Enough is Enough!
Finally, a lull, a precious interval of time in-between a seemless flow of activities for the last couple of months. Essential Nurturing workshop prep and teaching, taxes, endless application and financial aid paperwork for my daughter’s upcoming SEA Semester, production of our weekly radio show, Transitions Radio Magazine, prenatal visits for upcoming births, Family Constellation workshops and tutorials etc., mixed in with the necessary day-to-day tasks of living as healthy as one can. Gracious me! I’m not sure if I’m doing ENOUGH! I guess not, ‘cause I haven’t even had enough time to BLOG!
Hah! Wayne Muller, author of several great books, including his latest, A Life of Being, Having and Doing Enough, was recently a guest on our radio show (you can listen to the archived interview on our website). The very first sentence of his book, “We have forgotten what enough feels like,” was the subject of a lively dinner discussion that my partner, Alan & I had with Wayne and his now beloved wife, Kelly at a Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives famous local diner in Santa Fe, Harry’s Roadhouse. We passionately bantered back and forth about how to pull in the reins of activity, seriously slow down and rethink our lives. How critical it is, that we command more “lull” times with ourselves, our beloveds, our children, our gardens!
Though Alan & I sometimes felt like we were on Wayne and Kelly’s chopping block of “stop, enough!” as a happy result of our conversation, Alan and I scheduled in a whole week off in May and we’re doing a retreat at one of our favorite places. HOME! (everyone else thinks we’re going out-of-town). Kelly calls this secretly celebrated time off, “snow days.” It’ll be May. There won’t be any snow. Just our beautiful burgeoning gardens beckoning for our play, just our tired and sexually-starved bodies tossing about in bed for hours, just our favorite slow home-cooked meals waiting to be simmered and savored. We’ll take long soaks in our outdoor hot tub that I traded as a doula for a birth last summer, I’ll take long walks grooving to tunes on my walkman, we’ll re-dedicate ourselves to the daily Tibetan Rites which have been cast out of our routine by the chronic busyness of our lives and more…NO…LESS! It will be a good Snow Week off!
I encourage you to have this important conversation about “enough” with yourself and your loved ones! I say, follow Wayne’s advice and deeply, deeply ponder this possibility that we have forgotten what enough feels like and seriously strive to reset, as he says, “our inner thermostat.” A Life of Being, Having, and Doing Enough is a book you definitely want to have at your bedside. Reading a few pages in the morning or before you go to bed at night may very well inspire you to take a Snow Week Off!
Add some more Lull’s to your Life! Elizabeth Rose
P.S. Lull, by the way, as in “lull a child to sleep,” is describing the action resulting from a lullaby. Recently, at the Essential Nurturing workshop that I taught, I sang one of my daughter’s childhood lullabies that I used to sing to her, while lying with seven other adult women in a line on the floor while we “spooned” and rocked one another. This was a very spontaneous action on my part, as the teacher. But given that the content of the workshop was sometimes very intense (i.e. miscarriage, abortion), I felt the need for a group spoon! The unintended purpose of our spooning was to allow for connection, pause, nurturing and to reset our “inner thermostat.” We all felt much better after our spooning. It was indeed, a comforting and rejuvinating respite enjoyed by all! Okay, ENOUGH of this BLOG!
