Friday, July 09, 2010

aha?



I've had it with epiphanies! As revelatory as these life-changing aha! moments can feel, they're often hard to sustain. A burning bush is miraculous, but I wouldn't wait around for one or have your growth depend on it. I encourage you instead to make small changes with great love -- then they'll accumulate and last. Stitch by golden stitch, you'll be sewn together, more whole.
-- from Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself from Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life by Judith Orloff, M.D. 
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Waiting for a friend in the dressing room at White House/Black Market. Thinner women abound. Hands in my pockets, I lean back, trying too hard to look effortlessly casual. Directly across from me, awesomely, is a massive, wall-length mirror. I meet the gaze of mirror-me and groan. "I look huge," I think. And then, because I've been doing all sorts of reading and thinking about being kinder to myself, I reject the body snarking and reprimand myself for the thought, "I hate when I'm so negative toward my body. God, what is wrong with me." No question mark there, just a period, for it is a statement, not a query. If it's not a question, it can't be solved or put to rest. Sometimes negative self-talk in its familiarity is less scary than change. 

But it didn't end there. I studied myself in the mirror, top to bottom and back again. I decided not to wallow in the cycle of berating and critiquing. It's become too exhausting, honestly. I said simply, "It's okay. Just breathe." I purposefully sent love zings to myself, just as I'd done when, looking toward the wedding photographer's lens, I imagined Stefan there. 

It wasn't an aha! moment. I didn't feel momentous at all, in fact; I noticed the change in my thought pattern only later when reflecting on the day. It was a small change enacted with great love. A brief but crucial step toward abiding kindness. 


5 comments:

  1. Love this. Because I just read something that I think might resonate, I will share:

    There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

    One thing I've learned about aha moments is that they are fleeting. You forget then you remember. Then you forget again and remember again.

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  2. You're so right, Karen. I think maybe that aha moments are a necessary step, but it's really the process as a whole (including the backsliding that inevitably happens) that constitutes sustainable change.

    I love that quotation, and that message resonates in so much of what I've been thinking about lately (staying in the present moment, bringing myself back again and again when I try to escape emotions, etc.) I like to think that this is why we blog, maybe: we write about these truths so that we can remember them, again and again.

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  3. My mother-in-law has to teach a Bible Study this week on the Sower and the Seed (from Matthew 13) to kick off her church's Vacation Bible School. She emailed asking for any insight.

    In re-reading the passage, I was immediately reminded of this post. Jesus says in v. 20-21, "As for what was sown on the rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away."

    I shared Orloff's quote with her, and your post. In terms of Vacation Bible Study, I asked, what are they wanting to do, as a congregation? It seemed to me that they are not creating the space for epiphanies or immediate reception of a superficial knowledge. Rather, they are engaging in the slow, oftentimes tedious process of creating fertile soil. They are teaching the young "sowers" how to tend to their seeds: not only to hear, but to think, to really consider, to challenge and change in small ways, manageable ways; to understand.

    It's what you're doing too, sweet Elyssa. In these small ways, you're tending to your space of the earth, making it a place where beautiful things can grow, where beautiful things are, in fact, growing.

    Congratulations on this small change that, as it turns out, is anything but small.

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  4. "I decided not to wallow in the cycle of berating and critiquing."

    I have decided.... three very powerful words, one life-altering idea. All small change comes from a decision. Deciding to love... yourself; to be kind... to yourself, to be honest with... yourself. I love how you so eloquently share the journey (and inspire me, too).

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  5. I hardly know how to thank you all for these comments; I'm touched and humbled more than I can say. It's so therapeutic for me to write these posts, and hearing from you affirms that I'm not alone in the search for a more centered life. And you all offer insight that pushes me in different directions that I didn't even know were there, and I thank you for that, too.

    Kate: This is going to sound trite, but I've decided that I really, really need to get cracking on this Bible thing. I had no idea that it could be so relevant. That quotation from Matthew? That is exactly what would happen to me when I read the newest self-help book or jumped on the newest cleanse. I was looking for a quick-fix, confusing my excitement and eagerness for a sustainable shift in thinking or behavior. I'm realizing now that this shift comes later, and it's oh-so-subtle. I can feel it happening but I can't quite put my finger on it; and it's fluid, too, so I take a step backward as often as forward. But as Mary Adkins said so succintly, "It's okay."

    Rosie: It strikes me that the awesome thing about saying "I have decided..." is that it frees you from having to think; you just have to act. Thinking is often what gets me into trouble (e.g. questioning whether I should go for a swim at the Y, which leads to a million excuses not to).

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