Blinded by What We Don’t See

It’s 4AM on Thursday morning and the bike gears had been primarily in medium to high for the past 3 hours.  

During an illuminating bike ride, quarter moon gazing down, at the invitation of a wise and experienced rider, I learned how to use the low gears. The illumination caused me to see how avoiding the lower gears of life, the slowing down, was a cover for fear. Fear of what might happen if I slowed down and examined the belief that it is weak to surrender will, and that weakness is not okay. 

I had not been taught how to use the gears of life to downshift nor did I seek instruction assuming I knew how, too blinded and arrogant to consider this might be true. I can now see the disservice of this approach.

Back to the ride. For a year I had been contemplating a night ride while coming up with reasons to stay home and sleep. This was out of my comfort zone, certainly, as is true for many new experiences.  Yet beneath this was the fear of not being able to keep up, not being strong enough, not being willing to ask someone else to slow down for me. Afraid of being considered weak. 

With my teacher and an open mind, I learned to use the lower gears, releasing judgement. The experience shifted and illumined the learned reticence to use the low gears in life. Wow! Relying on willpower is exhausting. And it becomes so ingrained that we don’t even realize we’re doing this, making it much harder because ‘we can’t see what we can’t see.’ And when we move so fast, relying on will, we miss a whole lot, including the vulnerability of not being able to keep up. 

It’s only recently I’ve come to understand will power is for short bursts, ‘to be used for the sprint, and to base our identity on it gets in the way of the journey’.  To embrace that lower gear is what we need to allow a new way of seeing. 

Somewhere, somehow I subconsciously latched onto the mistaken belief that using the low gears is weak and is to be avoided.  When I said yes to the night ride and got out of my comfort zone, the limited way of thinking could be seen and receptivity to examine other embedded false beliefs, including prejudices, increased. 

My patient bike expert reminded me that ‘we do not know what we do not know.’ Habitual, unexamined patterns blind us. Slowing down, being willing to not keep up, to be vulnerable expose these patterns.  

Until recently I didn’t realize that being white in this country entitled me to a very different experience than people of color. I am beginning to see more of my biases without guilt or shame.  I am learning, albeit slowly, that trusting the use of lower gears invites a new way of seeing.  From here, I can recognize there is a hill ahead, and let willpower be supplanted with downshifting, trusting the journey to help me see ‘we do not know what we do not know.’ 

What might you be seeing that you did not see before?  Before COVID-19? Before George Floyd?  How are you being invited to release will power, mistaken beliefs, and to slow down? 

Whatever your practice, share what you are seeing. Be willing to dialogue –  to move out of the safe zone of conversation and let it be messy. it is amazing what there is to ‘see’ when we embrace with curiosity how ‘we do not know what we do not know.’  

I get to support people in this journey of examining what we are just now seeing by holding space. Stillness and movement help the wisdom of the body to be revealed so we can see. 

Give yourself time and space to be still, even when in motion. Join me for a private exploratory experience or on the mat for 2.5 offerings each week – all virtual!