“Be brave with your time,” rob auton said to me (and a few hundred others) a little over two weeks ago.
That has been one of my aims lately. To be brave with the how, what, when, and where of my day to day. To choose based on desire and genuine preference, rather than “tried and true” or unquestioned habit.
Lately, being brave with my time has brought significant discomfort and challenge, as well as surprising comfort and ease.
To me, being brave with my time has meant also being brave with my words, with my processes, with my ways of listening. Since communication and process are baked into time and being alive.
This bravery has meant pausing and holding myself or another, whether literally or metaphorically or both, when a part of me would rather get out and away as fast as I can. In other moments it’s meant moving onward into a new breath when a part of me would rather sink into the quicksand of the shadowy realms of internal and relational life, like the whirlpools of resentment, regret, shame, and blame. This bravery has meant leveling up on my acceptance of change, and the inherent uncertainty and risk that always seems to be its buddies.
All of these manifestations of bravery have in turn asked for a lot of grace and empathy. For grace and empathy are needed before, during and after the moments that I collapse when it’d be wiser to move and the other moments when I rush when it’d be wiser to hold.
One process of mine that has at times fully embraced and other times desperately resisted this shift into more substantial and sustained bravery is the process of decision making. I’m realizing I've been inviting in more and more decision points as I choose to be more and more brave. Or is it that I’m inviting in more bravery as I move through more and more decision points? I gather it’s both.
Traveling primarily by train through at least seven countries in the span of seventeen days, while visiting kindred people of diverse nationalities and from different chapters of shared life certainly offers those more and more and more decisions. Living in a variety of homes over the span of six months offers that more and more as well. At times, it’s just too much.
The brave parts of me can feel crushed under the weight, it’s quintessential decision fatigue at best and it’s fully throwing my hands up and isolating myself with no fucks to give at worst. But lately I’m delighted and grateful to say, the brave parts of me continue to meet the moment — for the most part — as I find my way through the decision thickets, through the tight decision aisles, up and down and over and under and through the loud, smelly hubs of decision central.
It doesn’t often look pretty or feel graceful.
But that’s not why I’m doing it. I’m neither being brave with my time to look nor even to feel a certain way. I’m not being brave with my time to prove something to someone else. Am I being brave with my time to prove something to myself? Perhaps. More notably, I’m realizing that overall, I’m not being brave with my time because I’m running from something nor running towards something. Sure, at times I do have the sense knowing that I'm adding too much onto plate to not have the chance to pause, though for the most part, my path is full of courage with dashes of fear mixed in because I'm human.
I've been searching for a reason. I've been searching for the reason why I’ve been vagabonding, for why I traveled through Northern Europe, for why I’m making the decisions I’ve been making. Searching for why I’ve been brave with my time. It came to me walking the sandy sea in Scotland:
maybe the reason is me.
I've been searching for a reason.
I've been searching for a reason.
Maybe,
maybe,
the reason is me.
Maybe the simple, but ridiculously difficult to admit at times, reason I choose this path over that one over there is because I’m me.
The wondering I’m typing my way towards is how often do I place justification or explanation that makes sense to someone beyond me more centrally in my mind than the decision itself? Some parts of me believe that the reason for the decision must make sense to someone else before I can actually make the decision. And the reason can’t simply be that it’s my decision to make. Some parts of me believe that the reason for the decision must not only make sense to this someone else but must also be approved by this someone else before I can actually make the decision. Wow, that’s a hefty task to make into a required check box on the way towards implementation.
But when the brave parts of me are met by the loving parts and those brave and loving parts join together to lovingly bravely and bravely lovingly meet the anxious and fearful parts, the check boxes to enact a decision substantially change.
Some potentials that take shape:
- Do I have the capacity and resources to make this decision?
- Do I have the desire to make this decision?
- Do I have alternatives that would be wise to consider?
- If any are a no, is there a world where holding or pausing or shifting is the decision to make?
Okay! Cool!
Pairing down the points along the way to a decision and clarifying that they are internally oriented though inclusive of all that’s beyond is a beautiful thing. It’s a brave thing.
To move into a decision with significantly less weight, burden, seeking outer permission and significantly more ease and simplicity is a complete life changer for humans like me who have learned to be insanely attuned and attentive to those around them and their perceived or named needs and wants.
Making decisions as a hyper attentive individual can feel like moving upstream while over 9,000 other humans move downstream after the largest fringe festival show just got done. And then added into the masses of people and all their individual perspectives and preferences is in an unexplained incident in the middle of the royal mile that has military police in position. Oh and you’re tired and it’s the middle of the night. And you’re forty minutes by foot from your bed. Collapsing to the cobblestone ground and crawling into a ball and sitting this one out is very much not the brave decision. Turning to the person next to you to make all the decisions is also not a viable option nor a kind approach to take. But sometimes those are exactly what’s wanted when living within the paradigm of hyper attunement to all that’s beyond.
Going from country to country day by day, sleeping in different set-ups each night, moving through culturally diverse rules and agreements, well, all of that has the opportunity to shake loose these supposed requirements and learned habits. There isn't time for hemming and hawing. Well, or there totally could be but would that be that enjoyable to do in a foreign land when I'd rather be people watching and soaking in all the scenery? There is time for scrambling out to the beyond for confirmation that I'm making the "right" decision but again, at this point in my beautiful life, being brave with my time and with myself has me deeply questioning that approach.
I was fortunate to meet many a person along my travels through northern Europe, and thus far in my vagabonding stateside, who has offered me the spaciousness and grace to meet me in my own bravely emergent, and emergently brave decision making experiences. The first train station ticketing agent could tell I was concerned about successfully making four train transfers in one day through the Netherlands and Germany and said, with the calm, caring energy to back up her words, that I had plenty of time for each transfer and I had nothing to worry about.
Another curiosity I'm playing with is how when bravery and courage enter the conversation, whether a conversation with myself or with another person, it shifts the atmosphere and expands time so it feels like there is ample room to make potentially tough calls. Even if anxiety, worry, or fear are present, the bravery and courage seem to calmly hold the reins of the moment.
I've tended to this piece of writing over the past three weeks while on trains, planes, in cafes (but not coffee houses in Amsterdam ;-) ) and I believe, in four different countries. I've used my phone and my laptop to type it up. I could keep going on this thread, for sure, though this feels like as good a pause point as any.
We’ll see if I make my way back to the weekly cadence of sharing words with you. It’s been a delight to (re)connect with you. Looking forward to being with you again soon.
Here's a collection of moments...
