I am indebted to Larry Pearson who inspired this conversation.
It's very subtle. There's actually a difference between "This is it!",
and living like "This is it!". What's the difference? Try
this on for size: "This is it!" runs the risk of becoming a pat
presumption, a bon mot, something you'd find in a Chinese
fortune cookie. And look: it's likely there's no real power in it
anyway as a bon mot ... whereas living like "This is it!" calls me to
be powerful, to take action,
to be in action.
Getting "This is it!" as a good idea only, runs the risk of it
devolving
into just another attempt at faux understanding ie of
devolving
into something simply cerebral with minimal power and little leverage
for living. So to recap (to be clear): living like "This is it!"
applies the leverage of "This is it!", yet merely getting "This is it!"
doesn't necessarily apply any leverage at all. That may be why he
phrased his question as "Where are you living like 'This is it!'?"
instead of just asserting "This is it!" (like I said, the difference is
subtle).
As
I listened
and reached for answers to his question, I noticed something both
surprising as well as
interesting,
which is this: I actually have more answers, many more
answers, to the unasked question "Where are you living like 'This
isn't it'?" than to the question "Where are you living
like 'This is it!'?". That really got me. I saw I'm more pre-occupied
with the former "Where are you living like 'This isn't it'?" than with
the latter "Where are you living like 'This is it!'?". And then, as if
right on cue, he asked his next question: "Where are you living like
'This isn't it'?" (the synchronicity of it didn't surprise me one
iota).
Now between you and me, I would characterize
my family relationships
as great. I mean truly great. And yet when it comes to
family relationships,
I have always got room for improvement. And that's why I included them
in my answer to his "Where are you living like 'This isn't it'?":
"Family relationships
aren't fully it; the political landscape
definitely isn't it; health issues (I'm 73, I notice one
or two) aren't it.". And then I sat back. And waited. What would he
say?
What he said,
straight back at me
without a pause, was "Deal with 'your body' not 'health
issues'.". At first I thought he'd trivialized what I'd
shared.
I mean aren't they the same thing? After a moment ... it
dawned on me: I got his compassion, support, and
coaching
(the pause was like that not-so-imperceptible delay after a jet flies
overhead before the sonic boom hits). Articulating "your / my body" is
specific, "health issues" is vague; "my body" is physical, "health
issues" is cerebral; "my body" lives in finite space and time, "health
issues" doesn't; I can deal with "my body" in ways I can not deal
with "health issues".
And then he added something that totally altered what's possible for me
in my relationship with my body. He said: "Your doctor has
'health issues'; you have 'your body'" (I won't spoil it
by explaining it: sit with it in your lap like
a hot brick,
and you'll get it). I was stunned. What a powerful way of focusing on
the physical universe
and not on the intellectual universe! What a powerful way
of taking charge! What a
direct access
to the
what's so
physical-ness of what there is to deal with as a corporeal human being,
bypassing most if not all of the fear, trepidation, and distracted
concerns surrounding "health issues"!
This isn't a denial of
thorough medical
diagnoses.
Rather, it's an
access
to being responsible for "my body" and for how I deal with it, rather
than macerating in the vague, less-certain arena of "health issues".
Articulating "health issues" as "my body"
(languaging
it that way) expands the domains I have
access
to.
