Scattered

I think it is normal to feel scattered in Spring. That is why it is such an excellent time of year to throw things out: to simplify. I have been feeling scattered — it’s not necessarily a bad thing, to be scattered. Sometimes being scattered is just on the other side of excitement, or enthusiasm, or productivity. There are simply some phases in life when being scattered is part of the deal, and it is nice to remember this, when things are too quiet, when you are not nearly scattered enough. Often, you are scattered because you are in demand, and how nice, to be in demand! But then being scattered tips over into being stressed, and tips over into you (me) tipping a glass bottle of olive oil onto my glass hob in exactly the same place twice and cracking it once a little bit and then quite a big bit. And now not only am I scattered but I need to buy a new hob.

My very wise yoga teacher very often gives the instruction: “do less”. Usually, this is when somebody or several people in the class are bending very deeply into some shape or other. If you’ve practiced yoga lot, you know the sensation. Nice, big juicy stretches which, over time, lead to nice, big juicy injuries. Big sensation is delicious because it is all-encompassing. It stills the mind, it’s impossible to be elsewhere when you are in sensation, when you are in deliberate overwhelm, distracted. But you can’t stay in the big sensation, or else it wouldn’t be a big sensation. Just as you can’t always stay busy, do everything all at once. You have to come out again, and then you can end up oscillating back and forth between under-stimulation and overstimulation with no room in between just to be. And that’s what’s maybe more interesting — as this same teacher often says — to leave a little room. This is the point of doing less. It leaves room for unexpected experience, unexpected sensation, unexpected gifts.

Habitually over-extending — in relationship, in movement, as a mode of being — does not leave room. Instead, it crowds. If you are a generous and busy person and you enjoy being generous and busy you might not know this, and you might wonder why it feels that you are often giving and not receiving, and that you’ve ended up feeling quite resentful about the amount you’re giving, and you’ve lost a track of where your centre is or maybe was. Plenty of times — new parenthood, when you are caring, when you don’t have enough money, when your life is simply very full — you cannot do less, at least not significantly less. But still, I think, it is possible to find those margins in which doing just a tiny little bit less is not neglect but a form of care. It can mean simply punishing yourself less. It can mean leaving pauses. It can mean leaving room in which other people can step forwards to speak and act. Room in which, if you feel that you can ask, you will find other people who are willing to speak and act on your behalf. You will find that really most people like to feel useful, and that leaving room, disburdening yourself, is how connections and communities are built.

Doing less, just a little less, can gather you back to your centre, to an anchor and with a steadiness that other people can lean on, when it’s their turn to be scattered.

Sending love, Rosie xxx