Something I find both incredibly frustrating and empowering at the same time is how there is at least one exception to just about everything I think is true.
So. No big surprise, but I’ve been using this thing of finding the exceptions as part of the destuckification practice.
Whenever I catch myself making some sort of declarative statement about myself, the plan kicks in:
Pause (paws!), and look for the exception.
There is a part of me or a version of me who knows what the exception is. A me who lives that exception. I just need to find her.
Like this:
Finding the exceptions.
The me who knows how to stop.
Exhausted me: “This sucks! I don’t know how to stop. I don’t know how to recover when I’m overwhelmed. I don’t know how to do this.”
Except…
When I was first training to be a yoga teacher and sprained my ankle in a non-yoga-related and completely ridiculous three-stooges-tripping-over-a-ladder incident?
Sprained ankle me knew how to stop and recover. She knew how to take time off. She knew about ice and elevation and not-doing.
So…right now I kind of have a sprained life. And here is the me who knows how to say this is the time to stop and recover. Or as Cairene says, reboot!
Trust.
Frightened me: “I don’t know how to trust. I never have. Trust is not comfortable. I have issues. And history. I hate this situation and I don’t trust anyone in it.”
And since there is always an exception, which part of me does know how to trust?
Oh. The me who moved from Berlin to San Francisco on the basis of a recurring dream and with no plan other than this is truly what needs to happen right now.
And the me who responds to “You can’t do that” with “Yeah? Watch me!”
Creativity.
Angry me: “I can’t stop being angry because if I do, I will lose my creative driving force. How can I make the world better if I’m not constantly upset at everything that is wrong with it?”
If there is a part of me who knows how to be in creative flow without being outraged, where is she?
The me who worked in the dairy. Between work and sleep, she wrote stories and read books and gave birth to ideas. Peaceful creation.
The me who traveled by ship from Copenhagen to the States. She watched the water, and was in the most remarkable state of flow, except that it came from total relaxation.
Rest.
Irritable me: “Ugh. Rest. I don’t know how it works. I get bored too easily. Stopping isn’t my thing. I’m no good at this.”
Who is my exception?
The me who worked in the orchard. She was tough, wiry, dirty and she lived in her body.
Those afternoon naps under the trees or in a tiny, cramped bed were some of the most delicious, sweet, refreshing pieces of my entire life.
I miss those naps.
Comfort.
Upset me: “I always take care of everyone else first. That’s my pattern.”
Except?
Broken-hearted me. And me who worked at the Horrible, Horrible Job.
They knew how to get me to the bar, meet up with girlfriends, seek out what was needed.
Their solutions from then might not work for me now, and their methods are not mine, but they took our broken heart seriously, and that’s important.
Faith that everything will be okay.
Anxious me: “But what if it won’t be okay?!”
Who knows about this?
The one who wrote FAITH on her body each day until it ended.
Sovereignty.
Tired me: “No matter what I do, people throw shoes. I hate this so much. Why aren’t we done with this yet?”
Except?
There is a me who doesn’t care what other people think. Dancing me.
When I dance, the whole world disappears.
Not every exception will make itself known.
Sometimes I can’t find it.
But the pause counts. There is something the stopping. In knowing that I am invariably wrong about things and that being wrong about things is usually good…
That is enough to lovingly, consciously interrupt whatever patterns and programming are running on cruise control. It all counts.
And comment zen for today.
As always, you are welcome to play with me.
You can find exceptions, ask yourself questions, wonder your wonderings, find out whatever you need to find out.
We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. It’s a process.
We let people have their own experience, and we don’t give unsolicited advice.
Kisses to the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers and everyone who reads.
p.s. Many thanks to my beloved Hiro for constantly reminding me about exceptions, and the hidden vastness of my own knowing and experience. And also for booking a spa treatment for me when I was having a moment, and then making me go. Now that’s love.
Follow
The me I’m currently confronting is the one who steps around the hard and the iguanas and tries to make them go away, instead of engaging with them. It just seems like she is the truth of me sometimes.
Except. Hmm, except when?
I’m not entirely sure, but an exception would involve a sense of flow. Of easily taking the actions instead of starting the avoidance. Of baking and doing and being. There’s definitely a me who’s matter-of-fact and just engages with stuff fearlessly, but she’s looking really foggy right now.
I’ll keep trying to figure out who she is, though.
The beloved classic ‘What’s also true?’ question relates to the exceptions, yes?
I’m blotto exhausted, sad/mad/scared and brain-fogged a lot lately, and I think it’s cause ‘good things’ are happening and I’m over-working and frying my nerves over them.
I think I don’t know how to derevify and get soft enough to refill along the way and not just collapse after its over and never ever do anything like this again. And, let’s see, day before yesterday there was a sweet nap for an hour. But it wasn’t enough! But then again, neither was breakfast once it’s a couple hours past lunch time.
And reading this post actually got a few tears of feeling accompanied and understood to come stand gently in the hot eyes, and that felt soft and hopeful.
Ah. That is a way to use the question. Finding the me-s who know.
There is a me who trusts – she is the one who made all the big life decisions and carried them out based on nothing but a knowing, even when people didn’t agree.
There is a me who rests – she got me through the hard years when I was so sad and hurting and didn’t know what to do.
I don’t know how to rest.
Except for the me that one day on the lake years ago, where even everyone else noticed I was acting different…calmer. And except for the me that sometimes can sleep for 14 hours and then wake up and make pancakes. And except for the me who used drive around Lake Tyler and just find new spots to stop and listen to the breeze, until I had mapped out the perimeter of the whole lake.
Up Too Late: Angry, tired me: I’m so exhausted and brain weasely from being up and resentful of the kids. I hate the way i feel and i can’t change it and it sucks andi’m a victim…
Except. There was a good reason to stay up and i made that choice, because Me-in-charge gave myself permission to:
– set the bar as low as possible today
-to reschedule all errands except groceries
-to treat myself to any food i wanted except sweets
-which probably means sushi!
-to call upon help from all my allies, Guides etc. as needed
-and do yoga instead of laundry
And who recognizes that the kids are actually being very cooperative and low key, and appreciates it.
‘…the me who responds to “You can’t do that” with “Yeah? Watch me!”’
Oh man! I’ve just recently learned this trick, of making my vague feelings of inability to concentrate or do something or whatever into a concrete statement–then that rebellious part of me can start actually working to prove it wrong. I thought of a very well-constructed argument for why my brain just wasn’t cut out for the attention needed to read long books–then read and loved _Little, Big_ (a dreamy, delicious doorstopper of a book). I visualized emailing my friend to tell her how the project I’m working on for her just won’t work out, it couldn’t be done–then the plan for an improved design just popped into my head, and the next thing I knew, I had a working prototype finished.
The part of me who chafes and rebels against authority sometimes feels whiny and childish, but I’m realizing more and more that she’s incredibly powerful and important to have around. I just need to notice my internal constraints enough to make them explicit, and she can amaze me by whooshing past those barriers.
Dancing me knows no limits. And she doesn’t care what other people think either. Booyah.
Angry, unimpressed, cynical me doesn’t know what the hell I’m doing here. Except during those times when I sing. Singing me is a walking waterfall of love and meaning. During those few years when I sang every day, I ended up falling for life and the questioning stopped.
Unsure, uncertain, suspicious me is on vacation this year to give Trusting me a chance to shine again. Trusting me drove across country by myself to Portland at 22 without knowing anyone and with barely any money. Trusting me changed my major to Art without ever taking an art class. Trusting me became a Zumba instructor without ever taking a class and now Zumba makes me happier than anything (even with the name “Zumba” that I’ve had to adjust to…)
I have this feeling that the exceptions are glimpses of our core selves sticking a tiny hand out from under all the piles of expectations, obligations, and protective monsters sitting on top. It’s in the those glorious moments of non-stress that our trueness manages to squeeze through and squeak out. The magic is remembering that we’re under there somewhere.
Brilliant exercise.
Scratch that. Brilliant wisdom.
1. I don’t know how to be close to other people.
Except in love me, and teacher me, and counselor me, and NVC-doing me.
Only teacher me is good in groups, and I can’t teach every group I’m in, but it bears remembering that I’m not horribly socially awkward all or even most of the time.
2. I don’t know how to tell people no.
Except when I’m with my father. Or my mother. Or my brother. Or my ex. Or someone younger than me. Or my cat.
3. I don’t know how to trust.
Except I flew to TAJIKISTAN without a visa and knowing no one there. And lived there for ten months and it was lovely. And my JOB at the births I attend is to be the one to trust it’ll all turn out okay, and I do it wonderfully.
4. I’m not a hard worker.
Except in my senior year of high school, when five hours of sleep was a lot and I had about a thousand extracurricular activities plus friends plus a boyfriend plus I got a 4.0. That girl knew how to work.
5. I’m don’t know how forge my own path.
Except the me to decided on a whim to go live in the Dominican Republic. And the one who refused to be a doctor or a lawyer. And the one who dropped out of college. And the me who doesn’t drink. And the me who doesn’t watch TV. And the me who is starting this business *does* know how to do it, because that’s what I’ve been doing forever – being different.
-Sigh- What a perfect post, thanks Havi!
For every me there’s an anti-me, just because this is the nature of incarnate me. 🙂
And every anti-me has at its heart a spiritual truth and wisdom all of me needs.
What emerged from today’s exploration into anti-me land was this: On the other side of choice is commitment. On the other side of commitment is delight and joy and freedom.
Who knew?!
Remembering the paws… that’s the hardest part for me, though I’m getting better at reminding myself. Maybe there’s a part of me that knows how to remember?
Over the last couple of years, I’ve learned that the exception is the rule… so now I’m trying to listen to the part of me that knows what the exceptions are, and how to make them work 🙂
Things have gone so smooothly at work over past months
EXCEPT yesterday where I was responsible for a really major mishap. It was in all respects the stupidest day for this to happen.
Need to explore my physical and emotional reaction to this exception.
Where is the me who doesn’t care what other people think?
She’s singing at the top of her lungs.
She’s flailing away, mixing up her right and left arm positions, throwing some jazz hands (jazz hands!) into the mix and laughing.
She’s typing, feeling the beautiful clickety pressure of the keys.
She’s reading a story to her daughter, bringing all the characters to life.
She’s reaching out to someone who seems a little lost.
She’s thinking silly thoughts and speaking them out loud.
She’s me. She’s every bit as much me as is the anxious me who doesn’t want anyone to be mad at her, ever.
Sometimes she’s the exception, and sometimes the other me is. It all depends.
And so it goes, and so I go, forward and backward and forward again, one gentle dance step at a time.
“Exceptions are not always the proof of the old rule; they can also be the harbinger of a new one.”
–Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, Austrian writer
I just had kind of an extreme experience after rereading this post. The part about writing a word on your body jumped out at me this time around (maybe because I’d seen pictures of tattoos in the morning?). I wrote the word STORIES on my arm (because–backstory–I have trouble with seeing a whole story or process; in my daily life I tend to instinctively distill everything down to something like “insights to date,” which makes for OK essays but not good stories)…and then proceeded to have an amazing dream (*which I remembered,* also amazing) that catapulted all the ingredients for a plot right into my mind–and also showed me how writing could be kind of like reading (being surprised at every turn!), not like being some omniscient stage manager who knows everything in advance and has some super-scientific method for doling it out to the reader. Weird revelation!
As usual, Havi, thanks for sharing all those details with us. I’m so glad you did!
I just stumbled across this today and yes! Just what I needed. Thank you!