Adult ballet class. I’m 33 and a complete beginner. I’m holding first position and barely breathing. The instructor steps up to me and says, “Knit your ribs together.”
I look down at my ribs. I have no idea what she’s talking about. I don’t think I have the muscles that do that.
In the midst of a training early in my movement practice, a teacher casually asks, “Can you be with yourself completely and be with us completely at the same time?”
I look at her. I might have looked at my ribs. I have no idea what she’s talking about. I don’t think I have the muscles that do that.
I knew I could fall into the rabbit hole of my own experience, or I could immerse myself in yours. But both? Together? At the same time? No idea how to do that.
In retrospect, I’m not even sure I could really connect with myself or someone else then. Disconnected from my body, caught in a swirl of thinking, comparing, reacting, relationships were rarely based on more than looking for validation and approval.
In fairness to my younger self, nobody ever teaches us about how to connect in relationships. I was taught to be “nice” (which is different than “kind” but that is a topic for another post). I was taught to be friends with people similar to me. But those things didn’t really help me.
I could have used a framework, a perspective on building healthy relationships in the way I was taught to understand geometry. I rarely need to figure out the hypotenuse of anything, but I’ve daily needed to know how to navigate interactions with other humans.
I appreciate many things from my training in The Nia Technique and none so much as the principles around relationship. “Split Ellipt Blend” is one of those principles and I use it every. single. day.
“Split Ellipt Blend” clarifies where attention is going in an interaction and gives us the chance to choose. All three are rooted in curiosity with as little assumption making or story telling as possible. None of these states is better than the other, they each are valuable especially when used mindfully.
Splitting focuses most of my attention inward. To split is to investigate what is happening for me and to dive deep into the physical, mental and emotional sensations in an experience.
Early yesterday, I was rattled by the news. My household was up and rolling, and I chose to take my tea into my office and sit with myself and everything I was sensing, feeling and thinking. Splitting doesn’t have to include a physical separation, though, I can split in the midst of a conversation if I feel tense or triggered or tender. It’s all about drawing my focus in.
Ellipting focuses most of my attention to another. Listening deeply to what is both being said and expressed without words. Attending as “cleanly” as possible: without assumption or story.
In a weekly conversation with a fellow artist, I practice ellipting when he does his check-in. We have different practices so I often have questions, ideas, beliefs about what he’s describing but I let them all sit in the background. I just take in what he’s saying. Western culture teaches us to look for ways to contribute to the conversation, share something similar that happened to us or generally to bring the focus of someone else back to us. Instead, ellipting invites us to be empty and receptive.
Blending, as the name implies, focuses my attention both on me and the other at the same time. In some ways this can be the most complicated of the three but in others is the most natural. My experience is the feeling of a metronome shifting back and forth between me and the other. Listen and feel, speak and feel, laugh and feel. Back and forth, blending attention.
Split. Ellipt. Blend. We are all doing all three all the time. The invitation is to notice and choose which is the most needed in any given moment.
Split into the Self. Ellipt into the Other. Blend between the Two.
If someone were to ask me now, “Can you be with yourself completely and be with us completely at the same time?” my answer would be, it’s my life practice. I work those muscles every day. (Same can be said for my “rib knitting” muscles!)