At times in my adult life I remember a page from a youthful Fantasy Series called 'Ancestral Trail', specifically a moment of violent action where a protagonist fell into quicksand. The story told me they 'redoubled their efforts'. This term struck me as what I do in the face of pain and anxiety: try harder. Many times I respond to stress and emotional angst with mindless investment.
A new approach inspires me: pause mindfully.
My posture was been weak for a long time because of my weak core and lack of will to sit strong. Posture is part of pausing mindfully.
My sleep has been intermittant for many speculations. Reading my Kindle before sleep sounds far better for my routine, as does a shower, and water, and walking before bed. All of these are mindful pauses.
Breathing deeply is something that does not come easily to me. Typing these words slowly feels good, reflecting on the sense of the keys pressing down, appreciating the time I have to frame them.
Mindful pausing and slowness takes energy. Abrupt thoughts and explosive energy are easier for a man of my disposition. This is the way I interrupt others, seeking my say, urging for recognition. There is another way. Think about the concept you wish you express. Leave it hanging, ready to sink in over time. Do not think that concept will catch immediately in the mind of your listeners. Instead enter conversations with the ambition only to express a concept, hanging it in the air, letting the thoughts of the listener fall as they will.
I started this blog almost ten years ago as a way of considering how to teach abroad. I remain childless, although I enjoy a wonderful partner, a woman of great depth and love. With her I am better. Love should be at the centre of my life, driving my ambitions, making me enjoy the mindful pausing, imbuing my most simple of actions with meaning. The passionate angst of past people was far from mindful.
I have taken a hard reset these few years, considering what I might want to do in my professional and personal life. The relationship between my personal and professional experience really needs renegotiating.
I term my professional life 'expectations', and anything I do in that as an obligation. That framing works to reallocate some of my emotional investment away from professional obligations and towards more emotionally nourishing ambitions, or at least less emotionally draining relationships at work.
As part of this renegotiation between work and play, I also want to become more aware of unpalatable truths that exist, even if only for others. The rules of power as they might stand professionally are real for at least some colleagues. My purposefully naive approach to the industry of teaching and education, powered by the vocational beliefs I have forged, serves me only to nurtured limits before a dark forest. It leaves me vulnerable to the flanking exploitation of others, of limited colleagues who see themselves operating by a different moral code.
For days I have planned to consider my UBDs and a Literature book. Today I feel I might be able to begin that, mindfully pausing to do so.
