once I got here. So it isn’t surprising that I was spending time in class critiquing myself, instead of being present. I would focus on the frustration and take that to mean I can’t do it, instead of recognizing that my body was deep in learning mode.
I know we all probably know this about ourselves, and about the people in our lives: we are too hard on ourselves, we are our own worst critics. But what do we really do about it? How much time do we take to be honest with ourselves? How do we quietly celebrate how far we’ve come, and give weight to our own self-acknowledgement over external validation? Do we show up with compassion for ourselves when we see no progress or do we automatically relegate ourselves as behind?
I think a part of me was hoping that this year would help fix me, and I’d be set for the rest of my life. I wouldn’t have any more problems, anxieties, and I’d finally be in good humor, ready to take on “real life” with a serious, stable job that leads to a prestigious career, that affords me the resources to live the life I want. And in the age of same-day deliveries, my patience in these first two months was running on low when I kept confronting that I’m not a flamenco prodigy like I hoped I’d be.
उद्धरेदात्मनात्मानं नात्मानमवसादयेत् |
आत्मैव ह्यात्मनो बन्धुरात्मैव रिपुरात्मन: || 5|Elevate yourself through the power of your mind, and not degrade yourself, for the mind can be the friend and also the enemy of the self. - Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 6 Verse 5
Pivot
It’s a good thing that human nature craves and is built for change, despite what our personal relationship with it may be. If we don’t pivot, life throws us curveballs and plot twists, and we pivot gracefully or not so gracefully until we do. Resistance is futile but sometimes being hardheaded helps us protect ourselves as we ease into the new experiences. Lately, progress for me has been seeing myself be more patient when I’m in class and learning, even if I don’t get the moves. Progress has looked like actually getting out of my head when I’m in class. Progress has also looked like getting the steps, and adding a little bit of my own flair with the choreography.
I don’t know what progress will look like a month from now, or even a year from now but I’m nervously excited to see what comes next.