When I was a yoga teacher in Tel Aviv, there was a class I liked to attend that was just incredibly slow.
The simplest, most basic poses. Transitioning in and out of them at an extraordinarily slow, almost ritualistic pace.
It was, technically speaking, what you could call an “easy” class. But I wouldn’t have called it that at all.
The place of no middle.
This slow-slow-slow simple-simple-simple class was usually attended by absolute beginners.
And me, along with the owner of the yoga studio and occasionally another teacher.
At the end of class, we’d be pouring sweat. All of us. Wiped out.
The beginners would be sweating from the exertion of being at the beginning.
Where it’s all new and challenging. A million things to notice, feel, examine, experiment with, process.
Those of us who were teachers were sweating because when you have an advanced practice, you bring it everywhere.
We were bringing all of ourselves into each rudimentary motion, all of our curiosity and attention into each stretch of a limb.
We were in it. And so it was as exhausting and challenging as a hard physical practice, maybe even more so. This class became about immersing fully in each sensation, which is intense.
The middle.
If you caught a glimpse of us after class, red-cheeked, sweat-stained and blissful, you’d have no idea which of us were the advanced students and which the beginners.
But you could always tell when people in the middle were there.
They weren’t sweating, for one thing. Because it wasn’t hard for them.
Also, they were complaining. About how it wasn’t hard, how boring it was.
The problem with this class, according to them, was that it wasn’t a challenge. But only because no one gave them a challenge.
The problem with the middle.
Beginners don’t need anyone to hand them a challenge. Because everything is challenging.
People with advanced practices also don’t need challenge. When you have an advanced practice, you find challenge everywhere because you’re curious and intentional about every aspect of what you’re doing.
Your challenges reveal themselves naturally. You experiment. You play and explore. You intentionally choose to interact with everything in a conscious, curious way.
You don’t need to wait for a perceived authority to tell you how to make something harder. Or, if necessary — and often this is necessary! — how to make something easier. You trust your own ability to solve this.
You make adjustments. Because you’re in it. You’re there. Consciously engaging with the world around you as a way of being.
This post is not actually about yoga.
I mean, in a sense it is. In the same way that all my posts are actually about yoga.
But it isn’t about yoga.
The middle exists everywhere. In business. In the blogging world that I inhabit. In gyms and coaching programs and on Etsy and on Twitter.
Everywhere you look: middle.
How the middle works.
In the yoga studio, the people in the middle are the ones who want harder poses. More exertion! More challenge! More fixing!
In my own classes, the middle doesn’t show up nearly as much because the basic premise is a) we’re supposed to be doing it badly, and b) the whole point is seeking out challenge.
But you still see it. It’s the people who want you to challenge them instead of finding new ways to challenge themselves. Or it’s the people who want you to tone it down, instead of giving themselves permission to do less.
In business, the middle is filled with people looking outward to find out what the “internet famous” people are doing, instead of inward to find out what is theirs.
Instead of innovating and making (or playing with what’s there in order to make it your own), the middle copies what already exists.
In the middle is all this wanting to be there already. It is not fun, being in the middle.
No one is keeping us there.
Most people think the middle is where we are until we get good, until someone tells us we are ready or gives us a grade. No. There are no grades, and external sources of legitimacy are not relevant here. The middle is where we are until we remember we get to be conscious.
Staying in the middle means being cut off from sovereignty.
In the middle, you need other people to show you what to do. You’re constantly waiting for other people to deliver. And constantly disappointed when what they give you doesn’t live up to your expectations.
Once we step out of the middle, we get to make conscious decisions about what appeals to us, what we might want to try.
The way to exit the middle is not by doing something or accomplishing anything or getting anywhere.
You just decide.
You just decide. You say it:
Here I am. I’m ready and willing to consciously engage with everything in my life, with the ecology of my life.
I’m open to finding challenges in the places where challenge is needed, and challenging myself to find ease when ease is needed.
That’s it. We’re out of the middle.
Comment zen
I have a lot more to say about this, unsurprisingly. Examples. Ways to apply this. Caveats and disclaimers and so on.
But it was starting to turn into way too much to digest in one post.
So take this as a beginning: a useful concept to start playing with.
As always: we all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff.
And if I accidentally stepped on your stuff while processing my stuff … I apologize. Not my intention.
In the meantime, if you want to think out loud about about situations where the getting out of the middle is the best thing to do (or other ways to exit the middle), I’m here.
EDIT: Here’s the follow-up post with more thoughts on all of this.
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I think I might be living my life in The Middle. It’s not much fun, come to think of it. I use my kids as my excuse for staying here. Because, you know, it’s hard to do ANYTHING and really ENGAGE when someone just pooped on the carpet and you have to clean it. But maybe it doesn’t really need to be this way, after all.
.-= Amber´s last post … Routine Chaos =-.
Oh. Oh. I have tears in my eyes.
And I just said the words — whispered them — because I believe that words are important. Words have power.
So, I’m out of the middle. I think I already was, but it’s important to remind myself — because I suspect that many of my monsters really, really like the middle. It’s where they feel safe. Beginning something totally new — terrifying. Claiming sovereignty, expertise, power? Paralyzing. Ye gods, who does she think she is, anyway?
So, I have to keep reminding them — and myself — that it’s okay to be scared, to feel lost. If nothing else, I can keep gently introducing the question: What if it’s okay, after all? What if it really is okay?
Oh, and the realization that being a beginner and being advanced can both be a challenge? That being advanced does not mean the end of challenge and difficulty and fear? Pure gold.
Thank you for Pooblishing this. Thank you so much.
.-= Kathleen Avins´s last post … The trouble with “middle vision” =-.
This is bringing up all sorts of interesting thoughts, or pre-thoughts maybe – I’ll have to ponder them some more. One thing that’s coming to mind is how, when I was in primary school, some teachers loved seeing me get out of the middle and how some others were spending so much energy actively doing everything they could to keep me there. Of course, I’ve kept a much better souvenir of the first ones, but I’m afraid I’ve picked up a lot of the other ones’ stuff, and I’m quite possibly inflicting it to myself now… Wow, interesting and useful realization. I don’t have to carry that stuff. Time to shake it off!
I’m looking forward to reading what else you have to say about this. In the meantime, thank you for the food for thought.
@Kathleen: Oh yes, my monsters *love* it in the middle too! It feels very safe to them, as it’s so not a place from which we achieve anything…
Thought provoking and spot on. Like @Josiane, I want to ponder this. My first thoughts are that living in the middle seems passive and frustrating. Giving your power away to other people. That’s not how I want to live.
In every situation, I can ask myself ‘how can I learn from this, in whatever way’. There is something to learn, to notice, to internalize, details to grasp and connections to bigger things to see every step of the way. Maybe to be advanced is to know that you can or will always be a beginner or experimenter in new aspects of what you already know. I do love being a beginner and explore!
@Kathleen: exactly, monsters love the middle! The middle is a known, safe place to be for them.
:: much pondering ::
I’m not sure if it is a cynical monster in the back of my brain or something else, but: where does “rest” come in? I think of the middle as a place of rest.
🙂 I have another monster whispering that I could apparently approach “rest” with a beginner brain and learn something. That particular monster is yawning.
I will think about this more. Thanks for the ideas.
please, PLEASE write more about this at some point SOON. i can’t believe the synchronicity of this post; i’m trying to deal with a situation in which i’ve given away my personal power for no real reason, and am wasting a lot of time because of it. climbing out of the middle is proving to be harder than it seems.
although, question: what if you aren’t ACTUALLY in the middle–you just feel like you are?
Oh Havi,
Thank you, this is just what I needed to hear. All week this subject has been presented to me in one form or another- through an at work challenge, in my personal life and now here. But how you said it…”Instead of innovating and making (or playing with what’s there in order to make it your own), the middle copies what already exists.”
Once again perfect timing or maybe I was just ready to hear.
.-= Stacy´s last post … What Children Know =-.
And this is how I tend to live me life, when things are difficult I keep going, when things are less so I stretch my wings and see what I can achieve and how I can improve both myself and the world. But thank you, this is beautiful and reminds me a bit of why I do my best to live that way.
The timing of this post is pretty bloody amazing, Havi. Last week, I made the discovery that I’m not a Middle person. And honestly, I’m not sure how much I’m able to articulate about it yet. It’s that new. And scary. And exciting. What’s weird is that it was yoga that taught me this. Thank everything holy for yoga. *lovingsigh*
.-= Meg´s last post … Beware the evils of Picnik =-.
ooohhh, the middle! Such a splendid and useful concept. Really resonates with my own experience. Thank you for putting words around it. Very interested to hear more.
@Bullwinkle: love the question of how rest fits in. I’ve found the middle to be quite stressful (impatience is very draining); on either side of the middle there may be more exertion (physical or otherwise), but then I sleep better, both actually and metaphorically.
.-= Cindy Morefield´s last post … new paintings- reservoir 1-6 =-.
This is a wonderful description of a tricky problem! I’m thinking a lot lately about how to get out of the middle in teaching relationships — both as the teacher (how much direction is enough?) and as the student (how can I find my own sovereignty with respect and love for my teachers?).
I have a sneaking suspicion that being really in my own sovereignty, with a giant helping of compassion on the side, might solve all of those problems at once…
I have always been gifted and I pick up on things very quickly and have often impressed teachers with how quickly I pick up the new material. The problem with this is that often find that my ability to skip through the beginner stuff at record time leaves me sitting right in the middle.
I have had a particularly hard time getting out of the middle when that’s my starting point. The best thing I have found to do so far is to give myself permission to be a beginner. I have tried to focus on the beginner experience even if my tendency is to breeze through that part.
I am curious, though, if anyone else has had this particular issue and what they have done to address it.
Havi,
Thanks for posting this. Feels like it was written exactly for me, and Shiva Nata has been the most potent messenger that this is where I am.
Cannot wait for more posts unravelling this, and feeling it out for myself. It’s so nice to be playing with an idea and then see a post like this – a post that sort of names and outlines exactly what I’ve been grappling with.
xoxox
Jessica
Very interesting. I think this concept applies to all of our relationships— so many people tend to get stuck in the middle of their relationships with food, with health, with their jobs, and with the people they love. And they wake up one day and wonder what happened to them.
All my life I’ve struggled with this notion of the middle (and my often manic desire not to be in it). For me, it has always represented mediocrity, so I have never been comfortable there. But your post has been an important revelation for me— escaping the middle isn’t about being better then everyone else, it’s about being my best self, and being conscious of it every moment.
Nice post. Thanks, Havi.
.-= Christy Brennand´s last post … Element Bars— build your own energy bar =-.
This was me with swing dancing. And is me with music (to a certain extent). Need to think about this some more.
.-= Monique Rio´s last post … Weekly Check-in- Lots of Heat and Working and Reading =-.
@Bullwinkle – Hi sweetie. For me, when it comes to the (hugely important) rest thing, I look to yoga as well. Specifically:
It’s again the beginners and the advanced practitioners who both prioritize rest and who take it. Someone coming to a yoga class for the first time will totally take the teacher up on that offer to “take a child’s pose when you need it”.
And someone with an advanced practice already has enough body-awareness and self-awareness and sovereignty to know when they’re tired and to create a conscious, intentional pause.
The beginners love shavasana too, because they’re exhausted. And in an advanced practice you love shavasana because that’s what you’ve been building up to the whole time.
So in yoga, the middle is where people scorn rest, and don’t take it seriously.
If, though, in your own experience, there has been safety and resting in the middle (or other useful qualities), those are things you’re going to want to take with you. Or to build into an advanced practice, whatever form that might end up taking.
You might even decide that part of the *definition* of an advanced practice is going to be that rest always gets to be part of having a conscious relationship to things …
Hope that’s useful. If not, ignore it. Hug to you!
@Christy – oh yes, beautiful point. It’s definitely not about being better than other people. That’s such a good and important thing to remember. Thank you.
@jessie – yes! Generally speaking, we do tend to think we’re in the middle when we’re not. That’s why nothing needs to be done to leave it, just the realization that it’s not your place. Because the realization makes it a conscious process, which is what bumps you out of it anyway. Does that make sense?
@inge – what a perfect way of putting it. “Maybe to be advanced is to know that you can or will always be a beginner or experimenter in new aspects of what you already know.” YES YES YES
🙂
Oh Havi, this post breaks my heart with it’s truthsaying. I may just have to print it out and read it daily for a month or two.
And then I wonder: can you skip or shorten the middle, or is it a necessary stage of growth?
This is EPIC. I just wrote the decision sentences on a post-it and put it on my laptop.
.-= Catherine Cantieri, Sorted´s last post … Sorting out a new job =-.
I just had this epiphany another day that building up my own business is my practice. I was not quite sure what it meant, but after reading this I get it. It is about embracing the beginners mind and remembering that it is the place to be. That really takes of a lot of pressure.
.-= Mari´s last post … Piecing it together and why I love it =-.
great post. It certainly is not restricted to yoga. I’m into programming and am able to relate to every word you’ve said. You can see a certain anxiety in beginners and core practitioners but there is a whole bunch that goes about it ‘in the middle’. Nicely put. Thanks for sharing.
.-= satya´s last post … My interactions at Devcamp chennai =-.
This made me think…definitely a new concept for me. Maybe there is some middle that I need to be stepping out of?
Wow – brain is trying to engage I want to sit with this before I comment, but that must wait until after work. Thanks for the ideas to ponder.
Wow Havi… I’m both in awe at the simplicity and cut-to-the-core-ness of this, and happy to have read it today. I’ve been in a place of middle in some parts of my life, where in others I’m a beginner and others I’m more advanced. But now I’ve got a new lens to start looking at my actions and my perceptions.
You, the genius, me the student.
Nathalie
.-= Nathalie Lussier´s last post … The King and Queen of Fruits- Durian and Mangosteen =-.
This is a rather timely post in that, not even an hour ago, I was sitting at my desk wishing I was just about anywhere else.
For me the hardest part of getting out of the middle is that the middle is safe. Sure, it’s a little boring … ok, mostly boring … but in the middle I have a job, and a steady paycheck and a way to pay the rent to stay in my apartment and out of my parent’s basement.
But the middle is also pretty much devoid of the extraordinary too. And that’s what I really want. Excitement and adventure and to be extraordinary. It’s the chaos of the getting out of the middle I’m having issues dealing with.
A sunglasses shaped monster just jumped on my face to keep me from reading this. Am now going to curl up in a fetal position and think about this very thing that I just realized yesterday that I was dealing with. It is so scary to find what one is processing to be the topic of conversation. Can’t talk more must process.
Omg, you put into exact words what I’ve been thinking lately. I’ve been trying to tone down the infos so that I can feel better what I can do myself. There’s a point when you have to do that in order to keep moving forward.
Thank you!!!
A perfect post of remarkable depth made insanely accessible. This thinking and your writing further on it will change lives. And I’m *not* talking about yoga class. (Well, sure, in class, too, but –)
@Sheridan has an interesting dilemma, and your lovely writing makes me super aware of the gap between knowing/saying and DOING (making that pivot toward a self-challenge), so I look forward to your continued deep thinking on this idea.
Gratefully yours,
~GirlPie
(And hey, hi, how the hell are you?!)
.-= TheGirlPie´s last post … TheGirlPie- @AmberCadabra Done! I remember that photo- what gall! What nerve! What a good choice of cutie to steal! =-.
Thank you for this writing, my only wish is that I had seen this one day earlier. I am currently searching for work, striving to put the pieces of a career path together. This writing has helped me realize I have allowed that process to be defined by this middle of mine. I may even have blown-off a wonderful job opportunity by believing I am in the middle and unable to provide an organization with the leadership and guidance it’s seeking. This writing has helped me realize, actually yes I am capable of advanced work in my field it’s a matter of doing it my way. I am qualified, however I may not fit. I just hope I get an opportunity to say this to that organization in the second round of interviews!
This post (and people’s comments, too) is kind of blowing my mind. It’s so applicable, to so much. I love how everything seems to connect back to sovereignty…which is *the* biggest lesson of my life.
Thanks for a truly brilliant post.
.-= Dawn´s last post … All the Monsters Have Hearts =-.
This post is not actually about yoga.
No kidding.
If you haven’t started writing it already, I’m pretty sure this is your book.
Get crackin’, sister.
.-= communicatrix´s last post … Show me yer rig!- Gmail tags edition =-.
Thanks Havi for talking about why being in the middle sucks.
Something I had read long time back has always stuck with me…
“Knowing a little bit of karate is a very dangerous thing.”
If you don’t know karate you will take flight.
If you are black belt, you will fight.
But if you know just a little bit, you get creamed.
The beginner knows not much.
The middle* knows a bit but thinks he knows much.
But only when you realize that you don’t know do you get past the middle.
“I know that I don’t know.” – Socrates.
* Knowing very little, but knowing that you know very little is not the middle imho.
As you say – “Deciding” to get out of the middle zone is awesome. But realizing that you’re stuck in the middle is very rare. Very rare.
And thats why, having awesome heroes helps. You know that you don’t know — if your heroes are kick-ass.
So thank you for being a kick-ass hero for us Havi.
.-= Ankesh Kothari´s last post … TEDxMumbai – A Smashing Hit =-.
Amen and hallelulah, hell yes, Havi, @communicatrix is right, this book is soooo needed.
But then, you know that, duh. Where is the pre-order page?
And I so hope the back jacket copy includes this perfect quote/memory from @Ankesh: Knowing a little bit of karate is a very dangerous thing.” Exactly.
Your future book buyer,
~GirlPie
“…the middle is filled with people looking outward to find out what more biggified people do, instead of inward to find out what is theirs.”
Comes at a good time, thanks Havi! Looking forward to the caveats, disclaimers, and ways to apply 😉
@Christy – your comment about how the middle applies to relationships got me pondering. I’m thinking that another sign of middleness could be boredom. When I’m bored with anything in life, where am I expecting other people to fix it? Where do I need to engage?
I’ve allowed myself to stay stuck in the middle for way too long. It was easy and it gave me permission to believe all of the excuses that I was making to myself.
Now, it is time for me to choose to get out of the middle. I’ve actually been working on it all week and it is terrifying, but so good!
“But you still see it. It’s the people who want you to challenge them instead of finding new ways to challenge themselves. Or it’s the people who want you to tone it down, instead of giving themselves permission to do less. ”
Some of my clients struggle with this: the people who get a little mad when they ask, “What is my purpose?” and I say, “What do you want?”
Getting out of the middle is a willingness to choose your experience, and a willingness to explore, in detail, the experience you’re having.
I wouldn’t call that a challenge. Maybe I’d call that love. But maybe that’s just semantics.
Love you Havi,looking forward to Shiva-Nauta-ing on Friday.
.-= Bridget´s last post … What I learned about my business through the cupcakery =-.
Hmm. When it comes to physical stuff like yoga or anything taught via books, DVDs, or tapes; I can see why people get tripped up by The Middle, myself included. Most start with disclaimers and stress accuracy to avoid injury.
Fear of injuring myself, that’d be the main stumbling block. As for yoga, I still consider myself a beginner, and the class you described sounds awesome.
The Middle lurks in other areas of my life though. Wherever there is a lack of clarity, The Middle seeps in. Perhaps clarity isn’t what’s needed to get out of it, however, but rather, as you said, a conscious engagement with one’s choices. A willingness to experiment, which means being willing to gather knowledge from successes *and* failures.
Much to ponder. I look forward to reading more about this.
.-= claire´s last post … Whod like some real mail A little giveaway to perk you up =-.
Thanks for this post, Havi. It actually connects for me with a lesson I’ve been learning over the last years. In the process of claiming my own adulthood and independence – and now with adolescent children of my own who are groping towards adulthood, I’ve had to learn that adulthood isn’t something that you’re given for being a good enough child, it’s something that you must claim for yourself.
It’s not possible for someone else to give you independence. If you don’t claim it for yourself, it’s not truly independence – or freedom – it’s only being cut loose.
@Heather – that’s a great distinction, between independence and being cut loose. Thank you!
.-= Cindy Morefield´s last post … new paintings- reservoir 1-6 =-.
Havi, this really is the heart of your new book, yes?
Sovereignty is taking responsibility for the quality of your life. Being in the middle is part of learning how middle-ness shapes your experience. Once the lesson is learned, the exit sign flashes clearly and invitingly. Until the next time, the next lesson… 🙂
Thanks for a truly brilliant post.
Love, Hiro
Havi…
Your wisdom is gobsmacking!!!
And oh girl… what a way with words!
I most MOST enjoy this:
“The middle is where you stay until you decide to be conscious.”
so thrilled to have discovered YOU… THANKS!
~MK
.-= Mary K Weinhagen´s last post … Raising a Superhero =-.
I’m very much in the middle, trouble is I’m not sure what I’m in the middle of…everything? Nothing? If I can figure that out… How can I get out??
.-= Samantha´s last post … Wish Wednesday =-.
Man oh man. I would love to hear more about what you have to say on this.
I’m new around here and am very much enjoying it – just had to say it. Thank you.
.-= Cassandra´s last post … My terribly messy work space =-.
@Monique – OMG – Small world syndrome strikes again! It’s Katrina from Cyngabar once upon a few years ago. How kyool that you are blogging too!
@Havi – Thank you so much for this post! Once again, the Universe gives exactly what is needed – you just have to listen for it. *goes to write addition to blog post on listening*
There are so many places I’m feeling in the middle about. This post gives me not only tips, but hope as well.
Yay! 😀 Pirate Queen rules! 😀
.-= Birdy Diamond´s last post … Writing Wednesday – Verbhounds Edition =-.
I think I just recently stepped right out of the middle, and my monsters have been inviting me (very strongly) to return to the middle, and the thought of going back to the middle makes me want to cry.
Today I’ve been processing ways I can choose to stay out of the middle. But I haven’t figured out yet if those ways actually kind of take me back to the middle, or if those ways teach me to act differently so I can stay OUT of the middle. Yea, I think it’s that last one. Ahhh,..
This was an incredible post Havi, thanks!
Wow, Havi… this has resonated on so many levels with me. Kind of like those Shiva Nata ephiphanies, it’s at once stunningly new and yet something I feel I’ve always known… but didn’t know I knew! Thank you for putting your particularly powerful brand of wisdom out there.
PS Lurker mouse no more – I am officially a commenter mouse now 🙂
Just spent an afternoon with a friend trying to talk about this. Wow. This post is terrific.
Wunderbar post Havi!
.-= Amy Martin´s last post … Thai Graphic Design And The Romance Of Mister Donut =-.
I would not be presently escaping from the middle if not for your gifts to your blog readers.
Thanks for more than I can articulate. You rock.