Hi Friends-
I am feeling such deep gratitude for the ever-broadening rings of community that enfold me today.
These past many months, I have leaned on friends and asked for help more than I ever have, and I have also been honored to hold space for communities like KILN.
And, regardless of whether I am being held or doing the holding, simply being in community is anchoring me. So thank you for being part of the communal space of this newsletter. ✨
I hope that you, too, have folks to lean on, that you are asking for help when you need it, and that you are finding opportunities to anchor where you can.
This week I wrote about of self-acceptance and the practice of "staying with your stuff."
Much love,
Jocelyn
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Walking Beside Yourself
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One of my favorite ways to get to know someone is to go for a walk together. Part of the appeal, of course, is the movement and the scenery and the noticing but the most important factor, for me, is the side-by-side-ness of it.
Walking beside each other has a special quality. On the one hand, you are facing the world shoulder-to-shoulder and exploring it together. On the other hand, you are not facing each other and there is a gentleness, a forgivingness, a non-confrontational-ness to being side-by-side that feels comforting. When an awkward pause in conversation arises, it’s easier to hold.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the idea of walking beside myself. What would it mean to face the world shoulder-to-shoulder with myself? To not get ahead of myself? To not be impatient with myself? To hold my own hand when I need comfort?
What would it mean to truly walk beside myself as an ally and a friend, rather than a taskmaster and a scold?
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Part of walking beside yourself has to do with (lovingly) taking responsibility for yourself. Which also means releasing responsibility for others.
As a wise friend and teacher of mine once said: “If you take responsibility for yourself, you don’t have to take responsibility for anyone else.”
This statement has always felt like a zen koan to me, and I’ve been sitting with it for a few years now — trying to unpack it.
As a healer, a recovering overachiever, and an all-around do-gooder, I am very prone to taking responsibility for other people. I love being helpful, finding a solution, seeing someone tap into their true potential.
That said, it is also true that part of the appeal of being helpful is that it makes me feel like I am in control. If I am focused on someone else’s problems, then I don’t have to face my own problems.
And there’s the rub. The little seed at the center of that koan: Taking responsibility for other people’s problems takes me away from taking responsibility for my own problems.
I’ve started to watch for this tendency now and, every once in awhile, I can see it arise. I’ll be trundling along, thinking my thoughts, and just as I’m about to confront something about myself that I would really rather not contemplate, a subtle redirection of my focus occurs — and suddenly I’m chewing on a knotty problem a friend is dealing with, wondering how I can help them solve it.
But what if I made a different choice? What if I released the idea that I know “better” about anyone else’s situation, or that anyone needs my help, and instead brought my attention back to my own situation? What if I kept the focus on taking responsibility for my stuff?
I now think of this practice as: “staying with your stuff.” This is easier said than done.
Because staying with your stuff requires that you cultivate a friendly attitude toward it. And I don’t know about you, but my attitude towards my challenges, my weaknesses, my imperfections has not always been friendly. In fact, it’s been quite harsh.
Take my persistent anxiety, for instance. For years, I have been trying to “get rid of” my anxiety. I have been relating to it with the energy of: “this is an aspect of myself that I would like to banish from my being.” An attitude that 1) Fails to acknowledge that, in some instances, anxiety does have utility, and 2) Places me in tense opposition to an aspect of the way that I am, for better or worse, showing up. Which doesn’t seem very constructive.
Recently, I was taking a course with a sound healer and he said something that illuminated a new perspective for me. He said: “You can't be a beacon of light without your stuff.” The implication of this, for me, was that my challenges, my weaknesses, and my imperfections — my “stuff” — are an essential part of what I offer. That I would not possess the wisdom that I possess without that stuff. That, far from being something that I need to get rid of, my stuff functions like a doorway to deeper awakening.
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For a long time, I operated within a mental construct that said that I needed to get rid of my stuff, or to clean up my stuff, in order to be “ready” to take the next step. That my life needed to be on hold, that my self-acceptance needed to be on hold, until I finished the project of tidying up my consciousness. Which, of course, assumes the idea that I will at some point be “done” with that project. That I will be done learning, evolving, and changing. Which is ridiculous.
So what happens if I go ahead and accept my stuff, knowing that I’ll never be done? What if I allow myself to accept and integrate my “weaknesses” as an essential part of how I show up? What if I open to the idea that my weaknesses are an essential part of what I offer? That I wouldn’t have arrived at the insights that I have to share without those weaknesses?
What if I truly accepted this idea that my stuff is what makes me a beacon? That I don’t have to “get rid of” any aspects of myself? That I can accept and welcome all of me, even the bits and pieces that make me a little nuts?
When I think about that, it feels like such a relief — the idea that I don’t have to fix anything before I can accept myself. That it’s okay to allow myself to stay with my stuff.
Rather than trying to get rid of anything, or to disown anything, I can accept it all. Rather than rejecting my anxiety, I can a walk beside it — treating each part of myself like an old friend who just needs someone to listen for a little while.
LINK ABOUT IT
“I asked AI what we do with time, and it came back with words that were commercial and violent. We spend time, save time, take time, and make it; manage, track, and save it; we kill time, we pass it, we waste it, borrow, and steal it. We abuse time and it beats us back up, either in retribution or self-defense. It’s a zero-sum perspective of the material of our lives; it makes us prisoners to our own utility... When you wrap those up, it becomes clear that the best thing to do with time is to devote it. That is how you get time on your side.”
—Designer Frank Chimero, "
Time Is On My Side"
Rebecca Solnit on: Circuses vs Roses: Notes on Pleasure and Scold Culture
David Whyte on: "Wherever you are is called Here, and you must treat it as a powerful stranger."
How AI, healthcare, and Labubu became the American economy.
Treat your life like a transmission, not a test.
How your phone gets the weather (and why it’s becoming less accurate).
Good advice: Never worry alone.
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*Save $100 in August, with coupon code "RESETME"
Shout-Outs:
The artwork is: Kazuhisa Uragami, who is based in Tokyo, Japan.
Link ideas from: Kottke, J Wortham, and Remind Me to Love.
Website: jkg.co
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