Family, friend, ally, buddy, BFF, companion, husband, wife, significant other, sister, brother, cousin, uncle, aunt, classmate, teammate, teacher, student, customer, boss, employee, neighbor, co-worker, colleague, enemy, antagonist, tormentor, victim….

I guess you are getting the picture.  How many words do we have to describe our relationships?  Linguists tell us that human beings create words to help them understand and describe their life experience.  The classical example is the Inuit Tribe that has hundreds of words for snow.  They live in the Artic and need them to deal with their daily experiences, at least during the winter.  What do the thousands of words that we have to understand and describe our relationships suggest about the importance of relationship in our lives?

Unlike the old myth of rugged individualism that has been current for the last century, we are made to live in relationship with each other.  We gathered together in tribes to defend ourselves in our environment.  We developed language that allowed us to relate to one another.  We ordered our common life with rules and created ideas like justice and mercy to make that common life more livable.  We do not simply choose to live in relationship with one another.  We are relational beings, wholly dependent on one another for life itself.

With this in mind, we will be exploring ways we can take care of ourselves in the midst of the intricate network of relationships that both surrounds and fills us.  A relationship is not simply the line or lines drawn between two or more people.  A relationship is a state of being with external and internal dynamics.  These lines reach through us, not to us.  They connect our bodies, our minds, and our souls. When one strand is disturbed it reverberates throughout the web.  Tending to these strands is integral to meaningful self-care.

For the next few weeks, I encourage you to recognize that self-care involves taking care of the relationships that are an integral part of the lives you live each day.  What do these relationships demand of you?  How do they affect the way you see yourself and the world in which you live?  How do your daily relationships make you feel about yourself and the life you live?  Ultimately, I would hope that each of us would accept responsibility for our intricate weaving of relationships and tenderly care for them in order to better care for ourselves.

Counting on your Relationships

Our first tip is a simple exercise that will help you visualize the web of relationships in your life.

Open your address book, your Facebook Friends, your Following List on Twitter, or your connections on LinkedIn and ask yourself these questions:

1)    When was the last time I communicated with the person directly?

2)    One a scale of 1-10, how deeply would I grieve if this person died?

3)    How different would my life be if I had never met this person?

4)    How does remembering this person make me feel?

When you have gotten through the list, what impressions linger in your mind or soul about these people?  Do your relationships as a whole bring you love and foster trust?  Do they fill you with joy and hope? 

Over the next few weeks spend some time with these questions and seek out ways that your relationships will bring you the life that you desire and deserve.

Why We Need Each Other

Needing Each Other Without Being Needy

Simple Ways to Nurture Your Most Important Relationships

For the last four weeks I have been considering how weariness can take over our body-mind-soul.  Today I conclude our explorations of weariness with a word or two about preventative care. 

Weariness is not always self-inflicted.  When it arrives on the unyielding waves of grief or illness, we must respond well and just move through it.  But, when we become unwitting accomplices in our weariness, we can do something to prevent it.   

First, we need to recognize the signs that we are heading into weariness.  Have you experienced a major change in your life?  Have you noticed an increase in negative chatter in your soul?  Has it become a little more difficult to get going in the morning?  Are your friends asking you if you are feeling okay?  Each of these may be signs that there may be something going on under the surface of your day to day living.

Take some “mental health” time and talk with a trusted friend about this.  Listen carefully to yourself as you describe your experiences and then listen more carefully as they respond to you.  If, in fact, you suspect that you are just around the corner from weariness, read the Tips section below.  If you decide that you are just tired, spend some time assessing where you need to make some changes in your life. A little TLC can go a long way at this point.

Weariness may be part of life, but it is not intended to be a lifetime residence.  Remember, self-care is “Job One!”  You alone are responsible for your life.  Do the best you can to prepare for those life events that will bring weariness.  And stay in touch with your inner self so that you can feel when you are creeping up on weariness.  Be well, my friends.  You are a gift to yourself and the rest of us.  Take good care of yourself.

There are two things we need to do when we feel ourselves slipping into weariness.

First we need to Learn Our Limitations!  We all have them.  We can only run so far without a break.  We can only concentrate for so long without a little rest.  We can only offer care and compassion for so long without a bit of self-care.  Our body-mind-soul has a way of telling us we are approaching our limitations, pain.  As long as we remain aware of our pain we will generally avoid going past our limitations.  Unfortunately, many of us have taken to heart the words of the coach who screamed in our ear “No pain, no gain!”  We were taught to push through the pain if we wanted to excel.  But this is not a philosophy of life, it is a coaching technique.  Pain exists to tell us something is wrong.  We ignore it at our peril.  Listen to it and you will know and understand your limitations.  Listen to our limitations and we will avoid becoming mired in body-mind-soul weariness.

Second, we need to Recognize Our Human and Personal Exceptionalism!  Exceptionalism is the belief that we or our group is beyond special.  We believe that the rules or usual expectations do not apply to us.  Many of us in our youth lived as if we were immortal because we believed that the laws of physics did not apply to us.  As we aged we wanted to believe that the laws of aging did not apply as we tried to live as if we were 20 years old.  Many want to believe that because they have exceptional genes they can eat anything we want without consequences.  We all have something that we believe makes us the exception rather than the rule.  This exceptionalism can mask the pain and hide the consequences of our choices from our mind. Identify those beliefs and make them part of your self-inventory as you scan for signs of weariness.

When we learn to accept our limitations and let go of our exceptionalism we will be better prepared to see the preventable weariness coming on and take steps to avoid it.  In the same way, accepting our limitations and letting go of our exceptionalism will take away many of the unknowns that surround those inevitable moments of weariness and allow us to move forward with our healing.

Be well, my friends.

(I will be on vacation the week of October 24th and will not be sending out a Self-Care Note.  Talk with you on Halloween!)

“Self-Care for the Greying Goddess”

Accepting Limitations

Personal Exceptionalism in Recovery – Focused on Alcoholism but applies more generally as well.

When I was growing up, we had a large pecan tree that grew next to the steps of the back porch.  It had a small limb that grew out over the steps and anyone over five feet tall had to dodge it.  My Mom wanted it gone so I found a saw and started working on it.  Being easily distracted, I turned my eyes off the sawing and watched the dogs playing in the backyard.  Not one of my finer moments.  In a couple minutes I felt something warm running down my thumb.  When I looked back, I had sawed into the top of my thumb, nail and all.  The strangest part of the moment was that I did not feel the pain until I saw the wound.  Until that moment, my thumb was numb.

Soul weariness is much like sawing into our lives and not feeling the pain.  There are times when our soul comes under attack by so many emotions, that it simply shuts down.  We become numb to the world around us and to the world within us.

The feelings are turned off.  Anger, shame, guilt, embarrassment, sadness, as well as more positive emotions do not happen.  We enter a trance like state and lose the lively inner dialogue that enriches our lives.  And, because our energy flows out of our soul and its emotional responses to the world, we go to sleep.  No emotions.  No energy.  Just sleep.

There is something within us that shuts down these emotions when they become too much to bear.  It is especially true for those experiencing powerful emotions like those that come with deep grief.  (But, they can also occur in moments of overwhelming joy.)  Something within us does not want to “feel” anymore.  Our lives may go on auto-pilot and we see ourselves from outside. It is as if we are observing a movie of our life.  We watch but have no influence over person we see or the circumstances we are watching.

Soul-weariness is a natural part of our inner lives.  It offers us a break from overwhelming emotions and circumstances.  But, if it goes on too long, it can be as debilitating as a stroke.  When we feel the warm essence of our life pouring out of some unknown wound, focus on the pain and locate the wound.  For only then will we be able to stop the bleeding and find ways to heal.  

Soul weariness has been likened to sleep-walking.  Waking a sleep walker can be very dangerous.  They may startle and fall or otherwise injure themselves.  The same applies to dealing with soul weariness.  We need to become mindful of our pain, but we need to do so in ways that prevent us from hurting ourselves. We should not do on our own.  The goal is to locate the wound and finding ways to provide “first aid” and then longer-term healing.  A companion can help us do so safely.

First, sit with a trusted companion, someone who knows you well enough to have a good understanding of what is going on inside of you.  Share your experiences with them.   Listen carefully as they respond to you.  (They may be the only one who can get you out of bed.)

Second, give your pain or joy its day while you sit with your companion.  Tears are okay.  Allow your companion to sit quietly without any expectations of them other than their presence.  Give yourself the time you need to move through those initial feelings.

Third, surround yourself with people you trust and who remind you of the better parts of yourselves.  Open your senses to the world around you.  Allow yourself to respond to those experiences.

Lastly, as your soul begins to engage the world, allow your life to flow through your spirit once again.  Allow the inner dialogue to resume.  As you awaken to yourself and the world around you, there may be moments of relapse.  But that is okay.  Return to your companion.  Give the feelings their day.  Open yourself to the world beyond and within.  Live with the love and trust, joy and hope that will bring meaning and contentment back into your life.

(If you are troubled by how long your soul weariness has taken and it has severely disrupted your life, it may be time to seek professional support.  Find a professional that you trust and allow them to be your companion through this wilderness.)

Some Causes of Soul Weariness

A Forum on Feeling Numb

Soul Numbing and PTSD

Unlike body weariness, mind weariness sneaks up on us when we believe everything is going well.  We may be feeling like we are having a very good day and are ready to head out and enjoy an evening with friends when it hits.  A sudden tiredness overwhelms us.  We find ourselves unable to make a decision.  “Where do you want to eat?  “I dunno, where do you want to eat?”  We are unable to be spontaneous or impulsive, choosing to go to our usual Friday night place.  Trying to decide on something new is just too much for us to handle.

 Mind weariness develops when we have been concentrating for too long or, we have been caught up in a tangled web of ideas that cannot/will not untangle themselves.  It also occurs when our “want to” get crossways with our “ought to.”  Or when what our minds says what is true cannot be reconciled with our deeply held beliefs.  Each of these situations causes us to experience a lack of concentration.  We become mentally lazy for lack of energy.  We retreat into formulas and stereotypes, accepting them at face value, and find the easiest path beyond our dilemma.  In its most advanced form it becomes “Pool Ball” thinking, ricocheting off every idea or opinion that comes our way.  We become less thoughtful and more reactive.  We are overwhelmed by the simplest task and over-think every problem or possibility. 

The most devastating part of mind weariness is that we are seldom aware of it.  It leads us into a mindlessness and a very real loss of conscious action and thought.  We go on auto-pilot and do not realize that we are not flying the plane. 

We can survive mind weariness as long as we acknowledge it and find ways to deal with it.  If ignored, it will lead us into poor judgment and choices that can have deadly consequences.  Mind weariness demands that the ransom, a deep mind-numbing battle within ourselves, be paid.  The only way back is through mindfulness.

Mindfulness is “…a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.”

Mindfulness comes from the ancient practices of Buddhism.  Many of its principles have been adapted into western culture, both sacred and secular.  Mindfulness is far too complex for this brief space, so I want to offer you a technique you can use to move from mindlessness toward mindfulness.  I call it De-focus/Re-focus/Re-direct.

De-focus

Step back and accept that this problem or situation is not going to be resolved right now.  Your mind is not capable to seeing anything larger than the mosquito in the room.  Mindfulness begins with de-focusing your attention on the mosquito so that other ideas or solutions have space to enter.  This requires a stillness of body and soul that will allow the mind to let go.

Re-focus

Gradually become mindful of your surroundings.  Pay a fleeting attention to the events going on within and beyond your skin.  Allow your mind to float like a butterfly on the gentle breeze of experience.  Re-focus on the being the butterfly, sustained by the nectar of each encounter with the world within and the world beyond.

Re-direct

Gradually, those moments may coalesce into a renewed attention, informed not by our inner desires or prejudices, but by our encounter with ourselves and the world. Drop your keel into this new attention and set your sails to catch the breeze of the inward and outward experience.  Let yourself follow the path before you with a renewed mindfulness for who you are and the world in which you live.

Mindfulness

12 Keys to New Life

Your Weary Head