Hold Center
On finding stability by looking within.
There’s a line from a Zero 7 song, “In the Waiting Line,” that has been running through my head incessantly, all week.
“Everyone’s saying different things to me…”
I have all but gotten rid of social media apps on my phone, though I do have Substack downloaded. And while it’s likely a better option than X or Facebook right now, even the rhetoric on my Substack Notes feed has been tumultuous at best, invective at worst.
I pass a note from someone who has decided, loudly and publicly, to disinvite their family members from Thanksgiving for voting differently than they have. That one was widely shared and praised. I think, “This can’t be the way, can it? This doesn’t seem like it.”
I see another note, then another then another then another, explaining with confusing certainty how the US election was won and lost—how the many predictions that floated people into November 5th proved inaccurate. I think, “Well yeah, isn’t that the thing with predictions? We just don’t get to know the future until we meet it?”
I see anger, and fear, and hope, and analysis, and debate, and sadness and a picture of a cute tiny toad recently discovered in the Amazon and a cute tortoise crossing the road.
Everyone’s saying different things to me.
I scroll, and scroll, and vibrate with the chatter, and orient and reorient and reorient myself within it. And at the risk of sounding trite, it does remind me of the trail. A trail so steep and loud and chattering that my body and mind are consumed by it. And this trail isn’t just in a canyon or cliff or scree field—it’s hanging off the earth while also running through crowds of different people saying different things to me.
It’s all consuming.
But then, and this is true, a cue pops into my head:
“Hold center.”
This one pops up when I don’t exactly know what to do to manage my experience. It surfaces in the face of uncertainty and intensity, and it’s a total coincidence that this was also going to be this week’s topic as a summary of episodes 4 and 32. Well, it’s not entirely coincidence—this one is a dominant precept in my life, so at any given moment, there’s a disproportionate chance I’ll be thinking it. But it feels apt for the moment and has surfaced in my advice to a couple of kids this week.
And while I was going to make the format of this summary post mirror the format in the previous two summary posts, I don’t want to overcomplicate this one. Because, to me, holding center is shorthand, a quick tenet that points me to my core, my compass, my strength, my choices in a given moment. It’s a shortcut command to recalibrate myself by turning within, gripping my principles, shifting my center of gravity to the middle, and breathing evenly through it all.
It dulls the noise. It balances me when I’m wobbly.
As Jamie mentioned in the episode, “The practice of isolating your core allows everything else—arms, legs, mind, shoulders, and jaw—to relax. Without it, you fight against what the bike (or life) wants to do.” Thus, flexing our core helps us relax elsewhere. And in that relaxation comes flexibility, stability, buoyancy, and flow.
So no matter where you’re headed in the world this weekend (and I do hope you’re able to get out on the trail or into community somehow), I hope this helps. And send pictures. And let us know what you’re riding.
Love,
Danielle1
No AI this time. Just me to you.