Redundancies, Illness, and Spiritual Self Care

Dearest fellow humans,

A few years ago I had my old laptop in the shop due to its increased slowness and occasional freezing sessions.  I asked the technician why a computer slows down, rather than just stops when it is near death. It is a machine.  Why does it go from speedy to sluggish, like a human, rather than just stop working?

The technician explained things this way:  New computers have many redundancies built in.  If the information can't travel by one path, it takes another, or another, until it finishes its journey.

But as computers age, wear and tear on the circuitry begin to eliminate some of the redundancies. There are fewer and fewer paths for the information to travel on, which makes for traffic jams and longer, more complicated journeys.  The circuits get overwhelmed---rather like baristas at high-traffic Starbucks when mobile ordering became a thing.  It takes more time to do the same things it used to do with speed.

Whether this is an accurate metaphor for the inner workings of an old computer or not, it struck me that it serves as a metaphor for human functioning---especially for the functioning of humans with invisible illnesses.  We seek to function as normally as possible, but we have far fewer "redundancies" upon which to rely, and so we get slowed down and overwhelmed far faster than those blessed with robust health.

Then I began to reflect on the probability that a lot of us have found one or another of the demands of our society overwhelming, and have had to find work-arounds to keep on going.  I think of those with dyslexia, or those with brains that refuse to do math (tax time!) or those with PTSD that only surfaces under certain conditions---or any other of the myriad hurdles any one of us might live with on a daily basis. Perhaps ALL of us have some imperfection or another that we don't even realize we have adapted to because we have not been sufficiently blocked by it to pay attention?

I also noticed again how fruitless and ignorant it is to judge someone who is slower than we are---someone who struggles to do what we find easy.  We are such a judgy species!  What does the judging accomplish? Are we trying to shame them into better functioning?

I often judge myself when I am struggling to function.  It is my number-one, go-to response with myself.  "If I am hard on myself, I will try harder."  I use a stick, not a carrot. I know better, yet I still do it.

This capitalistic, "just try harder and go faster and be better" society urges me in more ways than I can count to earn more, strive more, learn more, "succeed" more, WANT more, have more. Though I know better---I truly do---I get caught again and again in this rat race, leaving behind my spiritual practices: meditation, yoga, contemplation, reading, writing, and art, for more shuffling of financial shells, more fear of debt, more running and working and worrying....

Yet I ever must DO THE OPPOSITE THING.

REST.

"But!  But!  But!"

REST.

My redundancies have been removed and removed until I can do very little BUT rest these days, despite the urgent inner voices clamouring about all the ways I am not enough.  My lack of redundancies are forcing me to face my most fearsome of demons: my own imperfection.  Though I know with my whole head that I am lovable just for existing, the message absorbed deep into my being (and that of many others, including, I suspect, a certain 5 year old that is running the country) is that I am not good enough, and must keep doing and achieving MORE to ...

...what?

Finally be lovable?  Finally be worthy?

Perhaps ... finally to escape the cruel and relentless voices of that inner demon.

That inner demon is the stick, the CLUB, the BASEBALL BAT WITH SPIKES behind us.

Meditation and compassion and the intentional side-stepping of fear and worry in order to see clearly is the carrot, the platter, the BANQUET calling us forward.

When I practice spiritual self care, the whole world changes.  My perspective changes.  My sense of ease expands.  My creativity in problem solving multiplies. My ability to transcend and find work-arounds for spiritual barriers grows and unfolds.

An abundance of paths to my heart's true desire are unveiled where before there had only been great walls. The spiritual "redundancies" abound.

But keeping my eyes clear requires continuously returning to my spiritual practices, even when the demon behind is screaming at me.  Simply getting onto my yoga mat or picking up my pen has become part of my spiritual practice, for it feels like work!  Why do I forget and resist so persistently?

For today, I remember.  For today I am grateful for the illnesses---or lack of worldly redundancies---that point me to my spiritual practices.  I forgive my forgetting.  I rejoice when I find myself again.

"No matter how much I get done, or is left undone, at the end of the day
I AM ENOUGH."

-Brene Brown

I'll see you on the mat.