Objecting as Kindness…Let’s Blow Some Raspberries!

Choice is central in Zapchen Somatics. We do what we want to and don’t do what we don’t want to do. 

Maybe at first it’s just a head move. Meaning, the thought drives the choice to do or not do a practice. Then, over time, we learn to let us, as body, choose. We have enough body awareness to listen to what body wants, and we do that. 

A key to learning how to do this—and this notion may seem radical—is to object first: We say out loud (preferably playfully, even fiercely and playfully) that we don’t want to do something. 

We see what happens. Maybe we still don’t want to do the thing.  Maybe we don’t want to do the thing and then there’s a glimmer of wanting to do it. Maybe we want to jump in with both feet and do the thing we objected to a minute ago. 

Perhaps your Voices of Judgment are singing that all this sounds too weird, or self-indulgent, or juvenile. 

If they are, I say in response that the Zapchen practice of objecting first is certainly alternative. Even radical. Having this sort of freedom in relationship supports knowing as body. Honoring what’s needed and desired builds trust and confidence in us, as whole-body beings. 

In Zapchen Somatics there are several playful things we do when we don’t wanna. I call them Practices of Objection. Funny Talking, Blowing Raspberries, Talking Tough, to name a few. 

When we do these practices, we support ourselves, as whole bodies, to return to the places that we cut off from in order to suppress our defiance, to endure, to keep ourselves from losing our head, to say ‘yes’ when we really mean ‘no.’ 

The practices return pulsation to the parts we’ve constricted. Our aliveness can move more freely. Fluid movement returns, energy returns, sensation returns. We re-inhabit these territories. And we loosen the grip of our own resistance, which loosens the stories. 

The tighter we hold the stories, the more they narrow our experience as the only thing that’s possible. It’s easy to get stuck in the loop. When we give the stories some freedom to come and go, their hold on us decreases. And that’s a relief. 

Zapchen Practices of Objection often make us laugh. They’re playful and fun, and especially fun to do with someone else, or in a group. This sort of laughter and playfully being objecting humans together also is a relief. 

It’s also a kindness. When we’re kind to ourselves while we object, we learn how to object ‘for real’ in relationship, in ways that are firm when firm is required and lighter when it’s not so serious. And, this kindness ripples out to others.

I’m including here a video teaching of Blowing Raspberries, one of my favorite Zapchen Practices of Objection. Try it out. Get in touch and let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you.

Marla teaches Zapchen Blowing Raspberries.