Bending over backwards

Remember when you were young and the world was vast and endless and just full of promise and possibilities?  When every day brought a new discovery or mystery to solve?  When even something so simple as exploring they ways you could move your body left you feeling elated and accomplished?  Never mind how exploring the way your brain worked made you feel (or maybe I'm the only one who spent hours trying to understand how my mind could "speak" to me in language and at the same time "speak" to me in pictures that transcended words and conveyed thoughts faster than the actual words could....)  The first time you successfully turned a somersault.  The first time you were able to swing the swing without a push. Arms pulling on the chains, feet reaching for the sky, and not completely understanding the body mechanics that get our toes in line with the sun but glorying in the bliss once we are there.

I learned to stand on my head by bracing against a door.  Hands on the ground, knees placed on arms, the door to use as a balance as I lifted my feet in the air...after a while I could do it without the door. Back bends went much the same.  Bend over with both arms extended, find the door (or wall, or tree, or something else that you knew wasn't going to move) and walk your arms down.  Do this enough times and you come to realize that you can count on the door to always be there for leverage, and that you can trust your body to know what to do next.

When I was young, I loved to climb trees.  I would climb to the highest branches, the ones that swayed easily in the slightest breeze, the ones that could be counted on to bend under my weight, in order to try to reach the top of the tree.  A challenge, if you will, to prove that I could go higher than anyone else.  Every time I climbed farther than before, the tree supported me.  The problem was never in getting to the top, but in trying to get back down.  Once, when I was in middle school, I climbed a tree that seemed easy to get in and out of.  All the way to the top, and as you go up the branches are closer together which makes the ascent easier.  Up, and then down.  Except the down wasn't as easy as the up.  Getting down to the point where I got into the tree was pretty easy, and it was an old oak tree, so the branches all the way up were pretty sturdy.  But wow, once I got back to the lowest branch, the ground was a long way down.  And I couldn't remember how I got up to it in the first place.  The lowest branch extended over a creek that was swollen from recent rains.  I had my book bag (back then in the olden days we didn't have backpacks) and so jumping to the creek would have been a great idea on a summer's day...not so much now.  But, if I tossed my bag away from the roots of the tree towards high ground, and wrapped my legs around the branch I was on...and bent over backwards the way I had done thousands of times before at home....and trusted that the tree would support me, I could reach a lower branch half way around the old oak and then swing down.

It worked, and taught me a thing or two about trusting myself and my own experience.

Flash forward about 30 years.  My oldest daughter, trying to teach herself how to do a back bend first by using a door, then by just bending over backwards, perfect balance, arms extended...she challenged the zookeeper and I to try.  She is of course amazing for figuring out how to do this on her own (don't we all feel a little guilty/proud when our children do things without us?)  The zookeeper had a tough time with it (sorry, dear, but you botched it.)  But me?  I knew I needed support.  Feet planted about two feet from the door, both arms upraised and extended together, over my head and bending back...and just like I knew it would be, the door was just there to catch my hands as I bent over backwards.  I walked myself, hand over hand, feet planted firmly, down the door until I reached the base (not bad for a 40something who doesn't go to the gym or exercise as a rule) and slowly sank to the floor.

Never mind that 30+ years after I last did a back bend I could still do it.  What I realized in that perfect moment is that bending over backwards, and trusting yourself as well as the <door, tree, life experiences> is the most exhilarating feeling there is.  Arms up, reaching for the sky, bending in a way that may seem unnatural, feeling for the door or support and just knowing it will be there...and we do it because it makes us feel fantastic.

How many ways do we all bend over backwards for the people in our lives?  And how often do we tell ourselves that it is a sacrifice?  Or get dragged down in the day to day rut that makes us believe that we are doing what we do for others, with no consideration for ourselves?  Because my epiphany, in that moment of reaching for the door, and knowing that it would be there, made me realize that I bend over backwards because I can, not because it is expected of me.  And goddamn if it doesn't make me feel good, no matter what anyone else thinks, when I do.

The thing I think we all need to ask ourselves, when we feel like we are bending over for or going out of our way for everyone else is...why?  Because if you do it knowing your feet will touch the Sun, or because it feels damn good to stretch your self in ways you didn't know you could...then stop bitching and just accept that you are doing what you are doing for your own reward.  And then go have some chocolate and wine.  Because you deserve it. ;)

~tzkw