My physical body is sick this week and it’s put me energetically in front of the work of not doing. I simply do not have the energy. Usually, I am all about doing. I start doing before I get out of bed, setting up the routine of the day and my relationship with it. Sometimes it involves a decision, sometimes an internal to do list within which I focus on an intention.
I do ablutions, morning exercise, tasks; inner work. I go to meetings, mull on work ideas; Do.
Luckily, I was not responsible for leading the morning exercise this week for the Course of Study. I wasn’t even sure I would go. But I showed up on zoom, sitting in my chair.
Where the Work of Not Doing Begins
As the exercise was being led the energy literally knocked me out of the chair and onto my bed. Rather than following the instructions and directing my energies, all I could do was surrender. It felt like being held within an energetic field whose flow I could only ride, reclined on my pillows without the ability to interfere.
This same inability to “do” affected my Decision exercise as well. Basically, I had no energy to prepare a decision each evening for the next day. This felt like a convenient excuse, but it was true. Most mornings, by the end of the exercise I was done anyway.
In the meantime, I’d been playing cat and mouse for days with a fly in the kitchen. It repeatedly escaped my swatter. Very frustrating.
The Work of Not Doing Decision
On this morning, when time was allotted for everyone to complete their decision, I idly asked myself “What” (is my decision?) No idea (was the answer.) So, no need to even consider the steps Why? or How? But suddenly I had the knowing, “Yes this decision is made.”
I didn’t have the energy to argue, so just went with it, leaving my curiosity open. This sort of thing had never happened before to me or anyone else I knew regarding the decision exercise.
Later in the day, there was the fly at the kitchen window. I was about to reach for the swatter, when something caused me to feel sorry for the fly. Somehow I knew this had to do with the day’s decision. The fly stayed on the window (which it hadn’t before) while I found a glass and a piece of paper. Retaining the sense of my changed relationship with the fly, I covered it with the cup, captured it with the paper, and released it outside. I was present as all this unfolded. Decision complete.
My assessment is this:
The work of not doing, somehow manifest—in that the “doing” of this decision happened to me rather than from me. Just as the work with this week’s morning exercise was to go with allowing the energy to take me, rather than directing it to “do” something.
Totally love this Roberta.. the words popped into my head the Work is not what we do, it is what the Work does in us..
As I just passed my 83rd birthday & my physical energy is so much less, the question of how we understand the Work as we age becomes important..I think you nailed it. 🌹
Get well soon 💞🙏
83? Who are you trying to kid?
Thank you, Hajah, I’m getting there slowly.
Your experience strikes a chord, not in relation to the decision exercise, but to those situations where one is incapacitated, for whatever reasons. My son is currently going through a very difficult time, and was lamenting the fact that he feels unable to do anything, including even to eat. He is normally a “doer”, so this is especially difficult for him. I suggested he try to accept things the way they are and allow himself to just “be” for a while. As for the not eating … he’s coming to stay for a couple of weeks and I’m planning some tempting mini-meals to get him back on track.
Nothing like Mama’s cooking to set a guy right.
As long as we’re still in this body, no matter what shape things are in, we’ve got the breath to “be with” or “do work with” – whatever approach you take. Always presence, it ties us to our own presence. And to work. and being. And then, once again, here we are !
How Prescient! As it happens, the Theme for this final week of Claymont’s second Course of Study happens to be Presence.