You Are Enough. You Are In The Flow
Our nation is in turmoil. Winter is coming. The holidays are upon us. You Are Enough.
This year I’ll gather my concerns and hopes, my misgivings and gratitudes, at tables belonging to new friends, who are distant from my Michigan family.
I can picture tables prepared by all the mothers in my life, pie-crust leaf shapes topping baked apples and pumpkin fillings and the hub-bub of table-setting and gathering guests, waiting, wine in hand, as a few scurry about the kitchen.
Curiously, though, the scurriers are not at ease. An edginess has crept into their preparations, a seeking of perfection.
A more pleasing appearance — dishes that look like they’re preparing to be featured in Nourished Kitchen’s food blog or on a cooking show– is worth a delay in dinner time. Ironically, it’s not clear in this hustle what we’re hustling for. Or perhaps it’s very clear: a hustle to keep up appearances, a hustle to meet others’ expectations, a hustle to maintain tradition.
In the hustle, there’s no room for reflection. What are these holidays really about? And what, exactly, are we celebrating?
Maybe hustling and rushing help us feel productive.
Maybe productivity is our priority at all costs. And maybe we’ve allowed this feeling to define who we are and supply us with a sense of self-worth. We do it with many things — our work, our personal to do list, our vacation bucket list– that we don’t take the time to understand deeply.
We hustle so much we wouldn’t know what flow felt like if it swept us off our feet!
Likely we’d resist the flow and focus on planting our feet on the ground again so we could get right back in the groove of pushing, striving, and making things happen. We’re so conditioned to seek approval from ourselves and others for completing tasks that we might even blame flow for slowing us down.
I can picture tables prepared by all the mothers in my life, pie-crust leaf shapes topping baked apples and pumpkin fillings and the hub-bub of table-setting and gathering guests, waiting, wine in hand, as a few scurry about the kitchen. Curiously, though, the scurriers are not at ease.
An edginess has crept into their preparations, a seeking of perfection.
A more pleasing appearance — dishes that look like they’re preparing to be featured in Nourished Kitchen’s food blog or on a cooking show– is worth a delay in dinner time. Ironically, it’s not clear in this hustle what we’re hustling for. Or perhaps it’s very clear: a hustle to keep up appearances, a hustle to meet others’ expectations, a hustle to maintain tradition.
In the hustle, there’s no room for reflection. What are these holidays really about?
Have you experienced this? You get in the groove of what seems like an admirable habit of hard work. You get up and report to the people you’re supposed to report to, deliver the things you’re supposed to deliver, show up for the classes you’ve paid for, follow through on your commitments, and at the end of the day or week, when there just might be a minute, or for heaven’s sake, an hour, to breathe, you can’t. You watch those around you pull out a beloved book, choose a movie, draw a picture or a bath, and you continue to hustle.
About a month ago, I had a full day dedicated to letting things flow. On the couch next to me was a book-reading guy who was completely at ease. While my book rested, I scrolled through my internal to-do list, not work-related tasks, but things I wanted to do for friends, family, and even myself. I ended up spending much of the morning carefully writing the words of a friend in colorful markers, to hang on the wall of her new yoga studio, words we all need to hear, words I wasn’t listening to in the moment: “You Are Enough.”
You Are Enough
I see no problem in wanting to do things for others be it roasting a turkey or vegetables, baking a pie, or writing a letter. In fact, I love this about myself. What I don’t love is how easily I’ve allowed my opportunities to rest to be filled with more tasks.
Shauna Niequist, in her new read, Present Over Perfect, offers this sobering insight:
“We disappoint people because we are limited. We have to accept the idea that we’ll disappoint people. I have this much time. I have this much energy. I have this much relational capacity.”
I heard these words in my blood and in my heart and stepped away from major outside obligations and prioritized time outside in nature. I am still learning how to honor these words with commitments I make to myself. When I have a day to rest I often choose to somehow still be productive.
You see, I thought I was resting.
For nearly six months, I’ve lived in a new place surrounded by mountains with few obligations. I thought I was resting. What I’ve realized is that more than resting, I have been isolating, pulling away, retreating. I think deep down I believed there were only two options: hustle or no hustle. I forgot about flow.
In the past, flow for me happened on days something outside of myself put me in a good mood. As a young child, it was my birthday; as a teenager, it was my crush admiring me; as an adult, it was landing a job that boosted my income.
Since studying Yoga, Ayurveda, and the science of habit change, and then teaching my own students, what I’ve realized is that flow, what Body Thrivers call Easeful Living, doesn’t come from some gold star another presses approvingly on my homework. Flow comes from aligning my life — my daily actions — with what I want overall: a sustainable income, respect for my work, and connection with ease, flow, joy.
Without intentional implementation of a dinacharya, daily life can feel like just as much of a teeter-totter as the holidays: resting, nourishing, and over-sleeping on one end; hustling, engaging, and over-extending on the other.
Can you relate? It’s tricky for me to justify leaving a crowded room to be alone — walking quietly or sighing and cozying into a couch — while there is chaos bustling in the background.
What works for me to find that in-between space, that sense of flow, is building a habit of intentional pause.
“What I find now, though, is that the stillness is where I feel safe and grounded, and that the frantic living spins me away from myself, from my center, from my new and very precious awareness of how deeply I’m loved. I return to the silence to return to love.”–Shauna Niequist
Before the festivities begin, schedule time on your calendar for you. Honor it like your well-being depends on it. It does. Set aside some time (five minutes to an hour, so easy you can’t say no to it) 1) for self-care, doing something you love that will nourish you, and 2) for planning what you need for the days ahead, including:
- How much time do you need for yourself between holiday events?
- How many side dishes are realistic for you to prepare?
- How you be yourself, even around those with whom you strongly disagree about politics, careers, and loves?
- Are there ways you can still flow, without shutting down, without escaping, and without making your time with others a hustle?
- Who can hold you accountable? Who can safely suggest to you that you’re ready for more flow?
Then, cultivate a new habit, like one of these below, before you enter the house where you will be a guest for a holiday event or before you answer the phone.
Choose one. Make a plan. Follow through.
- Pause for just one, fully present breath. On your inhale, invite in the crisp air and your intention to connect authentically with those you’re about to see. On your exhale, release.
- Give yourself permission to feel whatever arises. You might practice naming emotions like anger, fear, sorrow, regret, as well as hope, peace, connection, or relief.
- Call a person in your life who understands you, loves you, and lets you vent. Tell her you’re blown away by her steadfast love.
- Inform those with you’re planning to spend time with of your boundaries. Be clear about your availability and honor yourself by leaving when you need to. It’s like coming out of a yoga pose before it’s urgent.
And in all this, let it flow: the pain, the joy, the thinking you should be elsewhere, and the commitment you made to be here now. Commit to embedding specific moments of pause, commit to meeting your own needs. You can do this in turmoil; you can do this in the winter; and you can do this during the holidays. You are enough. You are in the flow.