Dear Hopsy,
you are so right. Just regaining my voice isn't enough. Saying something doesn't "make it so". I have to put it to use - intentionally. The intention is the pattern-energy, the wish-energy, that pushes past the old energy of "not now", "I can't", or "I'm afraid of _______.".
In tai chi, there is a list of 10 principles that the players work to incorporate into their physical practice. No. 6 states "Use intent; not force". It is the hardest one to explain to beginners, except maybe "use quiessence in movement". The study of intent begins with visualization - being absolutely clear about say, where I'm going to put my foot down and at what angle and how I'm actually going to pick up, move and place that foot... and then how much of my weight I'm going to transfer to that foot and how rooted & stable I want it to be.
Deeper study of intent recognizes that the energy of the mind, combined with spirit (visualization + wish) is enough to create the physical action. Extreme muscle strength or flexibility - what we normally consider "effort" - is extraneous and is actually a waste of energy. I discovered that in my own practice, to get this "right enough" to feel the flow of the movements I had to cease repeating the order of the postures in my mind and deliberately not make an effort - in other words, just let the movement of my body happen as a natural expression of intent. And simply trust that I was moving into the postures in the correct sequence.
I failed at this in the ranking test, but in failing I learned something extremely important that I'd missed in the years of classes up to that point. I'd put so much effort into learning the sequence of movements and refining them for "perfection" - forcing myself to practice over & over - forcing myself to always be a beginner, forcing myself to work hard, forcing myself to "remember" so many of the tiny, intricate details that make up "standard form"... that I pushed spirit or wish or heart (equates with feeling) completely out of the experience. And of course, it all came rushing at me during my performance in the test about 1/3 of the way through; and I simply wasn't present enough anymore to trust my muscle memory or left-brain sequence memory to know where I was in the routine anymore.
After that, my practice changed. And I found I was completely able to stay "present" in the sequence and still contain or experience all that flow of feeling simultaneously. And keep my balance and transfer my weight properly and... and the only thing I was doing differently was not using force anymore. I used the intent I could summon prior to beginning the form to carry me all the way through. Sure, some of my final positions went a little wonky for a while but it wasn't long before I could simply "feel" the right sequence, the final posture, and finally the recitation of the order & sequence of movement was silenced. And then I was amazed at how "simple" moving through 103 different forms, correctly could be.
I had one of those revelatory "seeing" things at the time, too. About how pre-trauma, I was able to do this naturally. And how some of the abuse that came after, was only concerned about things like how exactly I placed my foot... and completely left out, obscured, denied, disallowed... that this phenomenon of intent existed or was real. How "feeling" was just an illusion and therefore not important. The abuse was force - for the sake of force. You will do and be X, because I said so - even if it was artificial, ill-fitting, and "not me" at all.
The voice(s) of self-criticism, flogging, driving insistence on perfection, never ceasing recriminations or second-guessing oneself, is created in our minds and feelings because it's a survival skill; a defense mechanism to keep oneself from running afoul of the parent-critic. But so too, is the willingness to throw oneself under the bus - to not care about oneself - to deliberately or unconsciously indulge in self-defeating, self-sabotaging, self-destructive behaviors. It's the lesser of two evils, in a way. That willingness has to do with a rejection and indigestion of the never-ceasing, ever vigilant internal dialogue that one uses as some kind of shield or magical form of protection from a direct assault on self by the abusive parent. It's a subliminally expressed intent to put oneself out of the reach of the abuser and the residual radioactivity of abuse...
Anything practiced long enough becomes a part of our self-image; our identity. But that doesn't necessarily mean that one was born this way or is doomed to always fail at changing that practice... and therefore changing that self-image and self-defined identity. If it took a long time to learn to do something artificial and not natural to ourselves... it also takes a long time to unlearn it and lots and lots of practice of something else; with the use of intent - and not force. But not as long a time, as "force" would have us believe.
