Flexibility

The first messengers of spring are making themselves heard and seen. The trees are opening their buds and readily offering their fresh green to the brightest ray of warm sunshine.

The fresh branches, much like anything new, are soft and flexible a quality that is slowly lost as they become stronger and firmer with age.

It appears that most things and most of us lose some of our our flexibility with each year that we gain and grow. Much like for the young tree branch, it is important for us also to grow in strength and to somewhat limit our flexibility. This allows us to hold our head, to strengthen our legs and find balance on the ground to take our first steps.

With each step we take, our body becomes stronger and firmer. At the same time our world becomes bigger and bigger as we grow and discover.

We are confronted with more and more information and need to find a way to limit the amount of input. With time we learn more about which environment feels good and comfortable to us, the people we like to have in our company, the foods we enjoy, the colours that inspire us, where we like to travel to, the music that moves us and so on. With this selection, this focus, our reality becomes manageable and somewhat controllable, it enables us to focus, to dedicate, to concentrate.

In this life of ours a certain rigidity is sustained by our experiences, our knowledge and our beliefs. These give us a structure in which we live and move and a flexibility that is limited by what we believe is possible, ethical, fair, true, etc.

We hold on to what we know, try to understand what we can and to somehow pin it down in order to create something stable in this ever-changing world that surrounds us.

It is only when this sense of security is somehow challenged or when we wish to make a change, that we realise, how rigid we may have become. In order to make a new experience our mind must allow a new idea and be able to let go of convictions. This way chances and opportunities are not threatening, but rather a possibility, something to become curious and excited about.

Art, theatre, performance, design, all that is creative is an endless offering for new ideas, new concepts, for flexibility of our mind, ideas and thoughts. With time and age, our body also seems to become more rigid and even stiff leading to a sensation a general lack of mobility.

If we choose to want to stay flexible despite the growth and hardening of the body and the limitations of the mind, we must exercise and train. Our body and our beliefs and ideas need to be stretched and moved and challenged in order to stay open, formable and fit to adjust to what is asked for, or simply to what we wish to experience.

We as humans are flexible, much more so than we can imagine. We are highly adaptable beings, able to live almost anywhere on this planet, under the most extreme conditions.

Our bodies can carry us up the highest mountains and dive deep into the sea.
We can surprise ourselves by gaining flexibility in a yoga class or by hearing our own voice when we gather to sing. A good conversation can make us change our minds when we were sure we never could, a piece of art can gift us an entirely new perception.

So much is to be discovered and experienced, our possibilities are endless. In order to remain flexible we may need to let go of a belief, of an idea, a dislike or even overcome a fear, but once we do, all is to be gained.

With this spring, let’s allow ourselves to get carried away, to be inspired, to stretch that body, to challenge our beliefs and to try something new.

Have a beautiful beginning of the new season, may all and everything bloom and blossom.