The Nourishment of Being

Most days I am woken up by some sort of screaming or crying. Crying baby on the monitor. Crying toddler at my bedside. Baby crying in my bed. Screaming toddler on the monitor. Admittedly, there are plenty blissful and cute mornings where it’s all sweetness, snuggles and cuddles, as well. And then there are the three or so times in the last 3 years I’ve actually woken up rested and felt like getting out of bed before the girls are awake. I have recently realized how much I wind myself up for the day; laying there in bed in the morning. I wake to the crying; heart racing; my mind coming in like a semi barreling down the interstate. Because of my insomnia this past year, my husband is the one that jumps out of bed, pulls on the shorts and t-shirt from the night before and stumbles over to the girls’ room to get them and starts making breakfast. I lay there. Not letting myself soak in the moments of alone time or go back to sleep, but instead starting this pep-talk around the imminent tasks of the day. It’s so effortful; this preparing myself for the “battle of the day.” There’s so much force in it, right from the first waking moment. Drag myself out of bed. Brush my teeth. Wash my face. Do my stretches. Go downstairs. Hold a crying baby and tip toe around an edgy toddler while trying to do things like make coffee and unload the dishwasher. The really sneaky part is, this has felt so normal. It is such an autopilot thing for me. It’s habitual. I do. I cook. I take care of my hygiene. I care for. I plan. I shop. I nurse. I pick up the baby. I carry. I shhh. I clean up. I wash dishes. I do laundry. I vacuum. I pick up toys. I schedule appointments. I go to appointments. I do what has to be done. I just do. I do the adult things. But what I’ve realized just recently is how rigid this is. How forceful. How energetically draining this systematic way of going about life can be. It’s coming at life like a battering ram. And I’ve been told on more than one occasion I can be like a bulldozer when it comes to getting stuff done. And in the past, I felt proud of this quality in myself.But what I’ve found recently is.. yes, it’s nice to get stuff done, but then what are you left with? Stuff done. Great. But what about the energetic deficit you created to get that stuff done?What about the Truth? There is no relationship to Life from that place. There is no room for space or flow. And ultimately there is no openness or reception for what life is offering you in the moment.In trauma terms I am stuck in a fight response with life. Coming at life as if it’s something that needs to be controlled and managed is just fighting with what is.I was talking to a friend who has the opposite side of a lot of my patterns and she was saying how she gets stuck in a freeze response to life; avoiding and letting things go undone for months. I’ve seen this pattern of mine to do, do, do, before. This is not the new part. My practice when I noticed myself moving too fast or believing my mind’s urgency about the tasks, was to just stop. Stop doing. Just be still and come into my body.This practice of stopping the doing was super helpful on one level and I think it is what allowed me to deepen into this more recent truth I’ve found. Which is that these two responses are equally untrue: to do or not to do, is actually not the question. What I’ve found as I’ve sat and observed myself in this pattern is that it’s not about doing. And it’s not about not doing, either.What my body craves is being. This is very subtle and nuanced, but it’s creating an entirely new embodiment of the understanding of the doer/fixer pattern that so many of us have in a society that values doing much more than being.Being is not doing nothing and it is not doing something, either. It is being with. It is presence. And you can have presence whether or not you are doing something. So, as I’ve played around with this new found knowing, I can feel how elevating being above doing or not doing allows me to be with my life in an entirely new way. Constantly being in motion is a protective mechanism. And protective mechanisms, by definition, put up barriers around you. They create a wall between you and your life. Originally, that wall was there to protect you. It blocked you from some kind of pain. But the thing about protective mechanisms is they will eventually solidify into a pattern and then they end up blocking joy and connection as well. I have felt this in particular with my girls and with my husband. My inability to slow down and be with them left me constantly feeling a little disconnected. Like I was holding them at an arm’s length. And then I would want to distract from this feeling of disconnection. More doing comes in handy there. My true desire is to be totally present with my loved ones and my life. To really feel, receive, and have every little piece of joy, connection, nourishment and love I can with them. And so this protective mechanism of always doing ended up blocking my ability to really allow in the beauty of each moment.I would find myself planning what to make for dinner while Maya was taking her first steps. I would find myself drawn to my phone messages when playing with Alma.I would find myself rushing Alma at bedtime so I could get back to whatever it was I wanted to do. I would find myself constantly scrolling social media while I nurse Maya. As I stop this pattern of over-doing and move into more being, I am also going to have to feel the things that it was protecting me against; the pain. But, I have had enough experience unwinding patterns, that I know feeling the pain and discomfort is well worth the amount of connection and joy I’ll experience on the other side.The less walls we have between us and life the greater the spectrum of emotion we will need to feel. The higher the highs and the lower the lows. But it’s worth it. Because the full spectrum of emotion and experience is where Life happens. It is where true nourishment lies.We are spiritual beings having a human experience. And what I’ve found is that the more humanity I can experience, the more fulfilled I become. The love I have for my girls and my husband is the love that wakes me up to the truth that Life is waiting for me in the feelings. I’m here for it. Every. Little. Morsel. These are pieces of the journey into deep feminine nourishment we explore in my group container FED.I will begin the next round of FED in 2023. If you’re interested just send me a message and I’ll put you on the waitlist. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit clarabelize.substack.com/subscribe