What gets us through
On decluttering and defragging
<Welcome to Sandwich Season, adventures in middle age, sandwiched between aging parents and growing children ... and other duties as assigned.>
Hi friends—
Our family experienced yet another transition last weekend—this time a happy one! Max graduated from high school.
Max’s “local grandpa” when we lived in Washington flew to Minnesota for the occasion, his aunt Karla flew in from California, and others came from out of town. We went out for sushi (Max’s favorite) and held a party celebrating Max and my sister- and brother-in-law’s exchange student, who also graduated last weekend.
Max was in his element. He created his own memory board to display, filled with photos of friends, family and activities. He appeared to revel in greeting friends, family and teachers. Later, he read every single card.
After all of the challenges we’ve experienced together, the occasion felt like blessing upon blessing upon blessing. I’m still soaking it all in.
But what about the rest of the time?
So, yes, a happy event can give us a boost that can help see us through life’s challenges. But that is not something we can count on.
On our pre-party Costco run, my sister-in-law Mary and I began talking about what helps us keep going when we’re in thick of life. A Lutheran pastor, she had been working on a sermon about suffering, so these sorts of topics were top of mind.
I mentioned that one of the things that has helped me walk through this Sandwich Season is teaching yoga. Not practicing yoga, but teaching yoga to others.
During the last year and a half of my mom’s life, as I was helping her and my dad see their need of more support, looking at retirement communities, helping them move and clear out their house, spending time with my mom in hospice before she passed (meanwhile, with Jon, parenting Max through some pretty rough times), I was teaching yoga at the Y every Wednesday at noon.
Was I practicing yoga at home on my mat? Rarely. And then not at all. Did I want to teach yoga? Yes. And then not really. And then not at all.
But I had made that commitment, and I kept going, week after week, no matter what was happening elsewhere in my life. And I did so mostly because it was easier to keep going than to figure out how to quit.
I teach Christ-centered yoga, which was a new and different class at this Y, so people seemed hesitant to give it a shot. And then the class somehow got left off the posted schedule. So for a long while I’d have one or two students. Sometimes I’d have none. No matter what, I taught that class, even if just to myself, and every time, after it ended, I felt better.
Mary told me that one of the pathways through grief is to throw oneself into helping others. Maybe that’s what I experienced with yoga. Focusing on what movements and postures other people (or I) seemed to need lifted me out of my ruminations.
Other things that I’ve noticed have kept me going are these:
Walking Leo the dog, and training to run the Fargo Marathon 10K (the day after tomorrow!):
Making things, like this multimedia picture I created by gluing strips of paper cut from old magazines:
And writing about my experiences and turning them into “Sandwich Season.” Thank you for reading my coping mechanism!
What these things have in common
Recently, I met a woman who recommended the book The Next Right Thing: A Simple, Soulful Practice for Making Life Decisions by Emily P. Freeman (Revell, 2019). You might recognize her name from the podcast I mentioned in last week’s post featuring a couple of quotes I try to live by.
As I was preparing for my yoga class yesterday, looking for inspiration, I found in this book a beautiful meditation on decluttering. Freeman writes:
“… we all have regular, seasonal input of stuff into our homes that comes by way of gifts, school papers, work papers and various decorations depending on the celebration, but we don’t often have regular output. As a result the clutter builds up inside our houses. In a similar way, our soul receives frequent input with infrequent output. …” (p. 26).
She describes input to our souls as things we see and watch and listen to, and all the moving and engaging and feeling we do. “Where is the output?” she asks. “Where are we letting them go?”
Later, she reflects, “Stillness is to my soul as decluttering is to my home. Silence and stillness are how I sift through the day’s input. The silence serves as a colander, helping me discern what I need to hold on to and allowing what I don’t need to fall gently away, making space to access courage and creativity, quieting to hear the voice of God” (p. 27).
If it seems odd to imagine decluttering our souls, what about the idea of defragmenting our minds? I used to go into Settings on my computer and hit the “defrag” command every now and then. (Come to think of it, should I still be doing that?)
I don’t know about you, but when I’m stressed out and overwhelmed, sitting down on a cushion in a quiet room to meditate or pray is not my go-to coping mechanism. It probably should be, but I know from ample experience that sitting still and trying to focus becomes just one more battle.
What occurs to me, though, is that my go-to activities—teaching yoga, writing, jogging/walking, making art—anchor me into a form of stillness. In yoga, my attention becomes focused on the movements, abilities and needs of the community gathered in that studio, the half dozen regulars who now join me most weeks. In writing, being anchored to the chair and keyboard help me focus and think through a topic. Running or walking, particularly with Leo, I follow my (or his) feet and give my mind free rein. When I make art (rare these days), I focus on colors and shapes as thoughts wash through my mind.
These are my imperfect ways of finding stillness. They are my colanders through which I drain unnecessary thoughts and feelings, and through which I capture the moments and lessons that matter. Sometimes they draw me into prayer and lead me to moments of inspiration.
This is how I’m getting through. How about you?
The silence that’s already there
If any of this sounds like just-one-more-thing-to-do, I should add that Freeman suggests finding “small cracks of time to be silent and still”—bits of time that might already exist.
Here are a few she suggests: “the first light of morning, your office space when you arrive early, the walk to the mailbox, your apartment before your roommate gets home from work, the drive to the grocery store” (p. 30).
I think sometimes we have—or very nearly have—comforting practices in place that we don’t even realize are there.
With all my best wishes,
Sarah
Share your thoughts
Do you have a practice that helps declutter your soul or defrag your mind?
Congrats on Max's graduation!! Also, I want to take a yoga class from you! 😄