My experience with SPT during the lockdown
Practicing SPT since the commencement of the lockdown has been a great and unique experience amidst such a disruptive time for our world.
Many of my inner structures were breaking down whilst, at the same time, my body, and my outer structure, was strengthening because of the practice. It helped me to use my body as a container for my inner change. I suppose that it was in part because of this that I walked through that internal journey. I was alone in doing that, but I was being held by my field.
The connection with the field through the screen, was a surprise. Starting the practice by Zoom, was a new experience. When we practice in the flesh, or when we are with people, we take for granted many of the things about the connection and the impact that we have into the social field we are in. Practising online was like seeing all the threads of human connection, realizing again and, in a way, feeling grateful because of that. The experience helps to make visible what it was, but at some point, it was invisible. It confirmed what sometimes is forgotten; the power of being connected and the power of trusting each other and the truth of the field. We are impacting others and being impacted by them all the time.
Even though there was much chaos, pain, grief, and fear outside (and sometimes inside), practicing with our regular group provided me with a place full of love, compassion, tenderness and closeness. I have noticed that I met a lot of new people, and all those connections have the same characteristics of the group. I realized that when you start to show or to see people for the first time, in the context of SPT, it causes a shift in the way that things happen. The space offers you the possibility (and I think this is true whenever you surrender yourself to the practice), to be yourself and to be genuinely accepted as a result. My reflection is that if we could apply the characteristics of SPT practice to our relationships in our day-to-day lives, we will very probably have more effective, honest, and sustainable interactions. Are we ready to be genuine?
Biases, thoughts, previous ideas, opinions and so on, do not leave space to a not knowing place. Holding the MA showed that those previous ideas are always fear.
In addition, after regular weeks of practising a couple of times per week, I also felt my body becoming much more connected. Surprisingly, even the days that I thought that I could not have a “great” practice (perhaps because my head was really in charge), nevertheless my body did. It imposed itself over my head and guided me towards spectacular practises and reflections. There is much that our bodies know; we really do not have to make much effort.
Every practise had a surprise for me, even on the days when I felt it was not being great but, in the end, always provided a lesson. All of them were big. There is no such a thing as “not doing it ok”, there is no necessity to perform in a certain way, there is not any need for results. Just being there, with my body, was all that I needed to be and what really changed me at the end.
I have learnt a lot about how the inner place where I lived from, I saw it in every practice. I experienced being an unconditional witness. I did not need anything else than myself to be there. I did not need to be anyone else than myself.
I’m practising this in the external world. It means arriving with my body to the experiences, with the mind of a beginner and trusting my own power and the intelligence of the field. Holding my forces, shadows, lights, and the emerging future that is always arising in us. I realized how important it is to hold on to questions. I’m open to being transformed by others.
I felt blessed by those spaces. By all the people that were, and still are, part of the social field that we created. Different countries, languages and backgrounds. But with a lot in common. I feel grateful to all of them. Thanks for holding the spaces. Thanks for being such a great light during the chaos. Let’s keep on practising.
