Threading the Needle of Understanding

It can be hard to find the entrance.

Sometimes advice comes from unlikely places. Actually, frequently it does. I don’t know why. Perhaps because we are open, not expecting it, not in immediate dire need of it. Maybe, because it comes at us sideways, and we absorb it differently.

Regardless of the reason, I hear most cleanly and clearly when I am exercising.

And I have found recently that the advice given by various gym class instructors has become deeply instrumental in my intellectual-emotional journey. The teachers are of course, encouraging physical challenge but the messages cross over.

I have listed three in particular.

Feel the intensity. Let it happen.

Not push through it, but rather accept it. Not let it go, but let it happen.

I am an expert at pushing through. I can muscle my way through pretty much anything. But feeling the intensity. That is an altogether different story.

I prefer pushing. And then running, multi-tasking, organizing, baking, sleeping and filling any leftover holes with salty snacks or chocolate.

BUT, I am currently on a temporary hiatus from avoidance.

When I begin to kick into overdrive mode, be it with chores, food, e-mail or anything else, it is a clear sign something is wrong and it’s not the collection of sneakers left around the house.

So, I am trying very hard to feel the intensity. Whatever it may be.

I also have a long history of attempting to let go.

Usually with my fists gripping tightly whatever it is I am trying to set free.

Even when it came to giving birth to our first son, despite ample Pitocin, my cervix would not dilate one centimeter.

It is an on-going endeavor.

But these past few weeks I have been trying to be with whatever comes up. Not let it go or hang on to it. But be with it.

It is awkward and comes with nothing resembling a schedule, outline or organized sequencing of emotions. But I am doing it. Letting it happen. Even when the “it” is a bit foggy.

Uncomfortable is good. It’s the only way we change.

Not get out of your comfort zone. As if that is a bad and dangerous place.

The advice is consoling and affirming. Not punishing and critical. It relishes the discomfort we all try to avoid heralding it as the necessary step toward change.

This is fantastic and inspiring except for the uncertainty about what change will bring. What change will change about the future. Body-wise I get it. No down side.

But life-wise there are no guarantees. Especially as we get older.

As my life rounds the corner of a new chapter, I find myself a little lost and occasionally scared. The poet, Wendell Berry says it quite eloquently in his poem “2007, VI”.

The ellipse between stanzas is a placeholder for many more beautiful stanzas, which I did not include for the purpose of this post but dimensionalize the last stanzas fully.

It is hard to have hope. It is harder as you grow old,

for hope must not depend on feeling good

and there is the dream of loneliness at absolute midnight.

You also have withdrawn belief in the present reality

of the future, which surely will surprise us,

and hope is harder when it cannot come by prediction

any more than by wishing. But stop dithering.

The young ask the old to hope. What will you tell them?

Tell them at least what you say to yourself.

…

No place at last is better than the world. The world

is no better than its places. Its places at last

are no better than their people while their people

continue in them. When the people make

dark the light within them, the world darkens.

Do what’s right for your body.

Not do what’s right for the body. Or do it my way or the right way.

In a world where there is one diet or cleanse or workout that’s supposed to be the best, it is refreshing to be given back the reigns on what feels right for my body.

There is no one answer for anything or anyone. Perhaps even the messages I’ve shared here for like big cow patties to you. Right on! Find your own way.

Just consider the most powerful nuggets come from unexpected pastures.