Learning How to Be Light
Why is summer a license for hedonism?
Why is it that the things you don't do for the other three seasons are all of a sudden fair game, and you feel like you can break the rules?
I am closing in on finishing the biggest project I have ever taken on, next to having two children.
I finished writing a book and am making my way through the editing process. I should be close to finished with everything by September.
I feel my time beginning to seep back into my life.
The moments that have been filled to the brim are suddenly spacious. The early mornings I claimed so that I could have the time and space I needed to write, every single morning for the past three years, are starting to dissolve. Sleeping past 6 is becoming the rule again — not the exception. I find the urgency I was living with getting quieter and softer.
My instinct is starting to become “sure — I can meet you for a drink”, as opposed to holding my time tightly, analyzing each free moment.
It has prompted me to think about the moments after the storm. The space that is created when we move away from something that took up all of your time. Think about after you got a degree, when you finished a massive project at work, or perhaps finally had all of your children in school from 9 to 3. Perhaps you finished a film. A house project. Whatever it is — I notice that there is a sense of lift and ease in that space. An experience of your shoulders dropping down as the weight lifts.
But there is another piece in there.
A smaller piece that is often unfamiliar and difficult to understand.
Wrapped inside the relief of finishing is often a tiny piece of loss. A sense of pinwheeling, or disorientation that comes from losing your true north.
Your direction and the thing that kept you pointed forward all of the time. Even though something may be back-breaking, it also gives us a sense of purpose. A destination that allows us to feel effective and productive, regardless of the burden of its weight.
It makes me realize that in the absence of the weight, we must also re-learn how to be light.
How does that sentence land for you? Do we need to re-learn how to be light? I have a sense that many of us do. Whether it is because we are finishing a project, or because the world has been heavy, I think now is the moment to walk through five things we can do.
Five ways we can reconnect with our levity. Smell the world around us, and be in it,
not waiting for the next moment.
5 Ways to Find the Light
1. Read some fiction.
Read a book that you can get lost in. Read something that isn't structured or teaching you something. Read something that makes you feel things rather than think them.
2. Default to saying yes. Not no.
What is the worst that can happen? We are looking at time as infinite instead of finite. Say yes. Meet for a drink, or for dinner, or for a walk.
3. Try to worry less.
You may be shaking your head at me. Thinking that I am crazy. Wouldn't everyone worry less if they could? But the answer is weirdly no. We get used to our worry. We habituate to thinking about things in a loop, and picking it back up when we get distracted, and having our default become worry. Notice your mind drifting to worry as it is happening. Stop it in its tracks. Recognize that worrying will limit you from living. Let it go. Push yourself to think of different things. You can train your brain to worry less. We can train our brain to do so many things.
4. Get in your body.
Be physical. Sweat. Our body keeps the score. Let our feelings out through movement. It will lighten our minds and heal our souls.
5. Remember what you did when you were young.
The things you gravitated towards when your worries were less, and your default was not one of responsibility. Did you listen to music? Did you hang out without purpose? Did you laugh more easily? What did you do? Do it now.
Give yourself permission to choose ease and levity instead of worry and tension.
When something enters your world that destabilizes you or threatens your sense of ease and happiness, let it go.
Be sacred and protective with your joy and light.
Make a rule for yourself: only allow in those who brighten you and do not diminish you. Be selfish with your joy — share it with those who help you shine brighter, not those who need your light to be seen.
As you grieve the piece of loss you feel over the completion or ending, mourn it properly. Allow it to have served as a beacon and a center. Something to give you meaning and purpose.
And now connect to the excitement that will start to percolate to the surface. What will fill its space? Let's find our next big thing from a space filled with light and promise.
I have given you five ways to begin... do you have any other ideas? Share them with me.
xxx — dr. D
Get to KnowDr. Danielle Shelov
Dr. Shelov's therapeutic approach emphasizes understanding individuals within the context of their families, childhood experiences, relationships, and larger systems as crucial to psychological treatment.
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