This is my current paradox – perhaps you feel it too?
- I’m needing vast amounts of rest and
- I am also growing by leaps and bounds.
Sometimes these two impulses feel at cross purposes. It’s very strange to be napping when there is so much to do. Some days I congratulate myself on listening to my need for rest; on the other side of my extra meditation is even greater creativity. Other days I crash. This isn’t exactly a new story – the balance between work and rest has always been a challenge for me. What is new is the feeling of extremes.
I’m like a teenager – lol!
Seriously though, this analogy has created some gentle space for myself.
The metamorphoses that we go through in adolescence is really a miracle. I’m getting a front row seat as my daughter begins to enter this phase of life. She is changing rapidly on so many levels with the ultimate purpose of being able to generate the next generation of life.
Researchers have quantified that teens need extra sleep during this growth phase, an hour more than when they were 10, because they need that rest time for their development.
I’m not the first one to suggest human civilization is in adolescence. Usually I’ve approached this analogy with judgment, scorning the immature narcissism of our era. But what if this moment in our collective development is about coming into our capacity to give life to the future, to live in a regenerative way?
Can you imagine it? Our communities, governments, economies, and spiritual institutions all focused on regeneration rather than extraction or exploitation? Sometimes I can glimpse it in my peripheral vision, just like I catch glimpses of the woman my daughter will become.
This is an adolescence worth plunging into headlong. Embrace the naps, the developmental leaps, and even the mood swings!
With big love,
emily
Rest & community to support your creative quantum leaps
Drop in any week to Healing Waters Qigong, a Spring Forest Qigong practice group, or the Wisdom Dances Circle, based in Laura Shannon’s research on women’s traditional dances as tools for healing and transformation.
