Feeling like I procrastinated on getting my homework finished. I'm finally doing a blog post this month. I never claimed to be a consistent blogger. This proves it. I've thought several times of sitting down to write, but the Muse wasn't on board. She still isn't, really. But I don't want to skip a month, which would be a first time since starting this blog in 2012. So here goes...
I think I've been distracted by being distracted. Distracted by feeling yet again in a state of transition: seeking, deepening, learning, growing, discerning, connecting, disconnecting, being. The Gift/Burden of Introspection is that I often get lost in the work/delight of taking deep dives into "ultimate meaning". As I wrote in a journal entry the other day, "It's fucking exhausting." It seems to me that most people live a far less psychologically fraught life. At a recent gathering, a group of friends was discussing the nature of happiness or some such thing and one participant said something like, "I haven't really thought much about these things..." And internally I was shocked, then curious. What must it be like to NOT think of the nature of experience, emotion, reaction, seeking deeper meaning, and looking for places of insight and peace all the f'ing time?!?
This has been my default for my whole adult life, but as I grow older, it seems to get more intense and perhaps more urgent. No, I won't have the "meaning of life" all figured out by the time I leave it, but I'd like to learn enough to gift myself with a life of strength, commitment, inner knowing, unshakable values, and a sure path to contentment and peace as I walk these last few steps toward the Horizon. And I feel like everything I've done up to this point is leading there.
Lately I'm using three tools that are providing me a framework for my introspective work: Yoga (not just the poses, which isn't even really yoga), neuro-plasticity study and practice, and the Enneagram. Knowing when and how to employ these tools is my current passion and challenge.
So, this month I've felt strong and sure, weak and afraid, angry and despaired, joyful and content, curious and aware....and through all of it I've felt ALONE and ALIVE. (Existential and "in this life" aloneness is a BIG fear trigger for me...so much to learn and acknowledge and accept! Woo-Hoo!)
Yoga = I'm taking a 4-week meditation course from my favorite teacher. In addition to attending yoga classes, I'm also teaching a yoga class via Zoom once/week and I spend lots of time prepping that plus doing a pre-class Facebook Live video and a post-class follow up summary. I'm doing a self-study of the Yoga Yamas and Niyamas. (Yoga's ethical guides.) I'm watching several CE credit webinars on all aspects of yoga. I'm finding my one, true, sure path through life based on unshakable values and present moment reality.
Neuro-plasticity = I'm continuing my study with Dr. Rick Hanson (books, podcast, webinars) on how to change our brains to default to the positive instead of the negative. We can rewire our brains!!! How exciting is that! His neuro-plasticity-based-Buddhist-inspired psychotherapeutic approach is incredibly accessible and encouraging.
Enneagram = I'm continuing to turn to this tool of learning about personality defaults. I'm learning to grow past the ways in which we cover core wounds with certain safety-motivated personality traits, and instead reach for a "higher" more wholistic and positive/powerful way of being with and understanding oneself and others.
I'm also doing the dishes and the laundry, paying bills, chatting with friends, going for walks, seeing family a bit, hanging out with Hub, cleaning out the attic and other storage spaces, cooking dinner, keeping up with some political stuff including sending postcards to voters in states with big elections coming up next week (Go Virginia!), watching great TV (when did all the shows get so good?!?), and even went to a rock concert!
What I have not done is sit down to write in this blog. Maybe this entry will break the logjam of Muse-absent writer's block. Maybe not. Let me contemplate the deeper meaning of it all....why have I been avoiding this? Am I burned out? Do I just want to quit blogging? Afraid of revealing myself? Wondering if anyone is reading and is it worth the trouble? Just too busy? Too lazy? Who cares? What's my motivation? Is it Ego? The desire to connect? The hope to help/find commonality? The desire for immortality through my words? To document this one little part of my life to be discovered by my descendants? To know I mattered?
(Give me until next month....I'll run all this through my ever-processing introspective mind, using my tools of discovery and discernment, and get back to you with my answer. LOL)
At least, that's the view from here...©
Photo Credit: pixabay.com
I’m a serious thinker and I often just sit and think about these types of issues, yet I know people who would have no interest in doing so. I might say they are more shallow or simple minded, but that sounds cruel and in truth, I think people's brains just operate differently. I also think women think more about these types of things except, again, many women think of nothing but cooking, children and grandchildren and simple crafts and hobbies. So I think we are just all different.
ReplyDeleteOne thing, I have always been a very curious person all my life and I enjoy cosmology and anthropology, history etc. and these are the subjects that makes one think outside the box and more in depth.
I actually long for people I can have these types of conversations with, but they are hard to find. Buddhism would interest me, but I’m in a smaller southern town and nothing like that in these parts and yoga would be strictly for exercise. It can be a lonely road at times, which is my nemesis.
It must be very hard to be alone with your interior world. Sharing ideas, seeking new experiences, integrating insights can all be enhanced by sharing with others also on the journey. Are you familiar with the Great Courses? I've enjoyed the topics they offer for study and investigation. (Just Google Great Courses and see what they offer.) I also have enjoyed the offerings of the Osher Institute. I used to go to their in person classes and seminars, but I think they are all (or at least an option) online now. Yoga for exercise only really drives me crazy sine I teach it as soooo much more than that and the physical poses are really only to prepare the body for meditation (not distracted by an aching body). The true meaning of yoga is to calm the fluctuations of the mind. That said, moving the body through the poses does build strength, flexibility, and balance -- all good things. My yoga lineage teaches that anyone an "do" yoga when we tailor the practice to the individual. Not all types are yoga do that. Loneliness is my nemesis too and growing older seems to include feelings of loneliness more often. I'm looking at it as an age and stage lesson I need to learn.
DeleteI’ve heard of Great Courses, but I sometimes have a difficult time focusing on something for long.
DeleteI meant about yoga exercise, is that here where I live, people would only do it for exercise and would not see the bigger picture and what it has to offer and I don’t think the teachers here would either. I’m in Florida and it’s not known for intellect and new age thinking..not much progressiveness here.
Mary, I'm in Florida, too, and the only "kindred spirits" I have found have been on-line, for the most part. Having a stroke has effectively turned me from an extrovert to an introvert, covid made it worse, and I find interacting with people on-line in my heavily curated groups to be the best option.
DeleteI thought of you often over the past few weeks because I took my very first ever yoga and tia chi classes. We are using Don Forte videos for the later and I was surprised at how well I liked doing both of these things, especially tia chi.
ReplyDeleteAs for blogging, no one can tell you what is right for you but I also don't think blogging just once a month will ever build up a readership because it doesn't put you high enough up in the search engines for people to discover you and follow you. What you have to decide is WHY you blog and would you still be doing it if no one ever reads what you write.
You put a lot of pressure on yourself to always be contributing to making the world a better place and that can be frustrating not to see changes happening or even worse seeing things go backward like with woman's rights. No one can make the changes needed in society alone so you can't take on the burden for its failures alone either.
Yes, I know I don't blog enough to gather readers. I don't even know how to "market" my blog to the search engines, etc. I guess in some ways I AM writing for myself, and hopefully my family and friends and others who stumble into this blog. Part of me fantasizes about being a famous blogger/writer and the other part of me protects my privacy and vulnerability by not putting myself out to the world since I so often write about personal things. As for your foray into yoga and Tai Chi...good for you! If you have any questions about yoga, you know where to find me (and my Zoom class!)
DeleteFrom an email: I love visiting the interior spaces of your mind. As a person who spends a lot of time in my own mind-world, I can identify, although I am not as meaningfully occupied as you are. I mostly visit old times, ponder on the things I see, hear, taste, etc. in the present, and practice all sorts of scenarios that might possibly happen in the future. It is that emphasis on the possibilities of the future that cause me the most anxiety. I like your approach of figuring out and studying the lessons of what you have experienced and learned. I would like to focus more on that instead of fear of the future. Something for me to work on.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your thoughts.
I've heard it said that depression is about the past and anxiety is about the future. I call Anxiety and Depression "the twins" who visit me on occasion. What has kept them from my door so often in recent years is my meditation and yoga practice -- and the personal growth work in the other areas I talked about in this post that help me learn WHY I've had the Twins in my life and what I can do to send them packing much sooner when they show up. The ring the bell, step into the foyer, but they don't get to sit down or settle into the guest room! I think those of us who are introverts spend a lot more interior time than others and I figure we might as well use all that ruminating for the good.
DeleteFrom an email:I learn, identify, am impressed with your journey. It’s good to be with a fellow “seeker”, even for that short time.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reaching out....I appreciate that your read my blog and share my passion for introspection and personal growth. We've done the weekend....now do the work. LOL
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