The Power of Instead
May this Mindfood find you in whatever state is true for you in this everpresent now. The world is always in transformation and many of us may be feeling that energy more than ever. I know I am. And with so many sessions in the office lately, I have been noticing themes within the collective in clear detail.
The power of instead feels more potent than ever, so I share with you a personal story of when the power of instead really hit home for me. The following poem was one of my attempts of making sense of it for myself. As we are all mirrors and messengers in this life, may you find some illumination in this reflection.
paperweight
You are
in every driver’s seat
cursing the gridlock.
Think.
But alas,
that mass of
synaptic mess
just weighs you down.
The paperweight brain
is a choice.
The breeze blows through,
yet the archaic notions
and unthinking thoughts
stay safely pinned to the desk.
I remember the feeling of exasperation that created this poem. It was 2014, about six months after I underwent my preventative double mastectomy after Mom passed from breast cancer in early 2013. My body was still healing. More impactful, my heart was still healing.
I was stuck, so very stuck, in a pattern of thinking or rather “unthinking” as I called it in the poem. My mind was holding my action down like a paperweight secures paper here on my desk. I was contracted, uninspired–I could see no insteads.
The power of instead is the power of possibility, the power of choice, the power of potential.
I was not feeling that power at all. The only path I felt was one of surviving, not of thriving. At that time, I wasn’t back seeing clients quite yet. I deemed myself unready. If I couldn’t move my own energy, how could I guide others to move theirs?
While a responsible professional choice, I recognize now I was not giving myself room to be human–to allow myself to experience grief of the loss of Mom, unsteadiness from the change in my body, and also celebration of the power move I made to head off breast cancer.
So much emotion happening in simultaneity is the most human of the human experience.
The power of instead reminds us that we are always creators creating. Every choice we make shapes the world.
Although we may feel our choices are limited, there is always an instead.
My invitation to you is to experiment with instead. If you and I have ever journeyed together personally in sessions, circles, or retreats, you have likely experienced this invitation before. I invite you all to play with it in the feedback loop of your unique consciousness design.
What if? Instead. What if I made this choice instead of that? Honor your sovereignty, knowing you never have to actually make the choice. Remember the experiment to explore your possibilities itself creates a feedback loop of cognitive, emotional, somatic, and energistic wisdom. Be the experiment and notice the wisdom of the feedback loop.
May you find depth of wisdom in this experiment and peace, ease, and flow in your insteads. ~K.
