A breath for these tough times

Sending out extra wishes of Safety & Sanctuary for everyone in the path of the hard things, what a scary time we are in, inhaling and exhaling, for compassion, strength, courage, swift and steady miracles.

Announcement / get your copy of Emergency Calming Down Techniques

I’ve been reeling hard lately in some cursed combination of heartache, numbness, political anxiety, winter stuff and some wild panic episodes.

Have been holding on (for dear life) to my Emergency Calm The Hell Down Techniques from a long time ago, and it’s been helping.

I am giving away a copy of these (ebook + audio recordings) to anyone who gives any sum of money to the appreciation funds / discretionary fund in the hopes that we can all keep practicing together, for each other and for the collective, and also for ourselves in these scary times. ❤️

Our Lady of Perpetual Striving

A phenomenon in search of a name

Quite often I find myself reaching for a name for a known phenomenon, or at least a known-to-me phenomenon, and not finding one.

Lately I have been searching for a name to refer to a very specific trap that has been coming up in my life on the daily, and that I will describe like this…

Let’s say, because this literally happened the other day, that there were TWELVE things on my list of things that need my attention. And let’s assume that at least some of these twelve items were what I like to call Iguanas, aka extra sticky-stuck situations that I am almost allergic to dealing with. A situation where something needs to be liberated.

And maybe some of these items also turned out to be extra complicated or they contain more steps than I thought they would.

Somehow, heroically and against all odds, I took care of NINE (9!) of these items. And yet…

AND YET (there’s always the And Yet)

And yet somehow I get all tangled up in the perception that I didn’t do enough, or that it doesn’t matter, that I accomplished nothing of value because the list is still there?

Obviously a lot of this is monsters (internal self-criticism mechanisms), and a lot of it comes from puritan and capitalist culture, the air that we breathe, the water that we swim in, the toxic perspective that we should always be working and never resting, that there is always more, more, more.

This is the culture of Our Lady of Perpetual Striving (okay, so I do have a name for that part of it), but also there is something more than that. That’s a cause, or a contributing factor, but what of the phenomenon itself?

How do we maintain a healthy practice of rest & pause when there is no done?

My friend Kathryn called this The I Want To Be DONE And There Is No Done trap, which is an accurate name.

We crave arriving at an end point or a resting point, but life keeps life-ing (if we’re lucky), and there are dishes to be done, floors to be cleaned, provisions to be obtained, all the things that come flying into our various inboxes, and so on.

Sometimes for me this reminder of There Is No Done (so don’t fall into the trap of DONE) itself is helpful in reminding me that I can just press pause, take a rest, RESET AND RESTART. A refreshing reminder.

At other times, the hopelessness of There Is No Done really hits me hard, and I can sink into the pits of What’s The Fucking Point Of Any Of It, until I am too overwhelmed to remember how to start again. So there’s that.

But also something about praise, and something about contentment

When I do my daily pasture walk for mental health (which sometimes I crave and sometimes I rebel against and resent, but pretty much always helps), I like to name elements of my day and GIVE MYSELF SOME CREDIT.

This is not an easy practice for me, giving myself credit, but also it feels vital, like a form of medicine.

I give myself credit for getting out of bed, and for consuming vegetables (plural?! the heroism!!!!), and for literally anything I can think of. It’s a sparklepoint parade going on in the pasture.

I give myself credit wherever I can, and try to breathe kindness and compassion for all the moments where I struggled, because that’s also part of being a person dealing with the many challenges of this world.

Mainly I try to remind myself that the hard things are hard, and I could have just as easily gotten zero things done because they’re all complicated situations that involve decision making and calculations and next steps, and even thinking about how to approach them is an act of courage.

Accomplishment blindness?

A friend of mine suggested the term Accomplishment Blindness, and I think maybe there is something there too, even if for me it’s more centered in a form of unwillingness or an avoidance when it comes to being able to perceive the wins, or the achievements as they are.

That is to say, it’s not an inability to see so much as it is an inability to recognize or acknowledge, if that makes sense, which I hope it does.

This also seems related to the difficulty I have in giving myself credit for anything (which is why I practice so hard), and to Our Lady of Perpetual Striving.

Or as Holly put it, it’s Our Lady of Perpetual Striving in combination with the trap of Perfect Or Doom, combined with the monsters of But You Said You’d Get It All Done!

Bonus great name suggestion!

I think also this phenomenon doesn’t have a name in part because it serves the culture when we all think we are never getting enough done, that’s what keeps the wheels turning.

Also I loved another name my friend suggested for this which was Wimbliness (“I’m all wimbly today!”), as in: I find myself in a stupor of being unable to perceive any of the wins!

You are welcome to come up with fun names of your own, I welcome all of them!

What is the opposite of Perpetual Striving but still has some of the joy of accomplishing

One element for me in the culture of Our Lady of Perpetual Striving is the impossibility of it all. You are always pushing, never pausing to rest or reflect.

It’s a game. But it doesn’t feel like a form of play, maybe because it’s rigged, and maybe because it’s not in service of anything? Not aligned with something I value?

That’s the trap of you think you can get to done but there will just be more, and you’ll burn out before you ever get to anything remotely like a finish line.

Where is the play?

Naming the elements

So the opposite of this has to include or involve, for me at least, elements of:

• Rest & Rejuvenation
• Self-Reflection
• Re-evaluation
• Some good clean fun / some good Doing Glorious Nothing
• Contrast (what is an activity that, while not necessarily restful, provides contrast to getting stuff done)
• Play
• Wonder & Delight
• Letting myself be surprised

And of course, maybe the most important element for me is allowing myself to pursue pleasure, follow rabbit holes, get distracted by clues, trust the winding path…

More questions to ponder…

As C Thi Nguyen might put it, am I behaving in accordance with my own values and checking in with those values, or am I letting the environment shape and change my values to match those of the game or the culture?

Or as Zadie Smith might put it, if everything in our life is a behavior modification device, how am I making choices conscientiously and wisely when it comes to how I wish or prefer my behavior to be modified?

How are we going to play?

Regardless of the name we end up using for this (and I sincerely hope we can put our heads together and come up with many good options!), I think this practice is ultimately about paying attention to the underlying pattern.

And adding compassion.

Observing the pattern changes the pattern, or at least allows us more options for interrupting it.

The practice of noticing (with love)

I want to become a keen noticer of when I am not giving myself credit, when I am forgetting that each step is a win, or when I am getting stuck in the trap of trying to get to DONE, and only then do I get to rest or feel good about myself. Because that is the worst trap.

But not blaming myself for falling into the trap again, because that’s also a trap, right? It is so reasonable and understandable that we fall into Perpetual Striving patterns while existing inside of a culture that prioritizes always being busy and stressed but trying to achieve more.

Also I think we are going to have to find a way to get more playful with all of this…

Okay, so we fell into the trap. Is there a fun sound effect for that? Can we play the song that goes with whoops, trap time…

It’s going to happen, and we are going to have to give ourselves even more credit for noticing. If we can laugh about it a little, all the better. And if we can’t, because the stuck is too stuck, then compassion for that too. Been there, will be there again.

Let’s play!

You are welcome to drop any NAMING suggestions into the comments, or anything else you have noticed about this phenomenon.

You are also invited to give yourself credit for anything at all, because good job to you, I will celebrate with you.

And of course we can brainstorm possible ways we might notice and lovingly or playfully interrupt this pattern when it shows up…

Lots of love to everyone who reads.

Come play in the comments, I appreciate the company

Leave a pebble (o) to say you were here, so I know I’m not doing this alone.

Also it feels good to pick up a pebble and place it somewhere, I have noticed.

And of course you are welcome to share anything that sparked for you while reading, anything that helped, clues received, or anything on your mind, wish some wishes, process what’s percolating…

I am lighting a candle for us and our beautiful heart-wishes. What a brave thing it is to allow ourselves to want something better for us and for the world.

Or if there’s anything you’d like to explore further or toss into the wishing pot, the healing power of the collective is no small thing, companionship helps.

Whatever comes to mind or heart. Let’s support each other’s hope-sparks…

Housekeeping note: You can subscribe to posts by email again!

If you aren’t seeing these updates in your in your email and want to, you can can solve that here.

This will pop up a new page on Follow.It that lets you subscribe via email, newsletter, or RSS reader. They say “expect 50 stories a week”, and that’s a very imaginary number, once a week is the dream.

I am emailing copies of the Emergency Calming Techniques package!

Anyone who gives to the Discretionary this week (more info below) will get my Emergency Calming Techniques package by email as a pdf. I am only checking email twice a week because I no longer have wifi at my place, long story, so be patient with me but if it doesn’t show up within the week then let me know!

I have some ideas for the next ebook too but if you do too, shoot me an email or share in the comments.

A request!

If you received clues or perspective or want to send appreciation for the writing and work/play we do here, I appreciate it tremendously.

I am accepting support (with joy & gratitude) in the form of Appreciation Money to the Discretionary Fund. Asking is not where my strength resides but Brave & Stalwart is the theme these days, and pattern-rewriting is the work, it all helps with fixing the many broken things.

And if those aren’t options, I get it, you can light a candle for support (or light one in your mind!), share this with someone who loves words, tell people about these techniques, approaches and themes, send them here, it all helps, it’s all welcome, and I appreciate it and you so much. ❤️