Making mistakes in class

It’s humbling (not to mention fascinating) attending classes in the practice you teach.

For one thing, you get to hear how others teach it – the subtle nuances, the cues they use to guide, the variations on foundational pieces… It helps to remind you of all that you can still learn. And that’s a wonderful thing.

And it also reminds you of things you might find challenging about the work, in your own personal practice. Although these won’t be exactly like someone else’s, it does serve to nudge you to keep those challenges in mind when you’re teaching. And that helps both with supporting others to navigate those specific challenges, and with meeting people exactly where they’re at in their practice – understanding that there will be challenges, and that if you can learn to navigate them, so can your students.

I noticed a couple of things a while back when I attended a Somatic Movement class. One, was that I could have easily fallen asleep. Now, this is absolutely not down to the teaching! And Somatics is fascinating, both as a whole, and as it relates to our own individual bodies. But it is also very relaxing, both physically and mentally, as you focus on releasing excess tension from the muscles. And feeling sleepy is a definite side effect for some.

It’s not the worst thing in the world to fall asleep during your Somatic Movement practice, but a) you’ll miss the rest of the class, and b) you kinda don’t want to be doing it every time – or at least if you do, it might mean you want to explore where you can get a bit more sleep into your life. But knowing it can happen is really helpful – and, as a teacher, making sure you look out for the signs, getting people to respond to you in some way so that they’re having to ‘snap out of it’ a bit, or using different positions so that people have to turn over etc, can be helpful to support people to stay with the work. A good reminder for me.

The other thing feeling sleepy reminded me of, is how easy it is to tune out for a split second – and then miss some very key part of the instruction. Like ‘left’ vs ‘right’. Or ‘go again’ vs ‘don’t go again just yet’. And then you can feel a bit lost and adrift. And oh, but the culture we live in does not give much space for missing something or tuning out or just taking a moment, does it?! So that can bring up all sorts of thoughts around ‘am I doing it right’ or ‘what if I mess up’ or ‘what if I miss something’, or a sense of panic, or whatever your thing is in that situation.

But what if we can see those moments as an opportunity for a reparative experience? A chance to find a new somatic response to all those times, probably from school days, when it wasn’t ok to make a mistake or miss something or daydream for a moment? Because Somatic Movement meets you exactly where you’re at, in all your humanness, you can miss things and make ‘mistakes’ – and you’ll be met with patience and compassion and kindness. What an opportunity for the soma* to start to find safety in those moments of human messiness.

Of course, it’s unlikely that you’ll suddenly become ok overnight with making mistakes – but every opportunity you get to practise it, in a reparative situation, in a safer space, gives your soma more and more chances to learn that it will survive regardless, even in the harsh, shaming world we live in. If we avoid all that’s hard, if we avoid trying to make mistakes, we never give ourselves a chance to learn how to thrive even when (and maybe because) we make them.

And as a teacher of Somatic Movement? Missing bits or making mistakes in the classes I attend is a good reminder to me (again, hello humility) as a teacher to repeat things, to check in with people, to explain in a slightly different way… To put the responsibility for ensuring the message gets across onto myself as a teacher, rather than onto my students. And even then, people will miss things or make mistakes – and I can help make that feel ok.

Meeting people exactly where they’re at, embracing their human messiness (celebrating it even!), is something that has long been important to me in my work. Those spaces where you are welcomed just as you are, are so incredibly important to find if you want to thrive in this world. So if you find spaces like that, hold onto them tight – they are worth their weight in all the Good Things. (I was going to say gold – but I don’t think that’s what most of us are seeking, right?!)

*Soma = your living body as you experience it from the inside.

You can join our free community group here. Or find us in our membership here. You’ll be made most welcome in either or both of these amazing spaces <3

Emilie Leeks

Author

Emilie is a heart-centred life mentor and space holder, supporting those on a healing path. This is not an easy journey, and often we can find ourselves losing our way. Emilie's work meets you where you're at, with beautiful, accepting support and connection, and weaves that support with practices and explorations in self-compassion, body connection, and a return to a deep trust in ourselves. Note: all blog post content which refers to them, has been read and agreed to by Emilie's children.

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