I’m up… again. Maybe I’m up *still?*. It’s been a week and the days just kind of blur together. This is not a complaint. Just context.
I’m loose-ending some projects but my nagging thought in the wee hours of this morning is this:
The jobs we do matter. The way we show up for people, for ourselves, it’s important.
We talk a lot about wellness and wholeness and peace and acceptance here in this community but I feel like there’s a PS attached.
You do not have to be, or feel, or pretend to be well or whole or at peace or in a place of acceptance to show up for your people or yourself or your work.
Sometimes you are going to show up broken.
Sometimes you are going to show up with so much anger and resentment in your heart that you can’t see straight.
Sometimes you are going to show up without a shred of belief that anything is going to work out.
Sometimes you are going to show up and hate it.
Show up anyway.
Whatever “big show” you’re facing, all you have to do is stare it in the face. Or at the very least, stand next to it and side-eye it. It will know you’re there. I believe in my molecules that God and the universe will do the rest.
A prayer (or a mantra, if that’s more your thing):
I do not know what to do, or what to think, or how to be a person in this moment. But I am willing to try.
(That is also a really great conversation opener with a difficult person in your life.)
OR, here is a stupid Jedi mind trick that actually works sometimes; it takes you out of your panic brain and into your thinking brain:
If I knew what to do right now, what would I do right now?
We’re all train wrecks. Even the “most pulled together” among us. I know this because I too am a train wreck. I know this because life is hard. It’s full of unexpecteds and heartaches and disappointments and moments that over-and-freaking-over-again put us in pivotal places of uncertainty.
What we learn, and who we become, depends on whether we choose to stare the hard stuff in the face, or turn and run in the opposite direction.
Sure, you can run. Free will and choices and all that. But I promise you: you cannot run forever. Eventually that thing you’re running from will sneak-attack you like a hungry lion and it will not let you free from its jaws until you stare it in the face and fight it for your life.
Wherever you are, even if it’s broken and running, you have what it takes to show up for the hard stuff in your life. Because all it takes is willingness. It won’t get fixed on the first try. Or the second, or maybe even the one-millionth. It might not get fixed in the way you think it will, and it may not look like it’s going to get fixed at all, but it’s not your job to do the fixing. You just have to show up and be willing to let your mind and heart be shaped into what God and the universe designed in the first place.
You just have to show up. And I PROMISE: God and the universe will do the rest.
HP, J 