Trust your gut. Your body is the only part of you that is ever truly present
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unable to fulfil our commitment
A couple of months ago I booked a one night stay in a farmhouse. We were travelling to Norfolk and needed to stay over. We booked via an online website. A broker. A middle man.
A few weeks before we were due to travel, an email arrived, from the broker.
“Unfortunately, the owner has informed us they are unable to fulfil the booking.”
My first reaction was, ‘damn, that’s a shame’ – it looked nice and I was looking forward to staying there. Quickly that evaporated into a sense of betrayal and deceit. Why had the owner let me down, and worse, why wouldn’t they just say why? I wanted truth.
Unable to get more information, I was ready to move on with my life and put it behind me. The broker had other ideas though. Daily for two weeks I got emails asking me to book an alternative. A venue they could recommend. It was twenty miles away from where I wanted to be. So, I ignored the emails. They served only to remind me that I had been let down. To continue to feed my disappointment. To turn it into a grumble, a bitterness.
Eventually the broker emailed a confirmed cancellation.
Then, two weeks before I had been due to travel, they emailed me, inviting me to have a lovely stay at the very place that had been unable to fulfil my booking. Now they were annoying me.
Then today, three days before my aborted stay, I received a new email. It says, “It’s time to put the finishing touches on your trip. Whether you’re travelling halfway around the world or just down the road, you deserve a great stay. So we’ve put together tips on how to make the most of your time and money.”
When we get it wrong, we simply get it wrong. When we get it wrong and then keep reminding everyone we got it wrong, we really, really get it wrong.
How often do we as human beings, interacting with others around us, effectively ‘send an email’ through not noticing our mistake. Through blindly repeating it? Through inadvertently drawing attention again to the error? Through not seeing another human being with their rights and needs?
It’s not about always being right. Nor is it about never making a mistake. It’s about noticing when we get it wrong. About truth, about honesty. But more, it’s about respect. It’s about noticing an individual. Seeing a human being. Honouring another person and their feelings. Their clever marketing, their smart systems, their ‘customer service’ failed to see me. A commitment to see the person. That’s the commitment they were unable to fulfil.
the ultimate expression?
I watched Jesus Christ Superstar at Regents Park Open Air Theatre last night. We were lucky to be in the front row, where the lead actor sang solos right in front of us. His face maybe six feet from my face.
Pain, anger, terror all etched on a blood stained face. Every emotion every torment, every hope of his character leaking from his teary eyes. Every anguish, every struggle, every fear trembling in his voice. His sinewy body straining in desperation, twisted in unrequited love, taut with vulnerability.
It left me wondering “Are those who perform in musical theatre the most human of us all?”
wisdom in the comedy
He appeared normal. He spoke and behaved just like anyone else. The fact that he had no heart was very well concealed. Well, that’s not entirely true. He did have one. It was just not in his possession at the moment. And this is where the story gets complicated. The woman who had the darn thing was blithely unaware of the fact. Well, that’s not entirely true either. She knew that she’d left the relationship with more stuff than she’d entered it, she just hadn’t done a proper inventory. Regardless, his dilemma remained the same. A woman had absconded with a vital organ and the gnawing emptiness he felt was a direct reflection of that vacancy…
Chuck Lorre – Big Bang Theory
The point here is that our organs misbehave, or go awol. Sometimes our breath is caught, sometimes our stomach flips, sometimes our throat temporarily holds a lump which will neither be swallowed, nor be ejected. Sometimes our heart flutters like the wings of a gently rising butterfly. Sometimes our mouth appears to have lost all ability to contain moisture, a vital lubrication which seems, sometimes, to have inappropriately descended into the palms of our overly damp hands. Sometimes our eyes leak and we cannot stem the flow, however hard we try. Sometimes our gut aches, like an ever tightening knot, dipped in an acidic solution. Sometimes our jaw aches as if the laughter will never end and we are in its grip forever.
Bodies, organs, chemicals, breath, feelings, emotions … being.
this guy makes a comeback
How big are your ears?
I don’t mean are the lobes oversized, or is the general scale of your listening instruments out of proportion to your face.
I mean what do you hear?
Do you hear some of the words spoken to you? Do you hear all of the words? Do you hear the meaning underneath the words? Do you make sense of the meaning you hear? Do you hear the tone, pitch, pace of the speaker? Do you hear the expression, the phrasing? Do you detect the strength or fragility in their voice? Do you hear the colour of their face? Do you hear the eye movements that accompany the sentences? Do you hear the angle of their head? Do you hear their physiology – their arm and leg movements, their shoulders, hands, fingers? Do you hear their breathing? Do you hear their heartbeat?
inside out sensory bounty
We’ve been sitting in the garden all day today. Under a parasol, around a garden table. Family. Breakfast, lunch and (soon) tea will have been consumed al fresco.
Wildlife has shared the experience with us. Goldfinches sipping water from a water butt. Various unidentified bugs crawling across hands and legs, occasionally swatted away. Bees buzzing around the nearby passion fruit climber. A wood pigeon interrupting the silence with its clapping wings as it launches into a tree from the lawn. The gentle rustle of trees whispering in the breeze.
Human noise has broken our silence too. There is a local festival on a couple of miles away and we can hear live music. Earlier, a succession of light aircraft came over – maybe fifteen in total – each headed in a similar direction, presumably off to a fair, or returning from one? Neighbours are starting up a barbecue and the noise of their preparations is joined by the drifting aroma of the smokey food.
All day the climate has been still. Light gentle wind, warming sunshine. It seems today we have lived inside out, and it has been good.
Being in the outdoors with all its sensory bounty.
free the dancing star in your life
You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star
Friedrich Nietzsche
There are many interpretations for this quote. My meaning I take to be…
Only with a freedom in your heart, a freedom to be yourself, to discover and embrace your existence, with all the chaos and complexity that might bring, only then can you bring your dancing star to the surface. A free, expressive version of your ‘self’ that brings light and wonder to the world.
reflections on reflections
One of the most necessary liberations comes when you discover that what other people think of you is not the same as who you are.
When you can stop identifying yourself with the stories, mistruths and assessments of others, you can also free yourself from a constant inner pressure to appear as you think people want, or expect you to.
But once you know this, another wisdom must be taken on.
You have to understand that other people are not the same as your stories, perspectives or assessments either. That means that whatever you think you know about them can only ever be partial; one aspect, a single angle on a situation way more complex than you’ve allowed for. Whatever you see, know you are blind.
Once these truths are mastered, know also that the story you tell yourself about you, about your own limitations, your acceptance in the world, your abilities or inabilities, is also not who you are. They too are a judgement, blind to the whole you; distorted tales from long distant memories or unintended fabrications from your past. Knowing this allows you to silence your inner critic. It relieves you from the self imposed weight of expectation, the burden of disappointment, the constant sniping at your capability, your value, your contribution, how you come to this world.
This awareness makes space for compassion. Compassion for others and compassion for self.
That’s liberating.
myth busting
How often do you think showing vulnerability is weakness?
We hide our own vulnerability so that it cannot be judged by others; and also by ourselves.
Yet, how often do you see someone else show vulnerability and see it as pure courage?
How in the face of so much difficulty, pain and suffering can this brave individual reveal to the world the extent to which they are hurting or not coping? Generally we don’t beat them up, we don’t pick on a weakness, rather we are inspired by their strength, warmed by their compassion, moved to support.
Vulnerability is not weakness.
Let’s bust that myth once and for all.
Free your vulnerability.
seasons of the soul
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
Albert Camus
Now it’s 34 degrees, I yearn for the cooling currents of a winter’s wrath
Me
illuminated dandelion 