Who are you in the rapids?
This week's Community Tuesday chat thread
NOTE: If you’re a caregiver to kids five and under, we’ll be meeting on Zoom at 10:30am EST today to talk about the challenges of this age and stage. You can sign up to get the Zoom link here up until 9:30am EST today. We hope to see you there!
If you can’t make it, we invite you to join the discussion in the chat this week, which has a similar focus: responding in ways that align with our values and best selves, vs. simply reacting. Read on for the prompt and chat discussion!
Last week, I talked to
about a metaphor I often use when talking to people about the nature of creating and caregiving: rafting through rapids.This week, I’d like to invite us to think about how we show up during tough tending seasons — including before, during and after.
Here’s a snippet from that conversation:
Ryan: I grew up whitewater rafting, so I often talk about [caregiving] in terms of river rafting. You’re not climbing to somewhere where you can rest forever. You’re navigating a terrain in which there are constant rapids.
With rapids, often you can scout them before you go in. You can walk the length of them. You can try to have a plan.
Then, you go through the rapid. Maybe it goes well. Maybe you flip and you lose all your beer. Tragic! And your first aid kit, or your favorite hiking boots, or whatever. Still, if you emerge with your life, it's a good river trip.
Then, there's a process called eddying out, where you float to the next calm place on the shore, and you pull up, and there’s an aftercare piece.
I think of this [moment in my life] as more of an eddying out than, “Ah, I've reached the plateau of forever perfection.” In this eddy, there’s really an existential questioning of, “Who am I now?” It can feel hard, though, to have the mental space or the practices to sense into, “What do I want? What do I most need?”
To recap, with tough tending seasons, there are many opportunities and ways to be present.
For example:
Being present as we consider our intentions and the challenge or project we are about to undertake — if we’re lucky enough to see it coming, that is — and initiating whatever tasks and planning conversations are ours to initiate with others who share our “boat.”
Being present as we breathe and move through the active stages of the challenge or project — attending the meeting, having the hard conversation, moving to a new location, experiencing changes to our support system and/or childcare schedule, grappling with a diagnosis or illness, welcoming a new family member, saying goodbye. In this stage, we’re not so much tinkering with how we want to go about things as actually going about them, taking in all relevant information from our surroundings and the people “rowing” alongside us while trying not to flip.
Being present with the aftermath of a tough tending season — reflecting on what went well, respectfully communicating any necessary feedback, regulating our nervous systems, offering support for the aftercare of others in the “boat” who may be feeling distressed, celebrating what went well and/or widening our perspective to include gratitude for what came before, and allowing ourselves to rest and re-set before jumping into the next stage of scouting.
Many of us have areas of strength and areas of struggle when it comes to the stages above.
Some of us are excellent at intention-setting, and incredible in a crisis, but when we exit the rapids, we struggle to rest and re-set.
Some of us might struggle to show up for the scouting stages or identify more strongly with a “spontaneous” approach.
Some of us might freeze and drop our oars out of fear or overwhelm, even when we know we’re supposed to be rowing through a rapid. Afterwards, we might be flooded with shame.
Some might be more than happy to savor a moment of solitude at the end of the process, but then become attached to the feeling of being eddied out, resisting the call to keep going down the river even, as the sun begins to set or food supplies begin to dwindle.
We're halfway through our current monthly cycle of intention-setting, and this is sometimes where the proverbial "waters" can get rough. This is especially true as the seasons change (and along with them, often our schedules and supports system).
There are as many ways to approach tough transitions as there are tenders in this community. Are there patterns that you notice in terms of how *you* tend to show up in the rapids? Are you a planner or a "pantser”? Someone who's great in a crisis or looks to others to lead? Someone who loves the exhale at the end of a hard season or someone who tends to keep a constant lookout for the next big challenge to come?
Note: There’s no judgement implied in this prompt. Just an invitation for us to get curious, while also meeting our habitual patterns with compassion. And to learn from one another, if there are approaches you notice in yourself that have helped you meet life's hard moments with more mindfulness, resilience and empathy.
If you’re ready to jump into the chat, you can do so here.
And if you’re interested in going deeper with this topic, stay tuned for my upcoming interview with
, in which we dive more deeply into the ways in which we can work with our fear to show up more fully in our lives and relationships. Subscribe here to get that sent straight to your inbox! And stay safe out there in the rapids, everyone.
