Patterns

I had to instruct myself, embarrassingly, in the voice I might use for an overtired child - in the voice I remember my mother using in fact - wow, ok, yes, I have known this overtired, overstimulated state since my body was cabbage-sized.*

No email for at least 24 hours, better 48. Minimal texting only if necessary. Absolutely no spreadsheets, no strategizing. No budgeting, no money talk. No researching, no planning. There is nothing that cannot wait for at least two days (except the thing over which you have no control, for which you can only make your own versions of offering, of prayer, of plea.) Let your people know, especially anyone you live with, what topics you have tabled for now. Make an agreement to come back to anything pressing. Face the oak tree until your eyes actually register details of bark and leaves. Listen to the birds. Now that your eyes are online, watch them too. Water the plants and have some good conversations about their growth, the leaves they've lost, whether they like their new spot / pot, and so on. Sleep. Read. Think, sure, fine - but not too hard; ask the part of your mind that likes to run - & will keep on until you trip or collapse - to take a pause, you need it to be ready when these hours are up. Remember that "do nothing" days** were once a thing - a thing you attempted to do and yes, mostly failed, but you got some good quiet in the attempts. You already know how to work hard. You already know you can trust yourself to pick something back up later if it's important. And you know it will be easier for having had a break. Yes, ok, you can write a thank you note, but only as the impulse of genuine gratitude arises. Any subtle whiff of obligation and it must wait along with everything else. And since you're feeling grateful, by the way, thank your body for holding you up, for carrying you through all the difficult days so far, for vibrating with the effort of processing all it encounters. Thank your mind for all its exertions. Thank your heart for keeping on of its own accord, steady and consistent, modeling rest between every single beat.*** There are kinds of exhaustion that are or become akin to despair. You know this well. You've learned to catch them even though you don't, always. This time, you do.

I have encountered this pattern countless times - the one where I think I can keep going, or should, or would if only I were somehow more capable. I’ve written about it many times too. It is certain at this point that it will re-cycle in some form, reinforced by a culture in which any deviation from continuous, ever-expanding productivity is a failure. Sometimes when I manage to avoid the exhaustion part, or carried by a hearty wind of acceptance, grace, and the minimum effort necessary, I can imagine the pattern is complete, no longer necessary, no longer running on auto to - ironically - save energy. And many times I reflect on what's different when I find myself in exhaustion again; how am I different this time? What am I still learning? This time, I see more clearly another pattern that is also here, the long practice in grace and compassion, and of not making myself wrong. I see a space of self-trust carved over a lifetime; that even though I can sometimes unconsciously and sometimes choice-fully keep going well past when it is wise for me to pause, I also reliably treat myself well through my arc to chosen or inescapable rest. I know myself well, and many of my patterns I know well too. None of this is random. Every cycle following its purpose even when it has outgrown it's origin. Every part of me and of the cycle with it’s own dignity, no amount of restoration ever needing to be earned or justified. Self-respect, maybe, is what this is called.

*one of my mother's terms of endearment was mon petite chou; literally, my little cabbage.

**gratitude to an old friend Kylie, whom I have not been in touch with in far too long

***Thank you Angeles Arrien, from her book The Four-Fold Way - “But your heart muscle goes on working for as long as you live. It does not get tired, because there is a phase of rest built into every single heartbeat.”