Reverence for Impulse
Another podcast conversation
My dear friend and fellow somatic impresario Weena Pauly invited me for a conversation on her podcast. We wandered around all sorts of interesting terrain: how to work with impulse, the benefit of active edges, the dance of opposites, the mark that time leaves on the present moment, working with hybrid reality, and much more.
Contemplating the Mystery with like minded souls is basically my favorite thing to do. If you have a podcast and want to jam on embodied philosophy, please get in touch!
I recorded this before writing my recent piece, When Maps Steer Us Wrong, where I wrote:
I have a vision of the human heart-mind as a multidimensional compass, able to tune into the magnetic field lines of countless different realities, different truths. It is both a gift and a burden. We are each left to find our own balance between staying open to new signals and staying the chosen course. Rather than try to pick any one optimal strategy, perhaps the best we can do is become adroit enough to dance among the possibilities, to follow different currents of truth as they call to us.
Perhaps learning to track more of our impulses is equivalent to tuning our compass to more dimensions of reality? As the beautiful title of Weena’s podcast suggests, we do well to welcome our impulses as worthy guests, each carrying their own unique offering. Some herald from our mammalian past, some as recently as what we ate for dinner last night or just glimpsed on Instagram1. A collage of maps to better orient in the multiverse.
That isn’t to say we should just rip open the subconscious and let our demons take the wheel, of course. The work of cultivating our powers of Discernment and Choice remain. The power to say “No” is equally precious as saying “Yes”. This may be where working with active edge and cultivating discipline come in, as we discuss in the episode. But given how many impulses we’ve been obliged to repress in the course of our domestication and education, there are surely many potent reservoirs of intelligence and vitality just waiting to come into the light. Seems like a natural resource worth exploring!
Check out Weena’s work, available anywhere there’s Internet, or my 6-week Finding Your Way group in Evanston, for some structured support in this endeavor.
Or if you’re feeling psychedelic, there is a body of evidence that suggests we also get signals from our future. See Eric Wargo’s excellent blog and book if you’re in the mood for a rabbithole.