Lesson 2: Wu wei

In this lesson, allow me to share a bit about how I figured out how to allow. Along the way, we'll cover 'sitting behind ourself,' right and left brain theories, and the Daoist concept of Wu Wei.

My story begins in an Ortho-Bionomy bodywork class. My two hands were on my classmates cheekbones and I could feel some slight movements. My teacher, a fantastic Santa Fe bodyworker called Ursula Hofer, saw me working and came over and said, “Well aren’t you a fish in water.” Then she suggested, “Now sit behind yourself.” 

Wow. My fingers just lit up! They’d been subtly dancing, processing my classmate’s cheekbones. It was like they broke out into a rhumba. The processing, which had been at a two, suddenly shot up to a ten. Why would my energetic attitude affect my client’s processing? It definitely doesn’t make sense from a materialist perspective, but nobody had answers, so I just kept practicing. 

Next, I realized that ‘sit behind yourself’ wasn’t just an Ortho-Bionomy trick. I once had the great good fortune to visit with Orland Bishop. He’s the founder of ShadeTree Multicultural Foundation in Los Angeles and when he was five years old he realized that holding his energetic body behind himself just a little bit seemed to calm the people around him and he resolved to stay in that attitude all the time. Mr. Bishop told me that, in his lineage there is an understanding that ‘sitting behind yourself’ as he said, ‘allows the ancestors’ wisdom to come through.’

Then I discovered psychiatrist Iaian McGilchrist's treatises on the divided brain, The Master and His Emissary and Ways of Attending. McGilchrist believes that our brain developed in response to our most basic needs: To defend ourselves and to eat. Constantly attuned to our environment, the right brain perceives what is emerging while the left brain creates tools and maps that streamline that information. In other words, the right brain perceives reality—it’s the Master—while the left brain, its Emissary, runs around with hammers looking for nails. 

Now, this whole right brain/left brain simplification that I've done isn't really fair. It's far more complex than that. But I find it helpful to categorize things this way, so please bear with my streamlining. 

So I started thinking about the right brain being attuned to the environment. Like when you go into the forest and can feel the living world all around you. You're listening. You're aware. You might be scanning for danger, but you don't necessarily have to be nervous. Really, you're just alert; you're sensing kinesthetically; your peripheral vision is turned on. And then I had a eureka moment. When your peripheral vision is turned on, that's what it feels like to ‘sit behind yourself.’ 

So I started equating sitting behind yourself and allowing with right brain activation. And focusing or attending with left brain activation. My colleague, Spring Chen, who wrote The Resonance Code, points out that this concurrent left-brain/right-brain engagement is what ancient Chinese Daoists are pointing to when they talk about Wu Wei, which can be translated to as simultaneous doing and non-doing and which leads to “effortless action.” 

I find it helpful to think about Resonant Attention this way, but I don't know that I can claim it to be Wu Wei. I do know that simultaneous attending and allowing do turn on effortless action in the form of healing, though. That I see every day and I'm so excited to share it with you.

I hope this helps you to understand Allowing. In the next section, I'll tell you another story about allowing and, especially, surrender. Join me there.