When I was a young performer, I had the privilege of touring with a seasoned director for several years named Claude Kipnis.  When I encountered difficulty in performing a role he growled, “Don’t get stuck in your limitations, turn your liabilities into assets!”  I had no idea what he was talking about, since at the time I didn’t realize that the very reasons I was having difficulty was my inability to perceive what those liabilities were.  “Don’t be afraid to go to the edge!’ he would urge, “It’s only then that you will see the possibilities.” Claude is long dead, but his words ring for me each time I feel I’ve come to a wall in my development.

The list of my discovery of my “liabilities” would take up much more than this newsletter.  But the process of understanding my personal constraints and how to use them has been rich indeed.

Contemporary biologists are exploring how constraints, either molecular, environmental or other, allow different possibilities to emerge in life forms.  I don’t pretend to understand much of it, but one of the things they say differentiates living forms from say, snowflakes, is function and intention. Ursula Goodenough, a biologist from Washington University, says, “Life is different from non-life because it generates selves with teleodynamic (self organizing – my note) constraints, molecular arrangements that are for something, have a purpose, point to goals that, if achieved, allow the self to make the crucial natural-selection cut.”

A snowflake organizes itself around a set of constraints as well, but will always be a snowflake.  It will never want to get bigger, prettier, more powerful.  It will never want to reproduce.  Each one of us has a sense of purpose even if sometimes we don’t know what it is. We have obvious constraints – our physical structure, gravity, the bag of skin that encloses our organs.  But what are our invisible constraints?  Hidden tensions, old stories, unhealed injuries, education – liabilities that psychologist Stanley Kelemen once called, “…insults to form.”  I heard recently that they are growing watermelons in square molds to make them more stackable.  Those watermelons are making the best of their situation and still being as watermelon as they can.  What box are we stuck in?

I eventually learned from Claude that my overly expressive face, while a liability for dance, was excellent for slapstick comedy. He taught me that my fear of imperfection made for a perfect clown character, since of course, I always failed at being perfect, and a good clown ALWAYS fails.  Because of that, I also learned to risk standing on the edge of looking ridiculous, of bombing on stage.  That place, looking out at the abyss of the unknown, is where real possibilities for transformation take place.  Water molecules may not get nervous as they heat up and transition to steam.  But a fledgling bird needs to stand on the edge of that nest and wish to fly before it’s truly a bird.

Awareness Through Movement® can help you discover not only how to understand your personal constraints and how to turn them into assets, but how to use them to move beyond your perceived edge with elegance and ease. Like the bird suddenly spreading its wings, you’ll find you had the resources all along to become your true self.