Want, Feel, Think

 

Much of what I say I "feel" is a physical sensation, not an emotion.

 

I'm not expressing a thought, either. Saying "I think time is fleeting" is an attempt to describe a bodily experience. Naming sensations seems to have a far more limited vocabulary than struggling to name emotions, where there is an abundance of words to claim if we are reflective.

 

To say I "sense" is far more accurate, so I'm attempting to change my language to be more true. 

 

All of us are mixtures of what we feel, what we think, and what we sense.  Some of us start with thinking before we can get in touch with senses and emotions.  Others of us are emotional, and we have to move beyond emotions to what we sense or think. I start with my body.

 

 

Many of us are out of kilter with what we most naturally do - quickly moving to something else because it seems to make us more acceptable to people we live or work with. In my case, my kinetic self did not seem as welcome as my thoughtful self, particularly in my childhood, so I learned to quickly move to what I am thinking without respect for what my senses and emotions might contribute. This is a non-integrated way of being, seemingly more efficient in some regards but creating moments of crisis, what we might call being out of sorts. When we or others are out of sorts in the middle of group decisions, we are not fully present, our contribution is harmed, and we end up having to go over it all over again once we are back in touch with what it is we really think, feel, or sense.

 

 

More important than knowing where you start is to slow yourself down enough to receive the benefits of all three parts of your self working together. Asking yourself questions when your contribution is needed is a crucial discipline.

These questions are in the order that work best for me. If I don't start with what is going on my body, I jump right to my thoughts, bypassing my body and my emotions altogether. I rush to conclusion. I become reactive rather than illumined - my body working against me rather than for me. My thinking becomes uninformed, and I make choices that could have been wiser.

 

In what order might you most effectively ask yourself these questions?

 

Three general questions have become even more specific to me as I've gone more deeply in this:

 

This is not a profession of being great at this!  I am, however, doing better over time - enough that some people are surprised when I return to being reactive, when my voice becomes tense and words start running machine-gun-like out of my mouth, listeners struggling to keep up.  This was how I used to talk most of the time. It is a victory that anyone would be surprised as I tidal wave my thoughts over everyone in the middle of the conversation. Progress!

 

The more integrated, deliberate me is the doorway into the fullest self to date. But rather than sound all desert-mountain mystic about this, let's put some practical benefits in front of us as we deliberately and repeatedly ask ourselves all three questions.

 

BENEFIT #1 - We slow down and are thorough. More thorough means more considered. More considered means more benefits, for myself as well as the communities I am pledged to support.

 

BENEFIT #2 - Our processes of coming to insight or decision, paradoxically, speed up. Being thorough means we don't have to go backwards to start over. We don't have to unwind something we regret. We don't need to spend nearly as much time working through the hurt feelings of others who feel run over or held back in a group process. We don't have to catch up with ourselves, and others don't have to play catch up with us.

 

 

Back to the beginning and the title of this blog post, that I sense time is fleeting more than ever.

 

The more I live into this Maestro-level journey, deepening in my awareness that every key decision has long-term impact for generations to come, the more my body feels time slipping into future. The sun shining on my life has long since crested the noon sky, but this is primarily a reality that my life energy depletes more quickly in any given day and does not recharge as easily. I have less time, but this is not a quantitative assessment of the number of springs I will yet see but a qualitative understanding of how to live in each day. My effectiveness and capacity are reduced unless I act more wisely and judiciously.

 

I once heard it said that humans can only really work in what we call "flow" about four hours in a given day. Thus, it isn't so much how many hours we work, but how many hours it takes us to work four truly productive hours.  With this insight, and with a growing sense that time fleets more quickly,  the hours between 5-9 a.m. have become sacrosanct. Here is where I can read, reflect, find stillness in my body, pray, write - unencumbered. Then, I can move into being for others, listening, thinking with, caring and coming alongside.  My body, my emotions, and my thoughts come into alignment, supporting the day that follows.

 

Contrary to the foolish idea that success means life should now come more easily, I'm now doing the hardest work I've ever done. And, I'm the best equipped ever to do it.