... is time I don't have, and at present, am too possessive, and too young, to spare.
Deep listening is being in the midst of things, and being asked to have patience and to listen. I say to myself, often, but can't you see... we have no time? So much is going on around us. Did you have to pick today of all days to tell me this? Today is inconvenient. It simply does not work for me.
We push ourselves, which is a way to say I push myself and feel less lonely about it. I'm trying to catch the things still in the air, and orient my words in such a way as to wreak no more havoc. The bottom line of me is,
I'm trying.
I try to send myself towards a dozen directions, so much so that even the AI told me to calm the f--d down. You're doing enough. Is it a curse of women to feel like we aren't? I was talking about this to someone in my yoga class just the other day. The shame and the guilt of needing to take time.
By which I don't mean to say. I know overdrive and burnout are very real issues of our time both among women, and among men. But being as I am, I'm only able of speaking from a female perspective.
Note, I say female and not feminine.
I am acutely aware that, when nourished and no-rushed, the healthy feminine aspect of my self knows how and when to take rest. And allows herself. If only I could remember to allow myself also.
It's only recently that I've started looking at them like messages, not aches. To be fair, mostly, I just used to look at them as inconveniences. This bellyaching is encumbering me now. I need to be somewhere. I need to get the shopping done. What do you mean you're weak and unsteady on your feet? We need to clean the house. We need, before we die, to strive.
It's default to think "how can we patch this one just enough to get through whatever immediate task at hand?". The rider, always, we'll look at it in more depth later.
But I started rephrasing lately. Instead of it being me, myself, and I, what if it's my friend? My mom? My lover? It's an age-old trick, might even seem like a hat trick, but at the end of the day, it ain't yet broke.
I don't have time to listen to my aches and anxieties,
versus
I don't have time to listen to you open up and share your deepest-felt emotions. I'm sorry, I'm busy. I need to clean the house. I don't have the time for your vulnerability and trust.
In an age where we're constantly extolling the benefits of communication and honesty, what we wouldn't give for our partners and our people to open up to us. To trust us with their vulnerabilities and their hurt inner childrren, rather than soft-lock us through contempt, anger and distance...
So then, why is it so difficult to hold the same space for ourselves?
What if our bodies through exhaustion, aches, ulcers, anxiety, diarrhea, nausea, migraines, muscle spasms, and sorrow, is trying to open up to us and show us vulnerability? What if it's a desperate cry of "this hurts, help me get better"? You wouldn't ignore it from a friend, why ignore it from your own body?
Because you have stuff to do. I know. I'm finishing this write-up, having lunch, downing some tea, and trying to get ready to be out the door in twenty minutes. I'm far from where I want to be on this journey.
But I am asking. I am acknowledging that something is trying to be communicated to me. Now, I can listen or keep seeing the little red dot over the inbox. 'Cause it won't go away until I click on it and see what it has to say.
I'm far from where I wished to be, yet marginally closer than I was last year. And that is progress. :)
