At the beginning again

TS Eliot famously said

“We shall not cease from exploration.


And the end of all our exploring


Will be to arrive where we started


And know the place for the first time.”

If we are lucky, we find ourselves at beginnings again and again. In relationships, at work, and with adventures.

We can come to these beginnings with hope if we’ve learnt from past
experiences, or with resigned weariness if we haven’t.

This year, I’ve found myself at many beginnings all at once: Being in retreat, embracing the gypsy lifestyle, new work, temp digs, revitalised friendships. Much of my life force these past few months has been expended in choosing openness over anxiety; equanimity over the “same old same old” variety of low-key bad temperedness.

We come to beginnings with unreckoned baggage. We over-index towards things that come easily. For me, it is familiarity with practices around people and systems, writing and thinking styles, beliefs about myself or the world, and specific ways of being. “Not my first rodeo” is a convenient swagger of a hiding place for unnamed fears.

Not without consequence, is that flight towards the familiar. The new begins to look a lot like the old — with attendant “good” and “bad” tags. Then, I can blame my luck or timing or the market or any number of handy external circumstances. To convince myself, I can even work backward to create a story that holds water.

When I am not held to better standards, I (as I am sure, do many of us) go into new things with either euphoric hope or wary caution.

If I pick the hope route, then I go in with expectations not tagged to reality and wish that the new be better than the old. My initial expectation is often not met. Rapidly, disappointment sets in.

if I pick the caution route, I go in believing that I will bring the ultimate best and brilliant solution, and proceed to be disappointed at the lack of enthusiasm.

The starting point is either of these two:

“I want to learn from others” (While thinking, “I don’t REALLY want to buy what they are selling” or “I know better”), or

“I know better” (While thinking, “What if I don’t” or “Damn, if they know more than I do, where do I go?”)

In both circumstances, the voices in our heads override the need for openness. So, we don’t acknowledge uncertainty, and pattern-make before all the pieces are on the table.

Another stumbling block is the pestilential presence of the others.

It is an effort to not stack rank new people against the ones I know and love. To calmly inquire about the causes of their behaviours needs the patience of many saints.

I come slowly to the understanding that annoying me isn’t someone’s top priority, it’s just the friction that living generates. Perhaps I’m just the right person in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is easier to articulate, even to myself, than it is to understand.

With a little help, and with the elimination of my trigger response, anxiety (that turns every scene into a crime scene), I’ve accepted that my initial responses to others’ (perceived) oddities are neither appropriate nor fair. I may factually recount the instance that infuriated me, but most of the time, what is really bothering me is a near enemy of something I am trying to not think about. With a competent coach who challenges me, I’ve made tremendous progress in this space.

A third element is new territory, which is scary even when we’re armed with a map and compass. I’m freed by the realisation that it’s OK to get lost a few times, perhaps mess up their coffee machine, be over- or – underwhelmed by their space. Perhaps I don’t like the tilt of my chair, and that’s fine too. I explore the existence of other emotions. I get curious about their tea blend or their bookshelf. I get excited about the view from their window. I am awed by the play of lights and shadows as the day progresses.

Then, of course, there is that monilith (yep, did that on purpose). Me. As viewed from an external lens. From that vantage point, can I see myself continually, including when I am not at my best, as ready to receive big love? The engulfing, surrounding, overwhelming, scary kind of love that offers space, understanding, time and serious acceptance. Can I show myself kindness, knowing I will dazzle and I will fail, in turn. This piece on screwing up (with some tweaks to include all of life) is a good starting point. Knowing that I will mess up but it won’t be held against me in any way is a balm. To be reminded as if I am a child, that my fears about people abandoning me because I am not at my best, is unfounded, is perhaps the antidote to Sunday evening blues or maybe what every Monday morning commute needs.

As I come to more beginnings, I am rewiring

• My heart to expand, not look for contracts
• My nervous system to thaw, not freeze
• My brain to diverge in search of before converging to sense-make
• My gut to trust and not judge
• My spine to support, not be rigid
• My words to ask and explore, not fix

SPELL AGAINST INDIFFERENCE


The rain falls and falls
cool, bottomless, and prehistoric
falls like night —
not an ablution
not a baptism
just a small reason
to remember
all we know of Heaven
to remember
we are still here
with our love songs and our wars,
our space telescopes and our table tennis.
Here too
in the wet grass
half a shell
of a robin’s egg
shimmers
blue as a newborn star
fragile as a world.

by Maria Popova