I created a draft for this back in September when I first posted about my “Season of Rest.” I had the idea that it would be a series all about what I learned about myself as I took time to slow down, to savor life. You can read the words I wrote in that initial draft:
What my days look like in rest.
I am here to tell you: I have no idea.
I anticipated resting this fall after stepping back from a lot of activities. In my mind, I had this “master plan” that I would take a month or two, figure life out, and then be back in the swing of things and in a good routine that allowed for exercise and a full time job and meaningful time spent with my husband and time to be creative and to write… and as you can see I just wrote a list of impossible nonsense.
I am not super woman. I never will be.
And you cannot rush rest.
I have learned this slowly: that rest comes with time and a continual kindness to self. I’m not very good at being kind to myself. I tend toward the classic definition of the creative personality: someone who thinks in dreams and enjoys quiet time; but I am also somehow a Type-A personality: driven and rigid and impatient.
The dynamic creates a subtle internal war: be more, do more, more creatively, and with more showmanship. I am, as always, my own worst enemy. I fear failure, so I push harder. I shame myself, and then, of course, feel more shame.
I know this about myself, and I still push. I was chiding myself for not exercising this last week, not having made time for it the same week I started a new job. So I guilt-ed myself into going to yoga (please, laugh at the irony of that statement. I am, in retrospect). I needed to get up and move, to do anything but sit at a desk. I recently started going to the studio down the street from my apartment, and this particular evening I headed into a beginner’s class, thinking I might as well start at square one.
The teacher was patient and kind, helping us get into basic poses and explaining the foundations of each one methodically. I, impatient, wanted to “just do yoga.” No one had ever taken the time to do fundamentals with me before, and while I knew deep down it was good for me (my inner self so often has a better understanding of the world), I wanted to go and move and do and not stand and listen. So I attempted patience: I watched and moved slowly, as the teacher instructed. And when we got to the end of the class, in our last major pose before the ending, the shavasana, she made sure to tell us that if we needed to come out of the pose before she instructed us to, that we should listen to our bodies and do so. She mentioned that one of the first tenets of yoga was “do no harm to self,” also called ahimsa. She meant literally – we are not to do any pose that would harm our bodies – but throughout the class she emphasized the importance of taking our yoga practice “off the mat”: of taking the idea of discernment and mindfulness into our everyday lives.
I think she also meant for us to take ahimsa with us, too. To be kinder to ourselves as we go about life. As we fail and make hard decisions and start new adventures.
So I’m trying. I’m trying to be kinder to myself, but it’s hard. It takes time to create a routine, and being kind to oneself might be the hardest routine for us to begin (although I’m still often stuck on the flossing scale of the Adult Routine Hierarchy. Why are the good-for-you-things so hard?).
Another slow lesson: routine comes with repetition, through trial by fire. Even the routine of self-kindness. A person cannot retreat for a week, recreate life, and re-emerge doing everything right all the time. It does not happen that way. Life does not happen that way.
You have to give it time and space and the undivided attention it needs.
So this is what I am learning in my “Season of Rest” – to give myself grace and to love the process as much as the end result.
Will you join me?
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In case, like me, you always want to read more, here are some links about rest, shame, and routine:
The Hard Things are Worth It by Carolyn Kopprasch at Buffer
On Thing My Soul is Begging Me to Do by Emily Freeman at Chatting at the Sky
Ahimsa for Yourself by Connie L. Habash at Awakening Self
The book Daring Greatly
5 Scientific Ways to Build Habits that Stick by Gregory Ciotti at 99U
Beautiful post!! I am very similar to you – push too hard, do it all, critical of myself if I make mistakes along the way. It’s a hard routine to get out of! I didn’t even realize I was doing it until I did a bit of soul-searching of my own this spring. I’d hit serious burnout, and lacked motivation or even interest to get my stuff done. I discovered Brené’s book The Gifts of Imperfection and bam! What a difference it made!! I read all of her other books as well. Not that I’m “fixed” by any means, but at least now I’m aware. I’ll have to check out some of these other titles as well! :)
Yes! Not “fixed,” but “aware” is a good way to put it. :) I’m slowly learning.
Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment! I enjoy reading about all your travels on The Collaboreat, and it’s so nice to have you join me over here, too. How are you spending Christmas this week?
I’m a big fan of Brene Brown’s books. They have helped me see and come to terms with my own shame and, if you’ve time, I would recommend Amanda Palmer’s “The Art of Asking.” Brown writes the forward in Palmer’s book and it’s a natural progression to dealing with one’s shame to next asking for what one needs.
I appreciate the honesty and transparency that you put into this post. It’s not easy to show one’s weaknesses to the world, but I believe that sharing one’s faults or hurts allows us to overcome them.
Another healing activity that I would suggest is listening to music. Music has helped inspire me, heal and elevate me. The one CD that I would recommend that you listen to is Peter Gabriel’s “Passion.” It’s the soundtrack to the “Passion” movie that was made back in the ’80s. It was an extremely controversial film about the life of Christ. I enjoyed it a lot. As for the music, there is a healing in those songs that I just love.
Merry Christmas!
Thanks for the wonderful tips, Ron! It is definitely hard to push “publish” on posts like this – it’s easy to share what I’m reading or where I’m traveling, but much harder to really talk about where I’m at and what I’m feeling.
Merry Christmas to you, too!