Peddling Hope

I am avoidant by nature.

When something feels threatening or uncertain, my instinct is to pull back. Go quiet. Create distance between myself and whatever is making me feel insecure. I have done it my whole life. For a long time, I judged myself for it.

What I have come to understand, both personally and in my work, is that it was never a character flaw. It was information.

When we pull away, or snap at the people we love, or find ourselves scrolling for an hour without knowing why, or go so quiet that the people around us start to worry, our nervous system is speaking.

It is telling us, in the only language it has, that it is overwhelmed. That it needs something.

The problem is that we are taught to treat these responses as problems to be corrected rather than signals to be understood. We feel the withdrawal and call ourselves antisocial. We feel the irritability and call ourselves difficult. We feel the numbness and wonder what is wrong with us.

The question is: what is my nervous system trying to tell me?

Not as something that needs to be fixed immediately, or else. Just to be curious about the feeling.

If I notice I’m pulling away, what is it I actually need?

Sometimes the answer is rest. Sometimes it is connection. Sometimes it is just the acknowledgment that things are hard and knowing that noticing is enough.

Someone brought a baby to our lunch gathering recently.

She was tiny and bright and completely unaware of everything happening in the world right now. She looked at me and smiled and I felt something in my chest just loosen up.

Afterward I made sure to find her dad and tell him how glad I was that he'd brought her. How much she had added to the room just by being there. He may have wondered if it was okay. I wanted him to know it was more than okay.

That whole interaction took maybe thirty seconds. And I've been thinking about it ever since.

We are surrounded by small beautiful things that we move past because we're busy or worried or just somewhere else in our heads.

So today's Self-Care Sunday is a simple one: Notice one beautiful thing.

The light at a particular time of day. Someone being patient with someone else. A conversation that surprised you. Notice it. And then tell someone about it.

The kindness we witness in our lives can only spread if we talk about it. And noticing is the first step.