Meeting Myself Where I Am – Lesson 2

Patterns and habits rule when I’m not living consciously. That tends to play out with me trying to get everything done so that I can then take time out to rest, but only when everything is done. It’s funny just to write that out. When is everything ever done?

With my stubbornness fully intact, I attempt the impossible anyway:

• Empty my email inbox – my brain jumbles the words of each sentence, remembering only the last word I read and dropping the previous ones out of the sentence, tripling the amount of time it takes to read and comprehend each email
• Get work projects done (web site development) – requests that require mental gymnastics to decipher…wow, was I that smart that I could whip through this work before?
• Grocery shopping – what’s with all the choices on the shelves for each item? So overwhelming!
• Take the dogs for a walk – stop and rest every 20 yards
• Cook a meal – I’d rather just nibble on a bowl of chips and sip on wine

Somewhere inside me there is a sigh of relief as I surrender to what I need in the moment, rest.  I lay back down on the couch and allow my eyes to wander slowly from one scene the the next.  I look out the sliding door at the rocks and trees in the backyard.  It’s beautiful outside.  I stare at the ceiling with a blank mind.  I look over at the dogs, one sleeping on the ‘dog’s chair’ the other at my feet on the couch.  They exude peace, love and acceptance.  I focus back on my self.  As I lie motionless and empty minded, I feel surprisingly good.  I don’t experience the  fatigue or pain. There is  just quiet, and it feels really good.

“If I feel good,” I say to myself, “then I should get up and do something…be productive.”  I roll off the couch and attempt to get something done, anything.  The fatigue hits me like a massive cloud of sodden cotton balls, my limbs feel heavy and my brain goes into slow motion. Ugh!  I drop myself back onto the couch.  In a few minutes I feel good again.

This is familiar somehow.  I drift outside of myself and contemplate.  It makes it’s way forward from the seemingly inaccessible recesses of my memories, my training on how to coach people….”meet the person where they are in the moment.”

There is something about being ‘gotten’, being listened to without judgement, that validates us.  To share with another person what we are dealing with and have them really listen, is a golden moment.  It is an acknowledgment and an honoring.

The pieces fall together and I have the visceral experience of being ‘gotten’ by myself.  Where I am is fatigued, not well.  When I meet myself there and honor it, I simply lie on the couch.  I feel good, I feel complete and whole.  As soon as I begin to get busy with doing things, no matter how simple, I experience the gap between what my body is capable of and what I am demanding or expecting my body to do.  In that gap is suffering.

I become aware of how I have not met myself where I am at, ever.  In the past I have barreled through, stepped over, forced my way to DO what I felt should be done, rather than just be with myself exactly where I am, with no apologies necessary.

Each day I have this opportunity to meet myself where I am, to honor my body and my mind in the quiet it has been yearning for.  This is a new experience for me.  I practice it repeatedly.  The practice evolves and transforms and I learn to appreciate what it feels like to honor myself in this small way.  I’m surprised by how nourishing an experience it is and I feel the roots of my Self grow a little deeper.

Just as well and just in time, as the next lesson will sorely try my grounding.