Getting ready for a trip and dealing with the challenges to honoring my own needs.
It’s been such an intense January!!!
I was particularly possessed with all my usual January “changing over to the new year” rituals. Some years, the process meanders lazily, with many dawdles and time-outs. Occasionally it (without much cause for concern) lasts through much of February or even spills over into March. Yet, with a planned week away starting the 8th of this month, there was–this year–a particularly strong press inside me to complete the process by the end of January.
Leaving home for a trip always involves me in something my friend Justine calls “reaching escape-velocity.” Making this transition from my at-home “gravitational field” to the gone-away one always asks for serious tending to and clearing of both my psychic and physical spaces. I seem always to have an intense need to leave my inner and outer houses in order. I need a sense of closure on all that I’ve been involved with before I can leave in comfort.
This preparation process seems utterly compelling and necessary. It’s what allows me to be open and available to whatever experiences and changes happen in me while I’m away travelling. And, it makes it certain that the “who” that I am when I return will have a safe and quiet haven welcoming her, a tender nest in which to assimilate the new nesses born during her journey.
In the midst of all that was on my plate, with this especially strong need to attend to all of it, life intervened! There were several deaths of family members, partners, friends and pets in the lives of my closest friends. One of these deaths came under very extraordinary, devastating and unexpected circumstances. There was also a sudden eruption of considerable chaos in the life of a just-beginning new client and her family.
In each moment, I had to surrender my “menu” for my time and to respond, instead, to the “dinner” that life was serving to me. Over and over, I sat in the middle of this tidal wave, these seemingly unceasing calls on my energy/caring/time. Over and over again, I had to listen deeply, to feel my way through the question of what would feel most right inside of me. Over and over, the questioning was about safe boundaries for me. When I’m in the middle of some deep process in/with myself that needs my time, energy and caring, where is the limit of my availability to the people I care about? Especially when they are going through major emotional upheavals?
The challenge has repeatedly been to honor my own needs–even when they seem, on the surface of it, so “small scale” in comparison to what my loved ones are facing. How to know when I have reached the limit of what I can give freely, lovingly, with an open heart. How not to give away what I need for myself, even when saying “I just can’t be there in that way now” may feel abandoning to the one I care about.
Not surprisingly, in this time of being so pushed by Spirit, I reached my absolute limit in circumstances and with the friend for whom my not being available right then triggered the most profound sense of abandonment (at least in her littlest one). I felt saddened that I couldn’t both take good care of myself and be available to drive an hour to be with her in the middle of the intense upheaval of her emotional and physical space. Taking good care of myself was all I had the energy to do. I needed to stay home, under the covers in my own quiet retreat, nourishing my already exhausted self. All that I had left to share was long distance caring and a willingness to hear her upset with me.
It’s been such a long, extraordinarily overfull and deeply challenging month. I never thought I’d find the time and energy to do all I felt I needed to do for me. Yet, quite miraculously, I was finally able to come to the closure I needed in order to leave home safely!
Originally published February 2001
