Let it Bend Before it Breaks

I was recently trimming a dying rosemary bush and was reminded of a song by Brandi Carlile, called Bend Before it Breaks. The dead branches were hard and impossible to cut with my pruners. They didn’t bend. I could only break them. The living branches were supple and easy to bend. Some were in between – they had a choice of which direction to take.

If bendy is life and rigid is death, I began to consider where in my life can I bend more? Where am I stuck in my ways? Where can I allow more energy to flow through me?

Yoga showed me years ago just how stiff and stuck I was. As my body became more bendy, so did my mind. It was as if I had tapped into the fountain of youth.

Our home is no different. In feng shui, the goal is for energy “ to meander” through a space. The energy in your home should not rush or stagnate, but meander. This is a direct result of the floor plan, furniture arrangement, and all of our stuff in it - our clutter.

Clutter isn’t always indicated by the about the amount of stuff you have – it’s also about the energetic weight of certain items. The engagement ring from a prior relationship weighs only a couple of ounces, but the regret weighs a ton. This emotional anchor keeps you tethered to the past.

Don't be fooled by organized, tidy, and neat spaces either. They often contain clutter too. The only difference is that the past is neatly organized and in some cases even labeled. Too much organization can lead us in the direction of rigidity, closed-minded, stuckness, and stagnation.

Think of your mind as these tidy, organized, and labeled compartments of old beliefs and thoughts. Some might not even be yours. Some our outdated. Some no longer fit. Some might be just-in-case thoughts – that is, just in case what you really want doesn’t work out.

What can you let go of? Where can you free contained and controlled beliefs for new energy to come in? Where can you be more flexible in your thinking?

Consider where you might be rigid or stuck. For each of the following questions, does your answer feel like a supportive beam or backbone or are you calling rigidity into your connective tissue and flex spaces.

What are you unwilling to budge on?

What edge do you and your partner continue to run up against with no resolution?

Upon what issue do you become stubborn?

What point do you keep hitting a wall that prevents you from making an important change?

What limiting thought do you continue to run up against?

What limiting belief about your partner do you continue to run up against?

What triggers strong judgment about yourself or others?

If you are someone who finds it challenging to know or maintain your center of truth, then replace the above questions with a version of “In what situations or for whom do I bend over backwards?” For most of us, we experience a version of both - we bend over backwards in some areas and are overly rigid in others.

In each moment, interaction, and conversation with ourselves and others, we have the choice to move closer to life or closer to death.

What will break if you don't bend? And what are you allowing to bend too much that needs to break?