A Blanket of Tiredness
When I stop to sense my body right now, it’s my heart and lungs and throat that speak. And, they are speaking in weary, sorrowful, constricted tones. My voice feels week, my breath a bit labored. It is hard to share this moment’s experience, because I am usually the one with the energy, the one with the extra umph, enabling me to do what I do with gusto and ease and joy.
I am certainly still experiencing joy, and even ease and gusto, but the moment finds me more fatigued, sorrowful, concerned.
I write on the heels of some jarring life moments. Mom suddenly losing her sweetheart, a dear, close friend’s mom experiencing a massive stroke. My own body resurfacing asthma and yearly upper respiratory congestion. These events have rocked me, and brought me out of my usual high energy flow.
I have been circling around writing, waiting for the ease to come back. After all, it’s the “holiday season”, a time to share smiling faces, abundance, confidence, and planning for next year to come! I want to tell you about my retreats, I want to invite you to experience my work.
But, when I look around, I am reminded, by the season’s grays, my meditation on the trees’ work of diving inward and downward, rather than blossoming outward, the leaves letting loose in the wild cold wind…the fat squirrels, making nests.
It’s okay and even important to “wear the blanket of tiredness”. I am not judging myself for having these feelings. I’m letting it be, and even seeing this time as a gift, an opportunity for discovery and growth. What can take place from here?
This writing by Elana Berabe is perfect for me right now:
"Grandma, I'm tired. So tired of this life...Take your tiredness, my child, and wrap it around yourself. Like a blanket in the cold winter months. Tiredness comes to make you a nest, to bring you to wear comfortable clothes, to make you sink into its warm embrace. I invite you to stay within yourself. Without strength, without thoughts, without actions. Like the snow that covers everything to soften the world, to make it muffled, to protect it from noise. Accept the flakes of your tiredness and let yourself be completely covered by them.
"I could die buried under there..."
"You will be reborn instead. Like the seed in the ground. Do not resist your weariness, do not reject it with a thousand actions, a thousand intentions, a thousand feelings of guilt. It just wants to take you by the hand and lead you to sink into the void. Right there, where the source of every inner strength lies. They taught us to be strong by resisting. But it is in surrendering that the true heroes emerge."
"I'm afraid, grandmother. What if fatigue will annihilate me?"
"My child, you are not afraid of tiredness but of losing control of yourself. The time has come for you to give yourself to life. And to generate together with it the most wonderful children: the fruits of your soul!"
Author: Elena Bernabè
I wish you all truth and authenticity. A time to go inward, should you need it. Live in your truth, even if it is an uncomfortable moment. Who knows what’s to come next? So, embrace what shows up, and let it embrace you too.
Robin Shaw is a life coach, yoga teacher and massage therapist. She brings a somatic approach to her coaching and is passionate about the way that the body and brain support one another in deep transformational growth towards a fuller, happier, more balanced life. You can visit her website, www.flowingintowisdom for more information.