I rediscovered a journal today. One of those things that seems such a good idea for ten minutes of an unusually enthusiastic day. It's a journal that asks endless questions about your purpose, about who you are, what you do best and how you've always wanted to use it. It reminded me of the time a therapist finally stumped me by asking me to think of the thing that makes me angry about the world; one thing I would want to change. As I sorted through an internal catalogue of things that make me furious, she explained (annoyingly) that this might be my problem – I haven't nailed my purpose, my passion; the singular thing I most want to be a part of changing.
I realised quite recently that, actually, I already knew. So, as we enter the annual period of self-hatred for breaking rashly made resolutions, I thought it may be time to return to the important things. Not my seemingly endless quest to achieve a single decent pull-up for 2017 (recently updated to 2018). Not dry January, not even Veganuary. But something one of my teachers reminded me this morning - something that is more about who you are, your feeling of worth, your contribution to the world; your sense of purpose and belonging.
One of the things my therapist pushed me on continually was my career. Or rather, my spread of careers. I was a ballerina. Then after an about-turn in the form Cambridge, a researcher, then a writer, then a return to the Royal Academy of Music, a return to acting, to dance, to singing, to writing, to teaching, to yoga and last of all, to magic. It was working as a magician's assistant (and there is no meditation like the meditation of being locked in a very small box for a very long time), that things started to make sense; that so many of these avenues shared the same purpose - to change, even for a moment, the way that you see the world, yourself, or one another.
For magic to work, you first set up a conceit – you give a series of apparent 'facts', visual, verbal, aural, whatever it might be, that are suggestive of a certain 'truth'. You give just enough information to encourage an audience to jump to a series of conclusions. A set of unconscious assumptions. Then you pull the rug away; you do something impossible.
Contrary to what magicians may want you to believe, magic is not about challenging your belief in physics. Few people over the age of 11 go to a magic show and return with a few stern words of approbation for Newton. We know the magician did not really vanish into thin air, or transport a box, an assistant, an elephant or fly a car from one side of the auditorium to the other, and this leaves only one possibility – you did not see what you thought you saw. The audience doesn't leave questioning gravity, but maybe, just maybe, they leave questioning their judgment; questioning the reliability of their interpretation of data.
This, I realised, is the link. What magic does, what so many art forms do, is challenge your perception. The moment the rabbit appears from the hat, the moment the assistant jumps out of the locked box, you have to face a very different truth: that you made a set of assumptions, a set of assumptions that, right up until the last moment, you would have sworn were 'true'. Yet, a set of assumptions that are now clearly, fairy-dust and magic wands aside, false. The picture you saw was mis-drawn, and if you can mis-see, mis-hear and mis-assume here, what might you be misinterpreting out there?
Yoga teaches you just this. It teaches you to observe your assumptions and to acknowledge that difficult truth – that the picture you see is one you have constructed. And not every picture is a clear one. Often we are swayed in our interpretation of data, by our past, our experiences, our parents, our friends, our mood at the time. If there is one thing I have learnt most strongly from my practice, it is to question your beliefs and your opinions, continually. Because many opinions will masquerade as 'facts'. About you – your worth, your abilities, your worthiness – your ability to backbend, your strength, your ability to invert, to run, to be kind, patient, to teach – we build up pictures of ourselves, more often than not, made of towers of these assumptions, and then we wonder why removing just one sends the lot tumbling down.
This goes just as strongly for the way you view others, the world, politics, morality, religion, work, dogs, cats, vegemite, four-wheel drives. It is your job always to work like a scientist – to hold opinions tentatively, to keep them only so long as there is evidence enough to support them, and to acknowledge, question and possibly accept any evidence that emerges to the contrary.
So maybe this is part of your resolution, if you have to have one for the New Year. As Tim Minchen put it so eloquently: 'as the old saying goes, "opinions are like arseholes, everybody has one". But opinions differ from arseholes in one crucial respect: yours should be constantly examined'.
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Thanks to Erin Prichard for her Sankulpa inspiration - check out her classes here.
Thanks to Josephine Lee, Magical Bones, Ben Hart, Chris Cox, Jonathan Goodwin and the entire Impossible crew for their magic and wonderful minds - hope you're having a blast in Manilla!
I realised quite recently that, actually, I already knew. So, as we enter the annual period of self-hatred for breaking rashly made resolutions, I thought it may be time to return to the important things. Not my seemingly endless quest to achieve a single decent pull-up for 2017 (recently updated to 2018). Not dry January, not even Veganuary. But something one of my teachers reminded me this morning - something that is more about who you are, your feeling of worth, your contribution to the world; your sense of purpose and belonging.
One of the things my therapist pushed me on continually was my career. Or rather, my spread of careers. I was a ballerina. Then after an about-turn in the form Cambridge, a researcher, then a writer, then a return to the Royal Academy of Music, a return to acting, to dance, to singing, to writing, to teaching, to yoga and last of all, to magic. It was working as a magician's assistant (and there is no meditation like the meditation of being locked in a very small box for a very long time), that things started to make sense; that so many of these avenues shared the same purpose - to change, even for a moment, the way that you see the world, yourself, or one another.
For magic to work, you first set up a conceit – you give a series of apparent 'facts', visual, verbal, aural, whatever it might be, that are suggestive of a certain 'truth'. You give just enough information to encourage an audience to jump to a series of conclusions. A set of unconscious assumptions. Then you pull the rug away; you do something impossible.
Contrary to what magicians may want you to believe, magic is not about challenging your belief in physics. Few people over the age of 11 go to a magic show and return with a few stern words of approbation for Newton. We know the magician did not really vanish into thin air, or transport a box, an assistant, an elephant or fly a car from one side of the auditorium to the other, and this leaves only one possibility – you did not see what you thought you saw. The audience doesn't leave questioning gravity, but maybe, just maybe, they leave questioning their judgment; questioning the reliability of their interpretation of data.
This, I realised, is the link. What magic does, what so many art forms do, is challenge your perception. The moment the rabbit appears from the hat, the moment the assistant jumps out of the locked box, you have to face a very different truth: that you made a set of assumptions, a set of assumptions that, right up until the last moment, you would have sworn were 'true'. Yet, a set of assumptions that are now clearly, fairy-dust and magic wands aside, false. The picture you saw was mis-drawn, and if you can mis-see, mis-hear and mis-assume here, what might you be misinterpreting out there?
Yoga teaches you just this. It teaches you to observe your assumptions and to acknowledge that difficult truth – that the picture you see is one you have constructed. And not every picture is a clear one. Often we are swayed in our interpretation of data, by our past, our experiences, our parents, our friends, our mood at the time. If there is one thing I have learnt most strongly from my practice, it is to question your beliefs and your opinions, continually. Because many opinions will masquerade as 'facts'. About you – your worth, your abilities, your worthiness – your ability to backbend, your strength, your ability to invert, to run, to be kind, patient, to teach – we build up pictures of ourselves, more often than not, made of towers of these assumptions, and then we wonder why removing just one sends the lot tumbling down.
This goes just as strongly for the way you view others, the world, politics, morality, religion, work, dogs, cats, vegemite, four-wheel drives. It is your job always to work like a scientist – to hold opinions tentatively, to keep them only so long as there is evidence enough to support them, and to acknowledge, question and possibly accept any evidence that emerges to the contrary.
So maybe this is part of your resolution, if you have to have one for the New Year. As Tim Minchen put it so eloquently: 'as the old saying goes, "opinions are like arseholes, everybody has one". But opinions differ from arseholes in one crucial respect: yours should be constantly examined'.
--
Thanks to Erin Prichard for her Sankulpa inspiration - check out her classes here.
Thanks to Josephine Lee, Magical Bones, Ben Hart, Chris Cox, Jonathan Goodwin and the entire Impossible crew for their magic and wonderful minds - hope you're having a blast in Manilla!