Switching Gears
I am feeling scattered coming into fall.
While I talked a big game about relaxation this summer, I mostly missed the mark. Thanks to both society’s dysfunction and my own, I spent the season swinging between indulgence and dissociation, never quite settling into the promised state of easeful presence.
Still, the summer wasn’t a total loss. Fallow spells do support growth, one way or another. It was an apt reminder that although self-centered hedonism feels good in the moment, it is ultimately depleting.
I’m thus ready to marshal my inner resources and make an impact, and have been contemplating how to best channel my energy outward.
The first step is clarity – closing my eyes, shaking my head, and asking aloud what, pray tell, am I doing? Fortunately, wayfinding was the focus of The Salon’s spring programming, so I’ve been harvesting tidbits from my Artist’s Way journal and Evernote entries. The scraps cohered into a semi-intelligible vision at the latest Write It Down meetup. I committed to paper my desire to build institutions that support holistic development through spiritual exploration, embodiment practices, and creative expression.
Step two involves surrender. Alas, committing to one path entails abandoning others. This is the hardest shift for me. I tend to hold myself responsible for fixing the whole world, a falsehood that leads to paralysis and inaction. The work now is to choose a lane and stay in it – to trust that my little piece of the work is enough and others are doing their parts to restore wholeness.
The third involves execution. I appreciate the time management metaphor of “putting the big rocks in the jar first,” forcing the sandy, pebble-y detritus – the emails and administrative BS – into a secondary role. When it comes to organizing principles, school has always been my “big rock” of choice. I love the structure of a curriculum and accountability of assessments. They are low stakes, but keep me moving toward a goal. This fall, I’m auditing classes in spiritual care and anatomy for Pilates. Adventures in physical therapy, somatic experiencing, and qi gong have convinced me that the secrets of the universe/female empowerment are hiding in the transverse abdominals, psoas muscles, and root/second chakra, and I’m eager to release what’s been waiting there.
My favorite model of human development charts a path to self-actualization and self-transcendence – to first cultivate one’s full potential, and then give those gifts away. The true masters give those gifts from love. They’re motivated not by guilt, pity, or a lingering martyr complex, but from genuine care, joy, and ease.
2025 has been about clearing a path and filling the cup, gaining the rest, clarity, and community needed to draw back the slingshot. Now, as the year reaches its climax, may the potential energy finally shoot forth.
