Transformation through rest
On rest and surrender through the shortest days of the year
In October and November I traveled—six weeks in a row getting on and off planes, changing locations, going through the motions of shoes off arms up machines whirring waiting in lines and take off and landing and new places and new people and movement.
I was talking to a friend about international travel, and she described that feeling after long trips where part of you shifts and you realize you’ve become someone new.
I think she was trying to put words to that disquiet after you return, that dissonance when somehow your former routine doesn’t make sense and you find your old life doesn’t fit you anymore. It’s that distance, that space, that rupture where you don’t reintegrate immediately.
I love that period of time. It’s the filmy quality where everything that used to matter in your life before you left doesn’t anymore. Where you’ve shifted your perspective enough to see that you don’t want to feel stressed, that the daily annoyances needn’t hit so hard, and you sort of float along through space and time.
In a way, it’s a remembering of who you really are and what you truly value.
Eventually that glow wears off and you’re consumed again. But that period, that period where life glides off the slick of your back and you know yourself as peace—I live for it.
As I’ve slowly begun to reimmerse myself in my own life, these last three weeks since the end of my travels, I’ve often found myself wondering how I might sustain more of that peace, more of that surrender.
Recently I devoted myself to a daily meditation practice. I’ve meditated on and off since I was a teenager, but have never before attempted a daily commitment. I started with a two-week training and I’ve sat myself down twice a day since, 33 days running now. Already I feel it changing me.
I used to pride myself in my ability to make things happen. In my capacity to create and manifest (a dance company, a revived union, countless creative pursuits). Of course, I still do. I’m proud of all that I’ve accomplished, and the wings of future projects beat impatiently in my chest, wanting to be born.
But this morning in my meditation, a question surfaced: what is the point of accomplishing anything at all, if I’m not happy? If I’m not having fun while doing it? If I’m not enjoying life?
It’s a question I’ve been spiraling around for a long while now, getting closer and closer to the realization its answer holds.
This fall I’ve begun letting myself not-do. I’ve allowed myself to unwind commitments. I’ve given up on the energies of obligation and punishment and perfectionism, sentiments that dominated my past and drove my ambition.
In their place, I cultivate the energies of desire, devotion, self-compassion. Usually this means some combination of doing less, of waiting for the right time, and of tending to the fears and resistance that surface when I attempt something beyond my comfort zone.
It’s meant not writing this newsletter the last two months. It’s meant letting go of the 1k weekly word count that lover and I were sustaining since May to make progress on the sci fi novel we’re co-writing. It’s meant saying no to social invitations and moving around work meetings to create more spaciousness in my days. It’s meant being honest with myself about how much rest and alone time I need, and how much capacity I have. It’s not been easy, given the magical thinking I was raised with about how much can be crammed into a day or week or even the 15 minutes before I run out the door to an appointment (oops, now I’m rushing and late).
It’s meant turning toward faith that if I follow the whispered offerings of what my body and intuition say I need, moment to moment, everything important will happen or be resolved, in its own timing and method.
It’s meant more midday walks watching the sunshine sparkle on the surface of the creek that cuts across the city, two blocks from my condo. More time for cooking and plating and eating beautiful meals. More epsom salt baths perfumed with peppermint and lavender.
Yesterday, on the longest night of the year, I lay in bed talking to lover on the phone about wu wei, the taoist philosophy of not-doing, non-action, or effortless action. We spoke about embracing that relaxed quality of living without forcing.
And this morning I rose, still thinking about how perhaps there’s nothing more important to be accomplished than learning to soften into that relaxed state of being. Learning to sustain an embodied surrender, and then listening for what wants to emerge.