The Autumnal Treadmill

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” Lao Tzu

The sun shining through my houseplants

I’m sitting on my couch with my computer on my lap and my dog curled at my feet, trying to figure out how to begin this post. The sun’s  beaming through the house plants as if they’re the chosen ones. The breeze is shivering through the shiny dew-laden leaves outside. There’s so much going on in this moment, so much beauty, it’s almost too much to bear. Infinite shades of green. A silken spider thread swaying in the wind. My little dog’s body warming my feet. It’s a perfect moment and I’m so glad I’ve been able to cultivate enough stillness to be able to  recognise presence.

John O’Donohue, poet, priest, plumber of human depth and lyricism, says this about presence:

“Presence is alive. You sense and feel presence; it comes toward you and engages you. Landscape has a vast depth, and subtlety of presence. The more attentive you are, and the longer you remain in a landscape, the more you will be embraced by its presence. Though you may be completely alone there, you know that you are not on your own. In our relentless quest for human contact, we have forgotten the solace and friendship of Nature.”

I’m even more grateful as presence is a relatively new skill I am practicing. It feels naughty, like I’m getting away with something. It is maybe the most rebellious act I can think of in this society, shaped by neoliberal principles that try to tell us our worth as human beings are directly correlated to our output, to our performance and achievements.

Indeed, before the mid-life shattering, that way of living had me stretched so thin, I felt threadbare, coming apart at the seams.  My mantra was TRY HARDER. If it isn’t working, it’s your fault. If you’re not able to get everything done, you should get up earlier. If you’re irritated with your kids, husband, life and feel like you can’t breathe, well, suck it up buttercup. It’s probably your fault anyways. Be a better mother. Be a better wife. Be a better worker, friend, neighbour, customer at the grocery store. Just, for the love of Pete, can you just be better? Do more in the hopes that it will compensate for not being more.

But then, it all exploded. I was blindsided, shell-shocked, stunned into stillness.

What just happened?

Who was I if I was not all the above?

All I could do was sit in the rubble of my ego, surrounded by the shards of what used to be my identity.  It was a long process of sorting through what I wanted to keep and what I wanted to leave behind so I could feel lighter, more resilient in this next phase of my life.

The first thing I needed to heal besides my broken heart? My relationship to time.

From Time Scarcity to Time Abundance

 I used to perceive time as my enemy, as something with which I was in constant battle. There were never enough hours in the day. I would chastise myself if I did not complete my completely unrealistic to-do list. Feel like a failure if all my arbitrary boxes had not been ticked off. But then my world collapsed, and to my great surprise, in the rubble of once was I found some much needed perspective. 

All of a sudden, whether  or not I completed all the tasks on my list did not matter. It was moot. The ways in which I thought I was keeping my life from collapsing did not work: despite my hustle— or more likely because of it—my world collapsed anyways. I had made myself crazy for nothing, it turns out. And I was tired, so, so tired.

So I ditched the daily list and opted for an undated one (hey- things still needed to get done and my memory is crap). Instead of telling myself I was running out of time, I practiced repeating that I had all the time I needed, that the world would not crumble if I took a moment to reflect, to rest, to savour.

This took some time (it is still a work in progress) but I’m building up some good evidence that when I take the time to honour my own needs, I’m still a competent adult. Things still get done, I still have friends and family that love me. The difference is the sense of panic is gone, the frantic feeling that I’m always behind or missing out, or scared to disappoint someone has mostly evaporated (keyword mostly- it’s an ongoing practice).

The sense of time abundance  feels like coming back to myself, coming home. The waters of creativity and connection flow crystal clear in this space— I know who I am and can hold all my multitudinous selves in an expansive embrace. To make a truce with Time has meant that I have given myself the space to really think about what I want and how I want my life to feel. It has allowed me to take deliberate, intentional steps towards a life more aligned with my unique needs and ways I can contribute to this world.

Check-In

1.     Take a moment to reflect on your relationship to time. Where do you place yourself on  a scale of 1 to 10 where:

1: Time feels like a vicious puppeteer jerking you in all directions with the never-ending strings of your to-do list

10: Time feels a vast ocean where you get to swim at your leisure

2.     What is your relationship to stillness? To rest? When do you take a moment to pause in your day? To reflect on your life? If you don’t, what is stopping you?

The bustle doesn’t stop nor do we want it to— there is joy in working and moving our bodies and getting together with friends and family. The cool air is invigorating and it feels good to get things done. Yet without rest and stillness and presence, we run ourselves ragged, go so fast we get lost in tornadoes of our own making, where nothing feels meaningful or enjoyable anymore.

Invitation

So, as autumn performs its colourful swan song and our days simultaneously get shorter light-wise, yet longer work-wise, I invite you to stop for a moment. Take a few deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth. If you can, plant yourself in a meadow or a copse of trees or even your own backyard. Feel the sun or the wind or the coolness of the air or everything all at once. Notice the birds, the bees, the squirrels, the magnificent colours. What do you hear? What catches your eye?

Take a moment to simply be.