Slow (the "f#ck") Down!

So as I write this I’m unsure the direction this blog entry will go… this last month has been a roller coaster for me and some how this experiment with re-cycling guilt for 30 days was core to helping me make the shifts I needed to make.  

Did I make it through re-cycling guilt for 30 days?  Nope.  (I made it about 18-20 days) 
Do I feel guilty about this?  Nope! 
Success!? 

Instead I got hit with a weird flu (we now think might have originated in Indonesia which I was visiting two weeks before getting ill).  In the end it doesn’t really matter what I got… Bola Bola fever or the common flu… but what did happen is I had to slow down.   ...And then I had to slow down more.   ...And then even more.   I went from traveling 60 MPH in my life to traveling… maybe 1 MPH.  I went from running around to sitting for hours doing puzzles.  

Getting sick is my body’s way of telling me to “slow the f#ck down you crazy person-you!”  

As I slowed down, I also realized some of the things I had been carrying (emotionally/mentally) that were burdening me.    Like the entire responsibility for maintaining certain relationships in my life.  So I dropped the responsibility.  I was too exhausted to do anything else.   That’s where the absence of guilt comes in.   I may not have made it all 30 days but I made it far enough to knock guilt for a loop.  I found I could drop a responsibility I had been holding (holding unnecessarily I might add) without guilt.  Yay!   At some point in the 10-20 days of re-cycling guilt, it even became hard to think of things to even feel guilty about.  

Is guilt still there?  Let’s say the answer to that is “yes” - but instead of being a hidden thread that is everywhere making it hard to even see it - it became more rare and much easier to spot.   If guilt was a bird, it went from a sparrow to a bald eagle.      

What’s my biggest take-away about guilt, besides it being a royal waste of time and personal energy.  Guilt distorts things.  It distorts the past and what we remember - it can inflate the good and bad or deflate them … either way it leaves us with an less then full picture (a less human picture).   It complicates the present decisions and makes the choices non-authentic.  It distorts reality (whatever reality is…) and creates a “story” that isn’t true - one created in our mind only.  It also shuts the heart down. 

Enough about guilt.  

About slowing down… 

Slowing down enriches.  It’s the difference between a mouthful of food eaten in 30 seconds or savored.  It is the difference between really taking the time to be present and absorb what someone else is saying or just flitting across the surface of the words.  

Just like I need to do personally, we all need to universally “slow down” as a society.  ...Allowing a pause, without filling it.  ...Letting go of clutter - in the form of physical things as well as "things" I need to do.  For me, I used to fill the pause because being in the pause - being just with myself - was too uncomfortable.  But now, life and the pace around me seems to jeer me on "Do do do!  Keep moving!"  There is this richness when I step out of the rush of the river... and just float for a while.

Okay body - I got the message loud and clear.  (Please, let me not need a six week flu to give me this lesson again).