Hello hello and hello —
I’m having one of those weeks where it feels equally hard and exciting to function as a human being. Several projects are demanding my attention, with fast approaching deadlines of both personal and professional nature. As someone who used to dream of having fulfilling projects with due dates, this is exhilarating. But it can also be overwhelming—sometimes to an immobilizing degree.
Yesterday I was stuck in the emotional mud, wondering how long it would take to pass. The emo mud didn’t seem like it was going away willingly so I dragged out my journal, spent time in the sun. I put down my headphones and paused the podcasts while I cleaned my house, listening to the sounds that chores make.
Slowly the kitchen counter became more visible, its surface cleared of plates and crumbs. Rouge socks that my dog has strewn about the house find a home in the hamper. A large broom works across the deck, gathering leaves and berries from a nearby tree.
I’m a big believer in mundane moments. These are little procedures that we’ve done our entire lives. We have muscle memory that tells us how to fold a towel or scrub a plate. There’s no reason to pay attention to something that will be accomplished adequately without having to bring focus into the mix. These activities are unconscious, directed by multiple parts of the brain, including the motor cortex, basal ganglia and cerebellum. This frees up places like the temporal lobe and hippocampus to store explicit memories and facts which we weave into our personal narratives.
If the conscious and unconscious realms were people, they would be in constant competition for priority. When you think about it, it’s a wonder they get along at all, much less operate in one head. Yet as it is with the best yin and yang relationships, they lean on each other to fully participate in life experiences.
When we train our focus on unconscious actions, it feels deeply, (if inexplicably) grounding. Could it be that practicing intention during these moments is an affirmation of non dualistic existence?
Any mundanity can be a potent ritual of closing the loop, even for the brief moment of washing our face. The underlying importance of that action has way more to do with the calming of the mind than the cleaning of the face.
This is what I think “self-care” is really striving for.
It’s about honing the ability to bridge the perceived gaps between the parts of ourselves. The mind that thinks and the mind that does, enveloped in the space of being. This has always been available to us, but in recent years it’s been dressed up and packaged in different consumerist formats. If we feel we have to first buy the tools that will allow us to engage with oneness, we’ll be on the hook forever. There’s nothing wrong with indulging, as long as it happens with understanding this is a temporary means to access an eternal channel.
I think the collective prioritizing of self-care is a starting point—one that hopefully is transcended as the individual sees the expanse of self available when we stop and listen. And maybe we will stop and listen again
and again
and again, whether the moment is mundane or momentous.
That’s all for today.
Don’t forget to submit your Moments for Now— momentsfornow@gmail.com
All submissions will be shared anonymously on the Sunday dispatch.
Thanks as always, for being here!
xx,
James
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