On Choosing

As our collective staying-at-home practice has dragged on, most of us have gone through many different mind-states. At first, perhaps, our new lives of sheltering-in-place were exciting and unusual. Then many of us began to find our way into new rhythms and patterns of living, our new normal. Now the news is reporting on ‘isolation fatigue’ and we are wondering how long we will be able to go on without having the freedom to move around, buy things in person and hug each other again.

One of my friends spoke recently of the freedom of time she felt during the first weeks at home. Most everything on her calendar had been cancelled and she felt a sense of openness and ease. Each day felt spacious. Moment after moment she got to choose what to do next. Now she’s back to a familiar sense of being busy – scheduled zoom meetings and new versions of commitments have re-filled her schedule and her mind.

I’ve been feeling this as well. Last week, I wrote about my relationship with my past self, the one who creates the schedule that I have to deal with when I wake up each morning. Sometimes, I can’t imagine what he was thinking as he scheduled multiple conversations back to back to back—or when he imagined this old body could go on one long walk with a friend in the morning, then another with another friend in the afternoon. I mean, really!

The shifts in perspective we have all been living through are actually a wonderful opportunity to look more deeply at some of the patterns and beliefs that keep us stuck in less than fulfilling lives. Looking more closely at our sense of ‘busyness’ can be a doorway to a life of greater freedom and ease.

Busyness is the addiction of our culture. We are obsessed with how much we do and how much we produce. Being busy is a signal to ourselves and to the world around us that we are a person of importance. We are doing as much as we can so we’re not really responsible for the things we can’t get to. We complain and commiserate but we can’t find our way out of the maze. We have forgotten our basic power and responsibility.

We are always choosing. Yes, there are consequences to our choices, but we are always the one who is choosing. We can blame our past selves or our boss or the circumstances of our lives, but in the end, we are each free to choose and we are responsible for our choices.

As humans, we often fall into a sense of ‘obligation.’ ‘I don’t want to do the dishes, but I have.’ ‘I don’t want to make that phone call, but I have to because I said I would.’ Through these internal conversations, we live large parts of our lives as if we were not free. We (and I include myself in this) waste our energy in resentment and we lose ourselves in the dark tangle of wishing things were otherwise.

How do we find our freedom in the middle of complicated lives and multiple responsibilities? One way is to notice when you are feeling constricted, obligated and unfree. When are you thinking ‘I wish I didn’t have to do this’? When does the complaint arise ‘I don’t want to be doing this’? Without noticing when we are feeling caught, we can’t find our way to some other way of living.

So today, is it possible to notice how you move between feeling of ease and pressure? Feelings of lightness and heaviness? Feelings of freedom and of obligation? Don’t try to make it different, just notice what it’s like right where you are. What does it feel like? What story are you telling yourself about what you’re doing in the moment?             (More on freedom tomorrow.)