When You Stop Doing, Life Speaks

Dana and I harvested our front porch tomatoes last week. Each is a bit bigger than golf-ball sized. And, as you can see, pretty ripe. Yummy for dinner last night. The pace of both growing and picking tomatoes is slow. Which I like. It reminds me of the many ways that my psyche values slowness these days. Not rushed. Not over-producing. Not frantic in performance. Not hijacked by the minutia.

I’m a 62 year-old human. I feel like I’m discovering what that means (without great attachment to the detail of the number). When I’m nuancing out loud with others nuancing their ages and presence in the world, I often say a couple of cheeky things. “Being in my sixties isn’t being in my forties. Nor is it my twenties. Nor is it my eighties.” I suppose that sometimes the honing in starts with differentiation, even the cheeky kind.

For those of you reading and following and jumping in for a while, you know that a couple of themes have grabbed me. Wander. Becoming. Belonging. Themes, yes. They are also practices. They are goals. They are surrenders. They are alignments. Even attunements. They touch the heart of things for me.

You know how when we have interest in something that not only do you look for it, but, well, it seems to start looking for you? I feel like Wander is doing this with me. Teaching me. Taking me for walks. Challenging me. Opening the beers on the back deck.

And then there are friends who start looking for us. They become part of the team seeking out the themes. This is happening a lot too. I love the insights.

My friend Bill did this recently. Bill is thoughtful. A counselor and therapist by profession. Kind and patient by personality. Knows a bunch. Bill sent me this article by Jeff Karp recently after Bill and I talked about Wander School. When You Stop Doing, Life Speaks.

Lots to love. Lots to pick and enjoy.

• “doing nothing quiets the noise, creating the stillness needed to hear your own inner wisdom”
• “your natural intelligence isn’t created; it’s remembered when you silence the mind’s anxious chatter”
• “transformation comes from subtraction, not addition; let go of performance to reveal your true essence”
• “stillness reveals you are not separate from life, but are a part of nature remembering itself”
• “stillness is a source, not a void”
• “natural intelligence is fluid; you don’t create it — you tune into it; it allows what you already know to come forth”
• “in a hyper-productive world, doing nothing can feel unnatural — even wrong…; when we pause and let go of constant doing, life begins to move through us, not from us”

And, and, and.

I’m drawn to such notions. Life flowing through us. I find it requires some undoing — I’ll likely always have some layer of anxious doer in me. I find it requires some fierceness in me — a kind fierceness that celebrates first, life flowing.

Hmmm. The tomatoes were the goal. Yes. If we didn’t get any, I’d feel disappointed. But, perhaps grown tomatoes aren’t the only goal. Perhaps equally important is the generic participation in life moving and growing.

I’m learning to center myself in such things. Not 40. Not 20. Not 80. Just here. Now. Turning in the stories. Inviting others to turn in to their stories. Participating in life moving.

I have programs that do this. It’s my B & B Series. Rather simple. And I’m finding are part of good and lasting practice.

Welcome if you decide to stop by for a tomato!