You Can't Be Your Own Everything

Full Moon of October: Narrative Prompt

It snowed here last night. The veil is thin. The moon is full. The eclipse is happening. Illumination and dark walk hand in hand onto the front stage. Go slowly. I keep telling myself to read widely, take hot candlelit baths, talk with actual people, especially elders, especially youngsters, especially “others.” I attended a virtual gathering hosted by Slow Factory yesterday—scrolling through the faces and the names took my breath away. So many people from so many places, united in their prayer, in their grief, in their love. I get chills remembering it, even at this late hour. I usually slip into bed around 9pm (a vow to my wellbeing) but words didn’t flow until now. I’ve been mostly sensing and being a body. When I found myself flustered and overcome with the tectonic news events as well as the acute and future ripple effects of it all, when I noticed my instant need to clean and create order (this is my go-to coping), I tidied a little but then doubled down on noticing tiny details: the soft fur of my dog’s ear, the way my second born giggles as she reads books aloud, how my parents spontaneously showed up at school pick-up simply because they miss us, the mineral wealth of my deep friendships, the 10% micro-shifts in myself, anyone, anything.

Bath candles and purple leaves against the snow

The other day, I made a noticeable shift in my 24-year relationship with my man. It could have gone the usual grooved way and, instead, I watched myself show up differently. I won’t share the details because they are too sacred and they aren’t all mine. What matters here, though, is that, over the course of the next day, I told three trusted and beloved friends about it. I recounted the scene in rich sensory detail and by dinner-time, my cells were changing. This is not an exaggeration. I could feel myself inhabiting, not cognitively but somatically, a new skin, as in, “I am the kind of person who now acts this new way.” The 10% noticing and sharing is a daily practice of mine that shepherds me in my evolution. I know it supports the new neurology and self-story (community story too). The practice makes doing the new different thing again much more likely. But I had never done it so fully—actively bathing in my re-living of it while being witnessed by three, not one, of my people. When my head found my pillow for bed, my entire body had turned warm and buzzy. Could it be that I had exercised differently or eaten differently? No. Was anything more hopeful or relieving on the world stage? Not. At. All. In fact, that was worse. Why then such a good and new feeling inside me? Well, I had simply noticed a small positive shift in my own life, shared it with friends, and set in motion some new wiring. I am learning that this kind of integration actually works.

THIS, is part of why we need each other.

This month I explored when self-improvement can go too far. It goes too far all the time. It gets misplaced. It gets myopic. But, we are all on a path of awakening to something within us and within humanity. My small moment wasn’t glamorous, but it mattered and it turned the cog. It initiated a new part of me. I believe, though, only because of noticing and then sharing.

I am so tired of hearing these new-age, well intentioned phrases:

You can be your own everything.

No one is coming to save you.

It’s time to adult.

Yes, sure, all true, but these are not truths that can stand alone. In isolation, they are floppy and nutrient-poor and even, in my opinion, dangerous. Why do so many of us believe that individual independence is the goal? We are relational. We are social animals! We require one another. We better be helping saving each other. That doesn’t have to mean losing ourselves in the process. We can be sturdy and extend a hand. We can be flailing and receive a hand without yanking the other down. Silo behavior doesn’t support a healthy personal or collective ecosystem. I want the checks and balances of relationships. I want to, as a friend says, “try to make it right” with people; without, of course, making it wrong for myself. I want to be capable in myself and I also want to lean on others.

Narrative Prompt

Live into your next few days. Take note of any 5-10% micro-shift you make in a desired direction. It could be as small as I paused for 30 seconds instead of zero seconds. #1 Notice it. Replay it for yourself. As you imagine it again, take note of your body’s response. #2 Tell someone (or three people!) Choose them wisely. Describe it richly. Juice it up with all the accurate (not exaggerated) sensory details. #3 Track how you feel later in the day. Let it be playful. An experiment.

*This practice also gets under stuck cultural narratives. It unearths possibility for change. If you are part of a unit, group or community, try it there as well. Narrate it out loud for each other.

Story matters.

We are seeing how much it matters.

On the micro and macro levels.

There is so much more to say and explore here, but for now I’m complete.

I am wishing for you the kind of internal warmth that allows you to be within yourself and look outside of yourself to see, see, see and be, be, be connected to others.

Love,