Navigating the gap between wanting to and being willing to

  

     I had a wonderful, soul-feeding conversation with a friend over the weekend. Both of us are in a place where deep wants are shifting from formless desire into things we’re creating in our lives. After we talked it struck me that both of us are navigating that gap between wanting to and being willing to.

     Some days my wants are few and pretty simple. Other days I want all kinds of things. My wants range from passing impulses to temporary desire and deep longing. If I run into someone wearing a t-shirt I really like, I can get a want going about having that shirt. That’s an impulse want. If I wait a day or two the impulse usually passes.

    Temporary desires arise and fall on a daily basis. I want a cappuccino. I want to connect with a friend I haven’t talked to in a while. My feet are wet. I want dry socks. With these temporary desires, the gap between want and being willing to is almost nonexistent. I go find some coffee. I leave a message for the friend. I change my socks.

    When it comes to deeper longings I can lapse into an odd, self-imposed kind of amnesia. If I react to wanting a cappuccino by sitting down on the couch and waiting for someone or something to bring me coffee that’s an absurd reaction. I’ll probably be sitting there till I’m 102…but when it comes to deeper a longing, that’s often my initial response. Sit, feed the want with my attention and fall into expecting the Universe or some other person to give me what I long for.

     Yes, there’s a big difference between wanting a cappuccino and longing for a deeper relationship with who I really am….but the difference is mostly in the details. I know how to satisfy my want for a cappuccino. Either grab my keys and drive to a coffee shop or go to the kitchen and make one. I know how to take action on that. Until I’m willing to do either one of those things, it’s pretty unlikely the cappuccino is going to magically appear.

    With deeper longings sometimes I don’t know what I’m really longing for or how to meet the longing.  That difference can seem like a big deal. If I spend a bunch of time spinning around in my head about not knowing what to do, I can make that difference into a huge issue. But it really isn’t. I navigate the space between wanting to and being willing to exactly the same way. With wanting cappuccino I jump that gap so quickly I don’t have to be conscious of what I’m doing. When it comes to deeper longings, consciousness is required.

    Even though the object of my longing may seem obvious, when I begin to investigate I often find the object is just a placeholder. What I really want is how I see myself feeling if I have that thing, not the thing itself. That’s a crucial difference. When I long for something formless like a greater sense of freedom, my brain leaps in to offer a solution for how that could happen. That how comes from sorting through possible scenarios and picking one.

     All very logical but my brain is only selecting from what it can conceive of as a possibility.  No matter how big my brain is, the range of possibilities it sees is only a tiny fraction of what could happen. If I get attached to option my brain presents as the answer, I limit how much room the Universe has to work in my life.

    Once I have a clearer sense of what I’m longing for, it’s time to befriend the want. This can be tricky. There is a huge but subtle difference between experiencing the longing and feeding it. If I focus on the feeling of wanting rather than what the wanting is about, I risk growing the want into a sense of lack. With deep wants that I don’t know how to step into, I often unconsciously steer clear of those places inside me. When I do run into them, I step away pretty quickly.

    To befriend the want, have to stop avoiding it. Like other aspects of me I habitually dodge, choosing not to avoid the longing doesn’t make it immediately want to talk to me. I usually have to engage is a bit of coaxing and inviting. That often looks like talking and daydreaming about the want. I used to wonder if the talking and daydreaming weren’t just new ways to skirt the want. They can be if I lapse into daydreaming as a substitute for taking action. Talking and daydreaming can also be vital part of moving from want to into willing to. It’s a way for me to invite the want to reveal itself.

    When I feel the longing, rather than retreating, I let it in and experience it. What does this longing feel like? It is heavy? Sharp? How big is it? How does it affect me to carry this want around with me? Am I shutting down in other places to avoid this want? What excuses and rationalizations do I create around it? Do I letting not know how to create what I want to make the want seem impossible? What about this want scares me?

    Allowing myself to really experience my longing propels me from wanting to into being willing to.  Wanting to is an expression of desire and longing. It isn’t a statement of intention or action. Want does not automatically create change. Change begins with saying “yes” to that magic moment when want and willing to collide

  

Getting Comfortable with being Uncomfortable

      

     This is definitely a write what I need to remember post for me. Uncomfortable? Oh yeah. I’ve been dancing with varying levels of discomfort for over a year now. The past couple weeks the discomfort has gotten louder.

     We humans tend to react to discomfort the same way we do disease, as something to be fought, conquered and vanquished. Deciding to do battle with my discomfort is an option, but not one that really serves me in the long run. Slogging through the lengthy nebulous hallway where I’m not where I was and the new isn’t quite tangible yet is a vital part of change.

     If I expend a bunch of energy trying to make myself comfortable or less uncomfortable, I strand myself in the hallway. Along with resistance, feeling uncomfortable means I’ve stepped beyond my comfort zone. When I make that step and stay there for more than a few hours, I begin to outgrow my comfort zone.

    My ego and brain are masters at attempting to convince me everything will feel better if I retreat back into my comfort zone. I’ve tried that option a few times. It doesn’t work. Once I’ve been outside my comfort zone for a while I’m different. I don’t fit in my old comfort zone the same way. If I step back into my comfort zone I discover it’s not that comfortable anymore.

    The awareness that pushed me to venture outside my comfort zone in the first place is still with me. Fitting myself back into the same comfort space means I have to pretend the awareness never happened. I’ve repeated that piece of insanity enough times to know it doesn’t work.

    Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable becomes a matter of practicality. Like so many other things, it starts with my accepting where I am. I’m uncomfortable…so be it.  I don’t know how long this sojourn in the process hallway is going to last. That’s one of the billions of things I have no control over. If I move with the discomfort rather than fighting and/or resisting, I make it easier on myself. If I get in my own way, I could be here for a long time.

    What does getting comfortable with being uncomfortable and moving with my discomfort look like? My discomfort has a lot to tell me if I’m willing to actively listen. When I find myself focusing on the discomfort itself I redirect my attention to what’s underneath it.

     What is this discomfort? Discomfort is complex feeling. When I stay present with it for long enough to unpack it, I often find a mix of anticipatory anxiety or excitement and fear. Some of the discomfort I feel comes from living in the tension between excitement and fear without picking one over the other.

    Part of me is both excited and anxious about what this intangible new could look and feel like. Another part of me is yelling “Danger, danger! Run away!” That ego/personality aspect of me is going to keep squawking the whole time I’m in the hallway because the hallway is big pile of unknown. Fear of the unknown is one of those big universal human fears. But what else is in the fear tangle?

    Finding that out means listening to what my ego is yelping about.  In order to hear that voice I have to shift my inner dialogue from background soundtrack to the forefront of my attention.

     There are often a couple threads of self-doubt. Can I really do this or not? Running alongside the self-doubt I usually find an equally strong fear of what might happen if I can pull this off. Inevitably there’s some fear of loss. Change involves a death of some kind. Stepping into the new means letting go of something old. All those fears are pretty basic human stuff that’s not personal to my experience.

    Mixed in with all those fears is an endless string of “what ifs.” That too is basic human stuff, but the content of the “what ifs” can give me some important information. If I find a common theme, that’s a place to dig deeper. That’s where I begin to unearth the personal pieces of my discomfort.

    When I’m feeling uncomfortable, the level of discomfort varies day to day and moment to moment. Although the discomfort comes from inside me, external situations can intensify what I’m feeling. Those situations can also be a valuable source of information about my discomfort if I pay attention to what they mirror back to me.
    Discomfort has something to tell me. It won’t leave until I listen. There’s a difference between listening to my discomfort and feeding it.

    No matter how mindful I am, I can’t listen 24/7. When I find myself feeling worn out, overwhelmed or catch my ego/brain trying to impose its own storyline on my experience, it’s time to take break. Sometimes I need a little break every day. Accepting my need to step back and focus on something else or on nothing in particular allows me to conscious about what I do in those breaks.

     Does it serve the larger process or I am just doing something to numb myself for a little while? Neither option is inherently better than the other. If I opt for checking out over and over, I’m getting in my own way. Sometimes I’m not clear about what will support the larger process and a little stupor is what I need.

    Breaks can look like watching three movies in a row, taking a hike, spending the day at the hot springs, drawing or writing. Today I’m playing hokey and going to the hot springs.

Change, acceptance and trying

     This week I ran across an article in the Huffington Post about how February is generally when New Year’s resolutions begin to fail. It got me thinking about the relationship between change, acceptance and trying.

        I usually see the relationship between change and acceptance written as change vs. acceptance. But that’s misleading. It’s not an either/or. The relationship between change and acceptance is a both/and.

     The world is full of things I can’t change:  the weather, clients missing appointments, whether or not the shoes I ordered get delivered today, etc.  When it comes to the life happens stuff, I have a choice of accepting what is or expending a bunch of energy being irritated. Even that’s not really an either/or. I often both feel frustrated and acknowledge that I can’t change what’s happening.

    When it comes to the things I can change, I don’t get to make changes until I accept what’s going on. That’s even true of minor changes like remembering to turn the heat down before I leave the house. That change was pretty easy. Put up some sticky notes on the door and next to my keys reminding me to check the thermostat. Move the notes around so I don’t get so used them I no longer really see them. A couple months later checking the thermostat is part of my leaving the house routine.

    That habit was easy to change because accepting my lack of attention was easy.  I didn’t feel a charge or make a value judgment around my forgetting. My internal dialogue didn’t segue into me being an idiot or a “bad” person because I forgot to turn down the thermostat.

     The other piece that made this change easy….there was no “should” involved. When a piece of me that I’m uncomfortable with is reflected back to me, my brain jumps in with a “should” around it. If I’m feeling uncomfortable with my eating habits and I over hear three conversations about eating better, my brain will leap in with a whole lot of noise about how “I should eat better.”

     I can make that leap in a fraction of a second. But what’s really going on here? I’m uncomfortable with my eating habits, but not squirming enough to do something differently. That feeling prompts my brain to jump in and attempt to mitigate my discomfort by creating a “should” to push me to take action. To reinforce the “should” my inner critic chimes in with a judgment about not doing what I “should” be doing. That’s usually followed by a pile of rationalizations, justifications and excuses about why I’m not taking action now…which adds to my discomfort.

    “Should” leads to trying which can be part of the process of change. It’s also where I am most apt to get in my own way.

     Based on the judgment I’m making about myself and discomfort I can decide to do something differently. If I go that route, I set myself up to “try.” I’m not really ready to make a change, I just wish I was. If I act from where I wish I was rather than from where I am in a couple months I’ll be right back in the cycle of excuses, judgment and discomfort.

    Change is an inside job. It doesn’t come from a “should”, trying or a judgment. It begins with feeling uncomfortable enough that wading through the fear of things being different is better than staying where I am. It starts from me feeling completely done with whatever habit I’m engaging in. Feeling done comes from my gut, not my head.

    Trying can be part of be of change but often it’s a big pile of stuck. When I try, at best I’m fighting myself to follow a script for what the change I want might look like. The liability of “trying” is that I can talk myself into believing I’m really doing something when I’m not. As long as I believe I’m doing something I’m not likely to dig deeper. So trying to change becomes a way to avoid actually changing.

    No matter how painful something is, most of the time some part of me wants to stay in the discomfort because it’s familiar. The familiar is where my ego is comfortable. Until the parts of me that want to be different are stronger than the part that wants to stay where it is, change isn’t going to happen. So how do I move from “should” and trying to planting the seed of change inside me?

     This is where radical acceptance comes in. I don’t get to be somewhere else until I own where I am now. That means getting past my rationalizations, justifications, excuses and judgments. Radical acceptance is unconditional. It’s about accepting all of what is right now and not making anything “wrong.”  I’m repeating some pattern I’m uncomfortable engaging in. In a sense that makes the pattern unacceptable to me, but I can still accept my behavior and how I feel about it as part of what is in this moment.

   Trying leads me to avoiding my discomfort by doing rather than being with it. Radical acceptance leads me into the discomfort. I start with owning what I’m aware of right now, including not being ready to change. From there I often play a little game with myself. I wish I wasn’t doing X, but I am…so be it. If I chose do X, then that’s what I’m choosing. No excuses, justification, rationalization or blaming my choice on circumstances or another person.

    That’s tough to do. It usually involves a lot of telling my ego and inner critic “So what?” when they leap in to offer a reason for my behavior or how I’m feeling. Refusing to give my attention to excuses and blame opens me to feel my discomfort and start asking questions. What is the discomfort really about? What am I getting out of continuing to engage in this pattern? What scares me about changing the pattern? Am I staying in the pattern to avoid that fear?

    The longer I’m able to stay with the inquiry, the more opportunity I give myself to engage with what’s going on at the feeling level. Deeply feeling what I’m doing leads me to the point of being done with it.

    Ever notice how when you’re edging up to making a change, the thing you wish you weren’t doing is what some part of you wants to do all the time?  That’s where trying can be part of the process. Sometimes the frustration that comes from trying and fighting with me is what gives me the clarity I need to get real about where I am.

The Magic of Being 50

      

     Yesterday was my 50th birthday. Monday I received my first piece of mail from AARP. I laughed.  Over the past few weeks I overheard many snippets of conversation related to wanting to be 20 or 30 again. Not me. I want to be 50.

     My body is different than it was at 20, 30 or even 40. Menopause gave me my very own mustache. Cuts and scrapes take a few more days to heal. Although the fuzz on my arms is still brown, the rest of my hair is decidedly gray.

    The lines, wrinkles, scars and other ways gravity pulls on me are trails in the map of where I’ve been. I haven’t felt the need to dye my hair, buy “age defying” face cream or worry about my uneven skin tone. I’ve lived. I don’t want to look like a blank slate.

   I feel some aches and pains. My spurts of moving fast don’t last as long as they used to. I can’t lift as much but I can carry it further.

    Physically I feel a bit like I’m aging in reverse. I was born with a rare knee disorder that began impacting what I could do physically in my early teens. At 50, with two bionic knees, I can do things I couldn’t do at 20 or 30.

    I love the sense of wholeness and okay that continues to deepen. At 20 and even 30 I often felt like a collection of disparate pieces loosely corralled in skin. Many of those pieces seemed like things that needed to be fixed right now. The urgency has morphed into acceptance and quiet determination. I’m a work in progress. I want to still be saying that when I’m 80.

     In my 20’s and 30’s I felt an internal pressure to find out who I am and what I’m about. I looked at that as some kind of big arrival. It’s not. There are many arrivals. Each leads to more discovery and surprises.

     The core of me remains constant. As I get better at listening to my soul and surrendering, the way that core shows itself becomes more and more fluid. Now I am more sure of who I am and less able to define that.

     Even the core bits I stumbled onto in my 20’s rest differently inside me. I’m still adventurous. Adventures these days are motivated more by a desire to explore than a need to rebel. Rules mean less. I break and bend them when they don’t fit. The “rules” are no longer something I need to fear, feel pressured by or define myself against.

    I don’t have an issue with age. In my 20’s I heard over and over that I’d grow out of that. Age would matter more as I got older. It hasn’t so far. My youngest friend is in her early 30’s. My oldest celebrated her 80^th birthday a couple years ago.

    Yes, having more years on this Earth can provide more opportunities for experience and depth of experience….but that’s not a given. I’ve met people in their teens and twenties whose experience and understanding of themselves surpasses that of my peers.

    Aging is inevitable, but growing old is a choice. Old is a state of mind and spirit that has nothing to do with how many years my body is wearing. I know people who were old at 30. Old is about rigidity, lack of engagement in life, loss of curiosity, choice and closing off to new things.

    I’ve seen those seeds in many of my peers. A few years ago I was part of a revealing discussion about teens and cell phones. There were four of us, all in the 45 to 55 age range. As the discussion moved more into exclamations of “these kids today” and how texting was going to ruin the English language I felt more and more uncomfortable. We weren’t old enough to be doing that.

    Each of us has been on the receiving end of at least a few of those “You kids and your ___. I don’t understand” statements. I remember in my 20’s beginning to hear the fear behind those declarations. The speaker put this thing they didn’t understand in the category of youthful folly for fear that it actually represented the way life might be passing them by.

    The world is full of things I don’t understand or participate in. Most of that has nothing to do with age. At 50 I am more aware of what’s important to me and what interests me. I’m more discerning about what I invest myself in. That lets me be less swayed by trends, whether it’s this year’s fashion or the latest cure all supplement discovered in a South American rain forest.

    Lack of discernment does more to put me in the position of missing something than age does. Having a deeper awareness of what’s important to me means I am less likely to miss something because I’m not so distracted by shiny objects and what society says I need to keep up with.

    I have childhood memories of just being me and that being okay. Around the time I turned eight that began to disappear. From my teens into my 30’s I rarely felt that way. At 40 that sense of being me and being enough began to come back but it was fleeting. At 50 I see the possibility of feeling that way most of the time.

    No, I don’t want to be 20 or 30 or even 40 again. At 50 I’m comfortable in my own skin a lot of the time and pretty happy with who I am. I wouldn’t give that up for anything.