In the midst of a month that was feeling particularly overfull and continually challenging to my capacity to stay in balance, a woman who's worked with me intermittently over the past 18 years called me in for a consultation. She wanted to process her struggle with the decision to go off the chemotherapy treatments that felt like they were killing her. Renewing her commitment to work with visualization tapes was an integral part of her feeling safe in making this decision.
Using the tapes I'd made for her four and a half years ago no longer felt appropriate. The level of health being visualized in those earlier tapes felt to her, at the time we talked, way beyond anything she could now reasonably expect herself to
On my way home, I stopped to buy the quality 30-minute tapes I'd need-fully believing I'd be able to get to the task within the next few days and deliver the tapes within the week. Days passed with the project always slipping to the bottom of the heap of the January paperwork and chores before me. I felt uncomfortable about not getting to it. I felt some clear urgency about getting the tapes back to this dear woman. Yet, I seemed paralyzed every time I considered beginning what was likely to be a 2- or 3-hour project.
By the end of a week, I had progressed only so far as listening to the old set of tapes (to remind myself of how we had designed the relaxation and preparation process). I felt overwhelmed by the prospect of recreating and redesigning the visualizations. At that point, I called Sarah and Jane (not their real names) to check in on how Sarah was coming along. I apologetically reported that, much to my consternation, I hadn't yet been able to create the tapes. They were a lot less perturbed about the delay than I was.
For the first few days of not-doing-the-tapes, I'd felt a little irritated with myself. Unlike earlier times in my life, the inner critic's voice wasn't noticeably activated. I wasn't either berating or beating up on myself for “procrastinating” on this urgent project. Rather, I was experiencing an uneasy wondering about why I seemed to be so frozen in the face of it.
Briefly one morning I had an old style “what's wrong with me, why on earth can't I just do this!” thought. All my years of working with calming my inner critic (the Hatchet Lady voice) helped me to recognize immediately that I did not have to go any further down this self-flagellating road. Instead, the self-critical thought was like a flashing neon sign calling my attention to the fact that some part of me was not feeling okay with where I was.
I sat down quietly with myself and talked with my upset-with-myself part about what we've learned over the past many years of our healing journey:
What looks like “procrastination” to our own (and others') “outside eyes” is usually a sign of one of two “inside eyes” truths: Either we're asking ourselves to do something that's not right for us to be doing at all (the wrong thing). Or, we're asking ourselves to do something that's not right for us to be doing now (the wrong time).
When it feels like something is sitting on me-like I am frozen or paralyzed or procrastinating-it is usually that some less than conscious, deeper knowing place in me is actually taking good care of me.
No matter how uncomfortable it feels to be in this place I will, at some point, come to consciously understand what isn't clear just now about the rightness (for me) of this not-doing.
Whenever I agree to create anything, all I can really do is to commit myself to making myself empty: available to and waiting for Spirit to move through me. I cannot force the flow of Spirit; I cannot create without the grace of this flow.
This loving conversation with myself calmed me. I was able to let go of any expectations, to relax into patience, into waiting for the next step to reveal itself.
Three days later Jane called to tell me Sarah was in the emergency room in severe respiratory crisis. The doctors advised calling on Hospice, believing that Sarah wasn't likely to survive more than a month or so.
When I got to the hospital that evening, Sarah was deeply under a heavy morphine drip. While other close friends kept vigil with the sleeping Sarah, Jane and I went to gather some things to make it more comfortable for her to stay the night at the hospital. Jane had a strong sense that things would move very quickly now, that she needed to get right back to the hospital.
At seven the next morning, Jane called to say that she'd just awakened from a two hour nap to discover that Sarah “was gone.”
Two days later, the night before Sarah's memorial, Jane asked me if I would speak at the service. I turned on the computer even before we hung up. Words of celebration of Sarah's life poured from my heart and cascaded onto the screen.
Consider the possibility that what you usually call procrastination is really the sign of a deeper, wiser part of yourself taking good care of you!
And, consider being really loving and gentle with that part of yourself.
P.S. So many of your delicious e-mails send appreciations for the affirmation, support and nourishment you receive from the site. When I answer them, I don’t always remember to let you know that having your own deck of the Rememberings and Celebrations cards is a way to bring this same loving voice into your everyday world, to have it at hand as you need to remind yourself of the "real" truth moment to moment in the crazimakingness of the so-called real world!
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The card on this page is part of a set of 64 handcolored bookmark-size cards called the Rememberings and Celebrations deck. They can be used as an oracle, a meditation focus or a "book-in-pieces" to kindle and grow a compassionate, gentle, unconditionally loving, fiercely protective inner-Mother to help you carve safe healing space for your emerging self and for the wounded little ones inside.
If you'd like a deck of your very own to support you in your journey, click here to download Order Form.
Please feel free to e-mail me at rposin@hotmail.com. to share your reflections and responses to any or all of what you find here . I'd really like to hear what touches and nourishes you!
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