The rumblings

What if you made a promise to yourself today to listen to what you really need, and to aim to give it to yourself?

Not the sugar craved part of you that says you need that chocolate brownie at your favourite café, or another cup of coffee to keep yourself awake, or the new pair of jeans you’ve had in and out of your online shopping basket for a week, but the quiet voice beneath the chatter of your mind, that doesn’t get as much of your attention as it deserves.

What would it tell you that it needs?

I said that I would give myself the day off from writing today because I am tired, and yet here I am (I notice that I said that last week too…). The part of me that wants rest lost to the part of me that wants to write, and knows that writing gives me life. But they are different needs, and it can be hard to reconcile them. This is why there are so many books teaching us how to rest. This is why so many of us cannot stop until we burn out.

So I am going to meet the needs of these two parts of me by being brief. Compromising, but hopefully not compromising myself.

Different voices

I have no scientific research to back this up, but my observation is that some people seem to know what they are going to say before they say it, as if they can plan it out in their heads, and ensure it makes sense before speaking a word. They seem to find it easy to process their thoughts and feelings in their heads so that words come out in an orderly manner that makes sense. Others seem to lack this skill and words tumble out like from an overstuffed cupboard, needing sorting into order and sense once they are on the floor.

Do you recognise yourself in either, or both of these descriptions?

These tendencies may not always be fixed as traits, and are likely also connected to the emotional content of the topic, and the state of the person speaking. It will likely not surprise anyone who has met me in person, but I am a person who finds it helpful to process the thoughts in my head by writing words down first (or talking them out with a trusted person). Without doing so I can find myself speaking what sounds gibberish! Often I find the writing part of me finds wisdom that I didn’t realise that I had.

This is why I have such a belief in the power of writing for wellbeing.

This week there have been rumblings beneath the surface; things have been moving and changing, and decisions need to be made. My morning pages have been a source of balance this week, and they brought a poem into being. I’m going to share it with you.

Are we listening?

Yesterday evening we had a 4.3 magnitude earthquake 68km SW off George Town, Cayman Islands. I didn’t feel a thing, but the local social media page had many accounts of house wobbles.

It seems nature and I are both adjusting ourselves a little.

What if we considered the rumblings and shifting in ourselves and tried to pay attention a little more closely to what these parts are saying to us?
What might we hear?

I hear the call to rest.

What do you hear?

I couldn’t help but come back and add a link to this beautiful song that returned to me again today…