Today’s journaling / reflection prompt: What actions, words, thoughts, ideas, people are giving you vitality and energy these days? What does “aliveness” mean to you? How can you bring more of that into your life?
When we encountered this term, “aliveness,” in coaching class, one of my classmates noted that you can’t “‘bring more of it’ to a client’s life — you’re either alive, or you’re not.” We had a cold laugh about it before our discussion brought us to concepts like vitality and energy, which felt more relatable and obtainable, than deepening our status of being “alive.”
Drifting through the last few weeks, I have acutely lacked a connection to this “aliveness.” I wrote “energy” as one of the daily modes I track, and have ticked it off only a handful of times. Most days, I feel slumpy and zombie-like, fully functional, but not present.
S and I laugh about how we’re binging through the same Netflix show at blazing speed. I realize I’ve been numb enough to my own reality that watching three seasons in an ensemble cast of three women’s lives in two weeks has given me a strange refuge to experience ups and downs of life vicariously, without committing to anything on my own.
It’s tiring to connect to a sense of vitality when it often still feels like my brain is on survival mode, shielding myself from an unexpected swerve in COVID, like so many times last year, or for the next headline, the next name on the news splashed over a solemn black and white photo, to land me in a state of sleepwalking heartbreak, a yolk of sadness ready to break around any corner, at the sight of any screen. This was one such week, and I know there will be more.
Hope has high stakes these days, with each disappointment teaching me, again and again, lower your expectations. Why dream bigger when getting to dream at all is good and safe? The energy - for hope, for expanding my own heart, for broadening my experiences - seems to cost more than the smallness that becomes me.
When you care less, you get hurt less - right? Isn’t that trade off, always? To feed the fear of pain with detachment..?
Reconnecting with two of my closest friends yesterday - on the occasion of heartbreak for one, long-awaited new love for the other - upended this equation.
As they spoke, as we spoke, I could feel myself taking on different pieces of the hurt and the joy, breaking down these walls and defences I had put up for myself, holding my friends, observing them with love and a fullness I had closed off, even to myself.
With each moment to moment, passing as naturally as water down the trunk of a tree, I became the most “alive” I had felt in days. I was small again - but this time humbled and in awe, not cowering away - to witness my friends’ falling apart and coming together, their individual grace, their strength of character.
I knew, all at once, without words, that they in turn have always given the same unspoken gift to me, one that will carry forward past this season of restlessness, of processing, one that my loved ones and K give me each day, instinctively, with no hopes for return — the gift of holding me exactly where I find myself, being there with me, and letting me be.
Margin Notes
Hello dear friend. So surreal that this little lockdown project has now reached 20! Whether you’ve read 1 letter or all 20, thank you for being here and paying witness with kindness and generosity. This small community has given me refuge over a most difficult time, and I hope this has been a soft space for you on the internet as well.
I received the most feedback I’ve ever had from readers for the last letter, on being stuck, and hope to share some of those thoughts in reflection / prompt / comment form in coming days.
Can you tell it’s Pisces season, with all this far off gazing at life from a distance? I’m enjoying this time of experimentation (like the voice that somehow came out of these last two letters feels not entirely my own, but also worth exploring?) — but I’m also looking forward to arriving back on solid land at some point. I hope to meet you there when I do.
Until next time, be well, sending you big hugs, Kerri
Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash
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