Earlier today, I went upstairs after what felt like a half day of spinning my wheels on tasks that I either couldn’t complete, didn’t complete, or forgot that I was even trying to complete. Walking by my wife, I said, “I feel intensely unproductive.” She said, “Do you need to rest?” I said, “Of course, not. I have too many things to do.”And then I went back downstairs to spin my wheels some more.
Because, at least if I’m spinning my wheels I feel like I’m doing something.
I realize that is a laughable statement, but likely also relatable.
I also realize, as I briefly pause my day to write this short essay (because I wanted to at least check something off of my to-do list), that I have had one moment after another today that I actually have treasured, noticed, seen, heard, and embraced.
Many of those moments are connected to my interactions today with fellow human beings who I don’t require to be intensely productive to be my friends. In fact, I really enjoy my friends who are not caught up in being intensely productive and who actually enjoy the intense unproductiveness of days and even seasons as a way of balancing themselves in a world that gives us plenty of chances to spin the wheels of our lives like madmen, not go anywhere at all, and miss all the meaning that was waiting for us right here all along.
Perhaps, I am just worn out and tired of being productive, but I think that my heart is trying to get my attention and is simply unwilling to be settled until I listen.
The gift of this unsettled feeling and the accompanying fatigue that I feel when I look at today’s to-do list is that I am being compelled to see a bit more clearly and feel a little bit more intuitively and know a bit more wisely.
And all of that adds up to a kind of calm settling of my spirit even now as I write.
The image that is arising is of me watching me walk slowly into a completely calm lake until I am submerged and swimming below its surface. Peaceful. Quiet. Serene. Embraced.
In Amrit Yoga Nidra, we say, “Now move from thinking and doing, to feeling and being.” We say these words very deliberately and slowly, feeling them as we say them, because they are cues to the body and mind that we really can just “be” and that all doing that needs done will get done in the right time and in the right spirit. And, if we can’t get the specifics done, we can be with life and others and ourselves in the unproductive parts, even the intensely unproductive parts.
Like now.
While this writing exercise began as a way to cross something off of my to-do list, I am swimming in that calm lake, my friends. I come up for air to type a few words while I effortlessly float, and then I dive back under the surface and feel the gentle pressure of water folding over my body like a weighted blanket.
My heart has the feeling of being seen and heard and loved. And now the love begins to saturate my whole being and overflow. Wow.
Sublime.The body is at ease, calm, and now I am feeling some waves of sadness and accompanying goodwill and loving kindness for several friends who are feeling overwhelmed by life right now. There is room for them here, now, in my heart. Twenty minutes ago, there was not such space available. Too much to do. A wasted day. Unproductive.
But on the other side of those thoughts, behind them and through the window of my awareness, lies the deep-seated equanimity and even hope that is our birthright.
This reminds me of a beautiful poem by Naomi Shihab Nye that I was just introduced to by my friend, Annie Keeling.
“Window”
Hope makes itself every day
springs up from the tiniest places
No one gives it to us
we just notice it
quiet in the small moment
The 2-year-old
“kissing the window” he said
because someone he loved
was out there
Wow.
I’m feeling that Naomi. Thank you for taking time to write those words down and share them with our world. Wow.
I think I will go now and be less intensely anything and more intentionally just be. Here. Now.
It is enough. I am enough. And, ironically, I also notice welling up within me what feels like infinitely more energy and clarity to resume my to-do list. Haha. I love it. What a ride this life is.
Peace.
