Not OK

I'm feeling itchy and unsatisfied and panicked. Maybe I am unhappy. Maybe I don't know how to be happy. Maybe I only show up as myself at work. Who are my children seeing? They do not seem happy, but maybe that's just because they don't see anyone showing them how. 

What do I do for fun, a long-ago friend asked over lunch when we ran into each other randomly after years. I don't have fun. I clean my house, read books, listen to podcasts, do puzzles. I've never been a "go place, do things" kind of person, but my world seems increasingly small and intimate and ... how is this different from COVID?

I listened to Glennon Doyle's podcast for the first time the other day, and I spent some time tonight dipping back into her books, and it was like catching glimpses of myself in dark rooms as I walked through someone else's house. Oh shit. I think I have to start saying the hard, brave things to my husband instead of just disappearing. I think I have to do that to show my kids how to do that. 

Maybe then I can stop eating to feel good and feel special and loved and cared for. Maybe then I can lose the extra weight and feel good about my body, feel sexy and alive again.

Glennon talked about yoga, and I suddenly remembered how much I loved going to yoga. Loved feeling my body feel strong. Not so much with the perfectionism, but even listening to when my body said "Not today!" was good practice. Being kind. Letting "enough" be enough. 

I'm the last one in the house that isn't in therapy, and I think that's where I'm headed. But why can't we turn to each other instead? Training, maybe. Degrees in this shit. Insight and patience and perspective. Yes, all of that. 

Maybe I want yoga instead. Who wants to spend more time in their unhappy head?

Mediation to Reduce Bias and Increase Compassion

 

Jose Maresma

Gear Up for Fitness

1. Emotional Awareness

2. Decentering from Negative Thought Patterns

3. Loving Kindness

4. Mindful Media Consumption

5. Mindful Listening and Speech

We Hold Hope Close (poem) - Theresa Soto

In this community, we hold hope close. We don’t
always know what comes next, but that cannot dissuade us.
We don’t always know just what to do, but that will not mean
that we are lost in the wilderness. We rely on the certainty
beneath, the foundation of our values and ethics. We
are the people who return to love like a North Star and to
the truth that we are greater together than we are alone.
Our hope does not live in some glimmer of an indistinct future.
Rather, we know the way to the world of which we dream,
and by covenant and the movement forward of one right action
and the next, we know that one day we will arrive at home.

Making Peace (poem) - Denise Levertov

 

A voice from the dark called out,

             ‘The poets must give us

imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar

imagination of disaster. Peace, not only

the absence of war.’

                                   But peace, like a poem,

is not there ahead of itself,

can’t be imagined before it is made,

can’t be known except

in the words of its making,

grammar of justice,

syntax of mutual aid.

                                       A feeling towards it,

dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have

until we begin to utter its metaphors,

learning them as we speak.

                                              A line of peace might appear

if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,

revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,

questioned our needs, allowed

long pauses . . .

                        A cadence of peace might balance its weight

on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,

an energy field more intense than war,

might pulse then,

stanza by stanza into the world,

each act of living

one of its words, each word

a vibration of light—facets

of the forming crystal.

Call to Worship (prayer) - the Rev. Bob LaVallee

I know that you wish the work was done
And you, with everyone you have ever loved,
were on a distant shore, safe and unafraid.

But remember this, tired as you are:
You are not alone.
Here and here and here also
There are others weeping and rising and gathering their courage.

You belong to them and they to you.

"For One Who Holds Power" - A Leadership Prayer - John O'Donahue

May the gift of leadership awaken in you as a vocation,
Keep you mindful of the providence that calls you to serve.
As high over the mountains the eagle spreads its wings,
May your perspective be larger than the view from the foothills.

When the way is flat and dull in times of gray endurance,

May your imagination continue to evoke horizons.
When thirst burns in times of drought,
May you be blessed to find the wells.
May you have the wisdom to read time clearly
And know when the seed of change will flourish.

In your heart may there be a sanctuary
For the stillness where clarity is born.
May your work be infused with passion and creativity
And have the wisdom to balance compassion and challenge.

May your soul find the graciousness
To rise above the fester of small mediocrities.
May your power never become a shell
Wherein your heart would silently atrophy.
May you welcome your own vulnerability
As the ground where healing and truth join.

May integrity of soul be your first ideal.
The source that will guide and bless your work.

from his book, To Bless the Space Between Us