unpolished thoughts 1/17/19
I woke up an hour late this morning and everything was thrown off.
Luckily, my schedule isn’t jam packed today, so now I’m putting things back together.
I continually bump up against a desire to hurry. I have to continually remind myself that there is, in fact, plenty of time to fill in the missing pieces.
Breakfast. Making my daughter lunch and driving her to school. The laundry. This blog post.
None of these things occurs according to schedule. I have to keep reminding myself that this is just the way it is. Straining doesn’t create more minutes in the day.
My daughter is at school now and the laundry is spinning. I placed the laundry detergent where I will trip over it to remind me not forget the clothes downstairs since I will have to see a client before they are dry.
Vacuuming can wait until the afternoon since the client I’m about to see is online. The person coming for a Functional Integration lesson doesn’t arrive until the afternoon.
I finally updated the operating system on my computer this morning after literally months of clicking “remind me tomorrow” whenever the update notification popped up on my screen. It occurred to me that perhaps this is one of the reasons why my recent attempt to build a landing page for my online classes was such an exercise in futility.
The fact that the update required my computer to be shut off for about 20 minutes was the reason I had avoided taking that step for so long.
As if that would be such a tragedy.
But this morning it was a nice reminder to get on the floor and explore a brief Feldenkrais lesson. I lay on my belly since I’m aware that this is an area where I spend less time and things feel less familiar.
Recognizing my general avoidance of this situation was the same as recognizing an opportunity. I realized it would be hard not to learn something new by making this non-habitual choice.
I was right.
Movements that I thought I understood presented unexpected challenges. It was a useful reminder that intellectual understanding has limited value when it’s time to put ideas into practice.
It’s the practice that’s needed.
But now my spine and I know each other better. We have removed some of the distance between us that confuses us with the idea that we are not one and the same.
As my day continues, I feel more of a sense that I am thinking from the inside of my spine rather than sending “it” instructions from the outside about what to do.
So I’m grateful that I resisted the anxious voice that still wants to treat today’s late start as if it were an emergency.
It makes me wonder how many simple moments of my life I have treated as emergencies.
Eliminating imaginary emergencies from my body and mind might be the best possible preparation for the true emergencies that will occasionally and inevitably aris.
But today is not an emergency.
In fact, there is no reason to suspect that it can’t still be a perfect day.
************************
You can now receive my unpolished thoughts in your email on a daily basis when you subscribe to my mailing list.
New subscribers also receive a series of welcome emails which include two free full-length Feldenkrais audio lessons.
Click here to subscribe (and make sure to check the box to get the unpolished thoughts RSS feed just below where you enter your email address)