Listening Beneath the To Do Lists
I hadn't noticed it at first. The lists seemed so innocent. "Once fall gets here," they all began, and after that came a litany: I'll exercise more, reach out to that friend I've been meaning to, do that thing and make that thing and clean that thing... Fall things, productive things. I was just waiting for the right timing.
Innocent, right? Until I was on my way somewhere recently and noticed how tightly I was holding myself, how packed in I felt. All those lists, I realized, had created this quiet patina of self-scolding; there was so much to DO, after all, to get things in order. But rarely do kind statements begin with, "If only you'd..." No, their subtext is clear and sharp: Pull yourself together, girl. Fix the problem (which is you).
The truth is that for many of us, those to do lists ramp up right when the din of our actual discomfort gets too loud to bear. Instead of slowing down to notice what's really happening - loneliness, exhaustion, overwhelm - we put window dressing on the tender spots, gloss them over with busy-ness. It's comically bad timing: Just when we're feeling less than together, we wag our fingers at ourselves to get it together.
But what if our discomfort isn't wrong? What if we don't fuel the myth that we need fixing? And what if getting low and close and comfortable with those vulnerable places is one of the greatest kindnesses we could extend to ourselves?
This inner "I just need to..." is quietly habitual, a pattern we developed long ago, without thinking. It insists we only...need to... hold it...together and [fill in the blank] will be alright.
Friends, let's just put down the lie that we're holding anything together.
This doesn't mean that we're irresponsible with our loved ones, that we stop showing up for work or give up on showering. Just that we allow ourselves to be softly honest about what dwells inside.
The funny thing is, we know how to do this... when it comes to other people. If you've sat with a friend when she's in distress, or a child who is twisting himself in strange contortions because something is amiss, you know: First, you listen. You just show up. When we offer permission instead of "solutions," there's more space for things to grow - not by coercing and cajoling, but tending and trusting.
Brené Brown writes beautifully on this topic (and if you have 2:54, please watch this sweetest bit of animation from her, also linked at the end of this post), which she frames as the difference between feeling with someone (empathy) and trying to "help" them (sympathy). If we really want to make something better, says Brown, what we say matters so much less than the quality of our connection.
True, it's often easier to see how to do this for someone else. But maybe we could practice pausing at those "if only you'ds," listening for what lies beneath them, and offering empathy to ourselves. That's a punch list I could actually get behind.