Zacy Practicing the “Nobility of Retreat”
In my world, this has been a truly huge week. Leading the five day immersion program, Integrative Weight Loss, at Kripalu, and being fully there for it, juggling some of my own dear coaching clients, showing up for the second evening webinar on codependency, (getting over the horrifying edge of watching myself in that little Skype-like box, pale white with twitching, beady eyes), while keeping my mind in the arena of my book proposal—all have left me a little thinned out, just this side of annoyed. Each thread of the week was rich and full of possibilities for connection and relaxed practice. I would change nothing about it, feel profoundly satisfied with my participation in all of it, and appreciate the blessings these gifts have bestowed upon me. Yet…..even if it’s all good stuff, it’s too much. It’s just too much stuff.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD, the brilliant scholar, psychoanalyst, and cantadora (keeper of the old stories in the Latina tradition) asks us to consider how we participate in our own oppression. Of this, I am clear! I participate in my own oppression by over-scheduling myself professionally while underestimating the impact these commitments will have upon me. I am the only one doing this; there is no external force here driving my schedule. That would be me; I am the internal problem.
I feel emptied out.
I am emptied out.
Does anybody out there identify? I imagine that, on a Friday night, I am not the only one experiencing this.
Swami Kripalu taught about “the nobility of retreat”. To mindfully unplug, to turn down the flames of connection, to shirk the tyranny of scheduling, to have more space and time to stretch out into daily routines, these are my choices this weekend. Thanks, Swami K. Your many-decades-old teaching is the prescription for me, right here and right now.
I am off to Netflix Streaming…….
Anybody joining me?
