Sometimes the simplest things can feel like the heaviest weights.
The simpler they are, the more we paradoxically “can’t be bothered.”
In such states, how can we ever move forward?
While I often and continue to espouse a Visit as a powerful unit of work, it may yet be too difficult to even make it there. Despite not needing to do a thing, to only show up for a single deep breath and feel free to let it go beyond, the bind of appearing at all is still too much.
What then?
I imagine there have been times that you have been here. Yet somehow, mysteriously you made your way out. Some stumbling through without knowing how, maybe a due date creeped along far enough, or you just yelled at yourself into a painful “just start!”
But there are gentler paths.
Take for example how we already act when in play. Naturally, we might bump into frustrations, take stock of where we are, find some ease once again, and return with that ease back into challenge. Dynamically, we tune to windows of challenge for where we are in that moment.
Adapting this to difficult work is only a matter of bringing the process to consciousness…
We can start by taking stock of where we are, perhaps discovering what might be hidden in the words themselves. “I just don’t wanna,” for instance, belies a complex emotional world beneath.
Looking closer, one such emotion may be exhaustion, a consequence of repeated hits to our sense of agency. Dropping, losing, and forgetting things, we lose a sense of capability. Any attempt risks yet another injury as a fear of further inability rears its ugly head in clouds choking us into collapse.
Fully engaging these emotions, perhaps even sensing them physically within the body, we can now better find some genuine tendril of ease (or at least something easier) within ourselves.
Whether slowing down, breaking something down into the tiniest of tiny next steps, or finding a fundamental basic within the complex moment, there may be something we can work into an ease, a being-able-to-do-with-barely-a-thought, even if that is to hardly lift a leg off the couch.
Finally, if able to have found that path to tiny ease, we can ask,
“Can I gently bring that ease with me forward into some next step?”
Sometimes, we may even be able to continue onward to make a Visit, stepping up to the work to stare at the vista, now with our full emotional being. We can then fully decide whether or not to engage that Wave of Focus, as smooth or rough as it may end up being.
In a sense, we would already have made that visit in our genuine attempt of approach.
So much of our culture extolls the virtue of the hard. It often loses sight of the gentle origins of play, nourished in an earth of gentle ease. With time and care, play may yet build into its matured elegant and supple power.
– Kourosh
PS. The next time you find yourself in play, consider if you can see these steps of approaching challenge, naturally unfolding in the background.
