introvert Archives - Owl Medicine: Shamanic Healing

Another Observation

As I sit here contemplating what I’m going to write this evening and how I’d like to spend my weekend, I’m struck by another observation. Even after an entire year of pandemic isolation, I still hear a voice in my head telling me that I do not have the luxury of spending a couple of days doing my version of ‘nothing.’

Now that I acknowledge that’s what I’m hearing in my head, I realize how weird and oddly repressive it is. Seriously. What’s with that? Why do I tell myself these things and perhaps more importantly, why do I succumb to the – what is it? – guilt?

Yes, I read some of the articles published early on in the pandemic entreating us to imagine what we could accomplish in our isolation. I pretty much knew they were bullshit from the start; but yeah, I also secretly told myself that I would indeed be able to accomplish a few of my treasured aspirations. I’d have no excuses.

I admit it: I held myself to a higher standard than I apply to others. I’m an introvert, I’d tell myself. These should be my power circumstances.

Not How It Plays Out

But that doesn’t seem to be the way life plays out. Our outer circumstances may change – even drastically – but if we don’t make a point of examining our inner landscape, it’s almost a given that we’ll end up getting nowhere. That’s because the obstacles and land mines we set for ourselves between where we are and where we tell ourselves we want to go are the most insidious. And if you really pay attention to that last sentence, you’ll see one of the biggest traps revealed.

“…where we tell ourselves we want to go.” Yeah. When was the last time I took the time to truly assess where I am in my life and then ask myself where I want to go and what else I want to accomplish?

How often do I tell myself I ‘have’ to do x, y, or z, when I would almost certainly be better served by plunking myself down and completing that course I signed up for three months ago? I was having so much fun with it! I was learning totally new skills and feeling a modicum of victoriousness (is that even a word?), when I suddenly put it at the bottom of my ‘to do’ list.

I’m Not Alone

Following on the heels of those early pandemic articles exhorting how much we might accomplish in our isolation if we just exercised some personal responsibility, I’ve recently noticed some articles that put a name to some of the disappointment and reticence over diving into new endeavors or returning to old ones: languishing.

I can’t say that I’m experiencing this with full-on intensity. But some of what I read in these articles rings familiar. And an even more interesting phenomenon that maybe feels a little more close to the bone than I’d like to admit is ‘revenge bedtime procrastination.’

Umm. Glancing at my watch…yeah.

Waxing Moon in Virgo – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-217)

Exquisite Spring Day – Photo: L. Weikel

Weird Week

This has been such a weird week already – and it’s not even Friday yet. (Well, it will be by the time this is read; but you get my drift.) And I have a feeling the weirdness isn’t done with us yet.

There’s been a dramatic acceleration of activity in many spheres. Notice I didn’t say a dramatic acceleration of movement or forward momentum. No. There’s just been a lot of activity – some of it constructive, some of it obstructive. And some of it just downright maddening and perplexing. Even a lot of spinning in place, one might say.

It’s hard to describe the shock I feel, in some ways, of dealing with so many people all at once in the span of four days. It makes me realize just how profoundly my baseline sense of ‘normal’ has changed in the past year.

I’ve literally engaged with people face-to-face (masked where appropriate, socially distanced in every instance) every single day this week. Tomorrow I have the opportunity and responsibility to engage further with more people and I’m simply agog at the thought.

Don’t Get Me Wrong

I’m not complaining. I’m observing. I always knew I was an introvert; that’s what’s actually made navigating the pandemic this past year relatively pleasant and comforting. I’m one of the lucky ones. I have space. I have direct access to innumerable expressions of Mother Nature and the ability to take a walk and enjoy them without a lingering fear in the back of my mind that I might not make it back to my house alive.

Yes, I’ve missed giving people hugs. Funnily enough, I think I’ve discovered that the circumstances in which I miss the gift of hugging most acutely are those that involve people who I would not ordinarily hug, but who I sense need them the most. What I mean by that is, yes, I miss giving my kids and my dear friends hugs. But I exquisitely miss the comfort and care that I sometimes feel can only be conveyed in a hug that transcends all words.

And the wordless expression of transcendent love and compassion are sometimes the precise and only gift that’s worth giving.

Buffeted

I find myself buffeted by the extremes of our existence. The yearning desire so many have to receive the vaccine that will protect them from catching a deadly disease – to the point that they burst into tears when they receive their inoculation(s). And then witnessing the casual indifference to the snuffing out of the lives of Black people by those we wish could be trusted to protect us – all of us – regardless of our skin color. As a mother – as a human – I just cannot fathom the relentless injustice and the disregard, time after time after time, for the preciousness of these lives.

I groused last night about feeling the effects of tree pollen. At least, that’s what I think was afflicting me last night. And yet…I stopped in my tracks when I looked at the exquisite beauty of the trees and clouds and grass I found myself driving past this afternoon. I almost drove right past this stunning hug from Mother Earth herself.

I’m glad I stopped in the middle of where I was driving and tried to capture the essence that overwhelmed me in that moment. It was a wordless moment of unconditional love and compassion. She was giving to me what I yearn to give to others.