Latest Survival Tips from the Universe: Quit Doing Stuff that Doesn’t Vibe with You and Honoring the Who Knows
Raise your hand if you’re feeling the burn. The burn from life right now. Anyone?
Similar to many, shit has been kinda tiring and hard for the past weeks, months and maybe years. What day is it? I can’t even keep track anymore. It feels like we’re on an unruly amusement park ride that keeps us on sensory overload. A ride that doesn’t stop, that we can’t get off from. A little much.
It’s challenging for me to write and express more in these moments and especially when I’m working through something. I feel I need to have most of it figured out before I share myself and my thoughts. Whenever someone genuinely asks me (and not as a hello), “How are you?”, I want to reflexively say, “Great. Awesome. The Best.” But what if I’m not? What if there isn’t a clear end in sight with this type of lack of ease and uncertainty in ourselves and the world right now? And what if being OK and even accepting of the steady and regular chaos is our next lesson from the Universe? Recent real talk from my tween son, and being reminded of an old Taoist parable (= wisdom that doesn’t expire) seem to be pointing me in this direction.
Taking it from a Tween — “Stop It” Wisdom
Let’s start with the tween. As a grown-ish person on the receiving end, tweenhood is both beautiful and terrifying at the same time. There are still the playful, innocent and loving gems of youth with regular sneak electrical zaps of apathy, anger and disgust that end up being annoyingly insightful. If the zaps could talk, they might yell and feel — why haven’t you figured this whole life thing out yet grown up person who birthed me?!!! And YOU are still telling me what to do?!! [Insert eye-roll emoji]. Ugh and all the things.
As of late, My Dear Tween (MDT) has been wisdom zapping me in moments when I’m particularly overwhelmed — from a hard day of adult-ing to visiting with family that includes all the feels. Picking up on even my most subtle angst he will ask, “What’s wrong?” or “Why are you upset?” I’ll say something that will include words like — tired, frustrated, managing, navigating, preventing, time, a lot. And without skipping a beat, MDT will say — “Well, why don’t you stop doing that?” By “that,” he means the thing that makes me feel this way. Of course, my grumpiness, mind and ego wants to hold up a hot trash bag full of reasons why the world would end if I “stop doing that.” But the truth is and my heart knows that he is onto something.
What if I just let go and quit trying to do things that are at odds with what I might be feeling at the moment? What if I just took that much-needed break when I’m running on low or empty? What if I didn’t try so hard to avoid and prevent conflict at the family gathering, and just showed up as my full self? Not just the family approved version?
After sitting with MDT’s words, skeptically agreeing to try what he suggested, and offering the disclaimer that the sky might indeed fall if I do, I’ve been working on not doing things that are completely out of alignment and just letting go. As a child of south Indian immigrants and a recovering people-pleaser, this is not easy or comfortable. There will be some disappointment and less affirming smiles and nods on all sides. There are also times where you will just have to do the thing and create space for yourself in it. But I can say that the world hasn’t ended. Less energy gets sucked away on a regular basis and there is a freeing, affirming quality to getting closer to just being myself more.
On a practical level, this has translated into taking short and quick breaks where possible in order to — take a few deep cleansing breaths, stretch, walk, meditate, listen to music I love, or even take a short nap between tasks or meetings that I would normally just muscle through. In the context of relationships and interactions, it means: listening to my internal signals/guidance, following those signals, giving myself a pause or space, being better about asking for and receiving help, speaking up, expressing my feelings, or removing myself as I am called. If you’re feeling weighed down by this kind of stuff too, you should give the MDT wisdom of “stop doing that” a try as well.
Embracing the Maybe and Who Knows of Living
This whirly time in life has also been bringing me back to a Taoist parable that I’ve heard at different times and in varied forms. Over the past months and weeks, life has definitely been wanting me to more deeply clear out different areas of my life. I think I brought this on myself because I find great meaning and joy in being of service to others in the space of engagement, storytelling and healing. And the Universe is like — be careful what you wish for dummy! If that’s what you want, your butt will be on an ongoing journey to walk the talk and deepen that in your own life and Being. Might have been said in a more loving way. But as it should be for all folks wanting to be of service to the world and a force for good in some form.
For that reason, as of late, my life pot has been stirring in terms of bringing renewed attention and clearing to childhood trauma, relationships, health, career journey, finance and even housing. One example? We moved from the house we moved into just a year ago! Packing and unpacking and packing and unpacking again is not that fun to me. Just when I think I’m in the clear after an easier day, the next day or week would throw me back in for a loop. After the 20th time of this, the story of the old farmer popped into my heart.
Here it is. You will find slight variations of this story online but the takeaway is the same.
What I realized is that by secretly, internally labeling and judging my experiences as up and down, good or bad, I was not truly accepting them. I was also making it harder for myself because with mental tagging come expectations and judgement on myself and others. What if I shed the labels and just let those experiences happen and move through like a cloud passes in the sky — both the good AND the bad? Would I be less sad and annoyed every time it’s not the best feeling? Like the wise farmer was onto, given that we really don’t know what’s around the corner, would it be easier to stay open and go with the flow?
I’ve been trying to embrace this whole who knows, maybe approach in the past weeks and I can say that it’s definitely less of an emotional rollercoaster. It’s a fine balance though between the idea and feel of staying open and shedding judgement versus giving up and going into defeat mode. But you can feel the difference. It’s like approaching the phrase, “let’s see,” with curiosity and wonder rather than fear and doom. Perhaps more of a Leslie Knope (from the show Parks and Recreation) lens.
Basically if we widened our allowable space for what a whole, meaningful life should include, I think everything might be less bumpy and painful right now. It might even be surprisingly pleasant? At least that’s my story for now, and what I’m going with at this “winter” moment in some of our lives and the world.
“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter: they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but it’s crucible. Once we stop wishing it were summer, winter can be a glorious season when the world takes on a sparse beauty, and even the pavements sparkle.”
— from Wintering by Katherine May
