Or, what to do when you’re in a funk and you can’t make yourself do anything “productive” and you just wanna hang it all up and head for the coast but you’re scared that this will mean the end.
I’m drinking coffee and reading Stephen King. The windows are open, I’m listening to crickets and the smell of smell of fresh cut grass fills the kitchen. The yumminess of this takes me back to a time when I had no responsibilities and life felt pretty easy. I take a beat and breathe it in. This doesn’t magically erase my heavy heart or ease the pinch in my shoulders, but it helps.
I’m still processing the loss of our Wonder Dog. And there are other changes too but I don’t want to bore you with my Russian Spammer Saga, or whine on about the website stuff…like how having more traffic brings unfriendly peeps. Major learning curve, new edges, new stresses.
Never mind that. I’m busy reading Stephen King! And drinking coffee! And smelling grass! And Winston is everywhere and nowhere 🙁
One of the dishes we get served on this journey is called Stuff Is Always Changing.
And I kinda hate it. And yet, it keeps getting served.
People and things change. Evolve. Leave. Move on. Die. Things we cherish fall away: Ideas, beliefs, cares, preferences, likes, loves, methods, hobbies. People we love don’t love us back. People we don’t do.
And I don’t know about you but for me, this can be heavy, disorienting.
And if we aren’t careful, that heaviness and the disorientation slips in and we look around and suddenly we don’t recognize our lives. Which is a lot like saying you don’t recognize yourself.
Acclimating to the new is never easy. Fear is often riding shotgun while the annoyingly repetitive What If song plays in our head.
What if?
What if?
What if?
It’s hard to be present with all that what-iffing…
This is why we check out sometimes.
This is why we stall.
All that change. All that fear. All those What Ifs.
And this is why we want things to stay the same too. We want the people to stay and the things to remain unchanged. Even when we don’t really really like the status quo, we’d rather not rock that boat.
Because it’s easier to stay in the shit we know than risk the shit we don’t.
Just keep plugging away at it, hoping. Keep getting together with people who make our hearts go MEH. Continue to work where it’s not a right fit. Yes-ing the stuff we should be no-ing. Pushing on with it to avoid the boredom.
But who wants to have “she stayed in the shit she knew” on their tombstone?
We might be scared of change, but we definitely don’t want to die here, do we?
This story about suffering and upset has been on repeat since we were little kids: This is bad. Get rid of it. This is hard. Change the channel. Do something or you’re gonna be in trouble.
If you listen to that story like it’s real, you’ll be tempted to reach for something, anything to save you. Just this morning a client was saying to me: I just need to figure this out. Maybe if I practice more, work on it a bit more. Maybe I need to meditate twice a day? Give up alcohol?
I listened while she rambled on, concocting her plan to save her from feeling. I stopped her when she got to the part about how she is shit and her life is shit and basically, it’s all shit.
I stopped her there.
I think you’ve planned enough, I said. Maybe what you need is to stop planning. Just screw off for a while. Let yourself off the hook. Do whatever you want. Let go.
Let yourself off the hook. Do whatever you want. Let go.
The truth is: Sometimes life just feels hard. Period.
Things change. We lose people. Stuff comes to an end. We can’t prevent it. We can’t help it. No amount of planning will make it stop.
The last thing we need is to be hard on ourselves about our feelings.
Or blame ourselves for what’s happening.
Planning can’t save you but this just might: Let yourself off the hook. Do whatever you want. Let go.
The first principle in almost any heart-centered teaching is KINDNESS.
Practice kindness toward yourself.
Be kind and gentle.
This is a journey of you being awakened. Sometimes you will notice: Things are feeling tight. I’m unhappy. I’m sad. I’m bored. I don’t like this. This is really hard. I need help. I feel alone. I don’t want to do this anymore.
Notice it all and be gentle. Gentle! Ask better questions like, how can I help myself here? Make the necessary changes. Adjust.
Things change. People leave. Stuff falls away. We don’t have to like it but what if we rolled with the changes? Let ourselves off the hook. Do whatever we wanted for a while. Just let go.
Freaking out is understandable. We all do it. But can we be gentle? Can we be kind to ourselves now? Can we let the soft animal of our bodies love what they love (as Mary Oliver would say)?
Because sometimes, when you find yourself in a funk and you can’t make yourself do anything productive, there’s a tiny whisper asking to be heard.
The message is a gentle one:
Let yourself off the hook. Do whatever you want. Let go.
Trust in this time.
Make space for what’s trying to breathe itself into your awareness. Listen to that.
Everything changes. This terrible time? It will too.
xo
