31 Aug I’m still not fixed!
Over the years I’ve had clients mad at me, wanting me to “fix” them, or certainly to fix the problem. I know very well what they have meant. I understand the sentiment.
Agggg. Wish that I could.
This morning I went for a long bike ride. It’s one of the ways I maintain my own mental health. Today I chose a new route one which was a slow uphill grind for a good five miles. Knowing what I was getting in for I settled in a low gear trying to keep my cadence easy. Somewhere around mile four some guy drove by and yelled out the window “Faster! Faster!”
I suppose I could be kinder and think good thoughts about him. But at that moment I was not only annoyed but found myself bad-mouthing him with a few choice words and phrases rolling through my mind.
The next mile – uphill- kept that one way conversation rolling in my head.
Finally, a bit of respite meaning less uphill. Tantalizing me ahead was a wonderful downhill………that then rose to a steeper upgrade. I paused, checked the wonderful app Maymyride seeing how far I had gone, how far to go if I kept that route.
And decided to take the shorter trip home, the one with less uphills.
I rationalized. I had done a long ride, fast ride the night before. I was a little tired today after doing a number of miles this week.
All that was true. I had to wonder, though. That moment had already passed. Yet here I was still ruminating, growling, crabbing about some dumb guy instead of enjoying the wonderful day. The smart alecky guy had unwittingly started a mental process in me that I was dragging around, mile after mile. It carved a way into my day shifting my enjoyment and perhaps even determining what I was going to do. Perhaps it infiltrated my mind and kept me from focusing on what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go.
Somewhere in there the rhythmic movement moved my mind to a different spot. It dawned on me how I – we – get grabbed by life events. Our Velcro mental and emotional processes grab hold of these moments and fixate on them, churning them over and over and over again.
I thought about clients who wanted to be fixed, thought of all those times when I wanted something outside to be different, realized how much I have to juggle in order to shift in order to have a different experience.
I’ve had the great fortune of having very, very good therapists, teachers, and mentors over the years. They’ve given me a great number of tools. They coached and prodded me. And still. Moments like today grab me, forcing me to wrestle with my own mind.
The last miles peddling away I found myself opening to compassion to all of us. I found myself grateful for all the years of practice, day in and day out, practicing even as I grumbled, “Why am I still dealing with the same stuff. Why am I not fixed!!????”
The benefit of practice seems to be that we become less prone to getting stuck in the same horrid spots. We still fall into the spot but linger there for less time. We begin to know that we can get out; we have the skills to walk our way out of the crummy spot.
Today, that moment with the guy passed. I’m grateful he did what he did, grateful that I could get my way out of the sticky negative spot. I’m even more grateful that I can use that moment to find a way to feel more connected to myself and to all of us who bemoan our fate.
Here’s to all of us!
If you want some support in developing or maintaining practices to live a more fulfilling life you might want to consider joining us in the Embodied Practices online course that starts the beginning of October. Click here for more information and to see if it’s right for you.