Unedited Selves

Do you have any space in your life where an unedited version of you can appear?
In a friendship? A romantic relationship? At work? In nature? On the page?

Recently, a long-term participant in my contemplative writing courses noted that this is what she appreciates most about our practice together. I had mentioned that I first appreciated this practice because the writing is unedited - not the "finished product" we usually see (though that has changed over time with the proliferation of social media and blogs), but a more raw, direct, unedited version of writing. It helps calibrate shame we have over performance, continuity, how our minds actually work, and natural creativity. Of course, what this shows us is an unedited version of our MIND, which is something most of us are afraid of seeing, as if we will find only dysfunction there.

Watching My Speed

Well hello there.
It's been a few months.
Where have I been? All over. Too run down. Too occupied. Also happily engaged, but overall, too too much, and too fast.

So I am back now. Memoir Mind has a post this week, too, and I am going to work at posting again regularly. So hi. Nice to see you again (or meet you the first time).

This week I've been thinking about transitions and expectations, and about speed and pacing. The image above comes from my annual coaching program, Return, and is an example of the weekly forum where folks can post on their intentions.

For me, I most recently noticed this in my transition from non-exercise to exercise.

Last year I learned to run again, and really (gulp) enjoyed it! Someone I was running with joked that she never thought of me as a runner - I seemed too, well, cerebral for that. I laughed too - though I now understand those two to not be in competition with each other, I was raised with that belief, too. I had intellectual parents and one older brother who thought and talked a lot and didn't exercise; I had another older brother who ran and did triathlons but didn't do a lot of philosophizing.

Where did I fit in?