In the Belly of the Whale
In a striking turn of events, I found myself up and at ‘em this morning.
Did I change out of my pajama pants? Let’s not get crazy. But I did manage to hammer out a heroic amount of structured content—a task that’s been causing me anxiety for weeks. Now I’m going to take the afternoon to recharge before a week of heavy/moderate client load.
Inhale, exhale. Rest, in service of work, in service of rest. The universal rhythm that shall never cease. All things lead back to the inhale, and the exhale.
(Don’t take this anecdote as pressure. Productivity is toxic right now. I’m against it.)
I give you permission to use Ariana Grande's brilliant rebuttal anytime you feel pressure this week.
I leaned into my mopey feelings again this weekend. I at one point stood in the hallway, and said to nobody, very loudly, “I AM SAD.” After quickly reassuring my husband nothing was expected of him in response, I went and picked up my favorite mopey book, Dark Nights of the Soul.
Light and dark. Another eternal rhythm.
A passage from a particularly poignant chapter:
“In your darkness, you are in the belly of a whale with nothing to do but be carried along. In tales of Jonah and the fish-womb, the hero, swallowed by a great sea monster, loses his hair in the inner heat, a sign of profound transformation, akin to the monk who shaves his head to mark the change from ordinary life to a life of holiness. Man and infant, bald, precursors of every man and woman who returns to a state before birth in certain dark nights of the soul.
“When you see that your dark night is one of pregnancy and oceanic return, you could react accordingly and be still. Watch and wonder. Take the human embryo as your model. Assume the fetal position, emotionally and intellectually. Be silent. Float in your darkness as if it were the waters of the womb, and give up trying to fight your way out or make sense of it.”
Which led me to realize: only after this surrender can rebirth become a possibility.
I felt dumbfounded by the revelation. So much so that in a manic flurry, I added a whole module to Fearless Femmes, entitled: Dark Nights of the Soul. A hilarious, delicious addition about surrender to an entire program dedicated to regaining control.
It is my joke on you. And also my life’s work.
This program is literally everything I have learned about how to build a happy life and career. It is all I have to offer. Yes, to make it feel good and productive, we get structured, tangible results. But the real soul of this program is its manual for how to fall on your face, heal yourself, forget everything you’ve learned, and fall on your face again, over and over again until we…
exhale.
I hope you'll schedule time with me to talk about it.