Let yourself off the hook

Mar 03, 2023

The first time I heard this expression, which for my Brazilian ears was new, it made me pause, laugh and have a full-body-hell-yeah reaction. As a language nerd that I am, I researched its origin and found out that the expression dates to around the mid-1800s, although it is possible it was used as early as the 1700s. The saying can be found in the 1864 novel by Anthony Trollope titled The Small House at Allington. He writes: “Poor Caudle…he’s hooked, and he’ll never get himself off the hook again.” As you might have guessed, the phrase used in this way comes from the fishing world. It may be a reference to the idea of a fish, trapped without any options, freeing itself from the hook at the end of a fishing pole to avoid being caught. Or, it may actually be in reference to the worm used as bait getting itself loose off the hook and avoiding being eaten by a fish. The body reaction that I felt when I first heard this and honestly I still do, is both a reaction of release and permission. As if an adult entered the room and said: Okay, you can rest now.

One of the invitations I often offer when I start a guided contemplative practice is exactly that: Can you give yourself the permission to let yourself off the hook? Just for now, just for this practice, for this breath. As if you trust the ground beneath you enough to let your body melt without collapsing, allowing your muscles to relax, softening the belly, the eyes, the whole face, the legs. The gesture of a hand moving from a tight fist into an open palm offering up the grip comes to my mind. Slowly the body begins to release some of its contractions and shifts into a more receptive and open presence. Sometimes this change can be an odd or have a daunting sensation, it makes us realize how much of the time, the day, the week we spend inside contraction and tension. One way we keep ourselves on the hook, for example, is by overthinking which, of course, gets enhanced by our current socio economic political circumstances. More specifically, excessive thinking, amongst others, can be a response to a childhood where we were criticized a lot and had to analyze everything we did in order to feel accepted by our caretakers. The excessive thinking in this context is a way to soothe, control, organize ourselves internally. It doesn’t look like it but we work really hard on a mental level and we leave our bodies behind. This workout creates a lot of tightness, contraction and a blurry vision as if we are on a hook, swimming in place.

One of the misunderstandings about Meditation is the idea that we’ll sit to empty our minds which is obviously impossible. In the case of Mindfulness Meditation, I like to think we sit to soften our bodies enough to be so spacious that the thoughts can be there but they are not occupying our whole internal space. We give some room to notice, witness, breathe and rest. The spaciousness that I often talk about here is nothing other than this capacity to be with all that we carry within in a roomy way. It’s a paradoxical fact that by focusing our attention on one specific anchor, like the breath or a part of the body, the mind feels more spacious. Watching the breath trains us to watch the mind to observe the flow instead of reacting to it. We are not so engulfed by excessive thinking. But this is not an ad on how great meditation is and its benefits. My point is when there’s tightness and contraction in our bodies most likely our thinking mind is working too hard. As with any other form of defense or strategy to self soothe, we want to gently look into the ways we stay in this repetition and how we can get some “gratification” from overthinking rather than going down the body to actually feel the thing we are trying to avoid, control or protect ourselves from by thinking about it, over and over.

David Hawkins, in his book Letting Go, says:“When letting go, ignore all thoughts. Focus on the feeling itself, not on the thoughts. Thoughts are endless and self-reinforcing, and they only breed more thoughts. Thoughts are merely rationalizations of the mind to try and explain the presence of the feeling. The real reason for the feeling is the accumulated pressure behind the feeling that is forcing it to come up in the moment. The thoughts or external events are only an excuse made up by the mind.”

It seems to me that so much of our collective and individual struggles and challenges keep pointing us back to the body. To a relearning on how to be with it, how to soften it, how to make room. How to trust it. The hooks are always going to be there and sometimes we are the fish or the worm but at other times we can be the whole ocean.

With love,

Mari