The Right-Now Timing.

Reflections on being right where we are.

Have you ever felt so many emotions all at once that you know there’s plenty happening inside, but you have no idea how to name it all? That’s been life these past few weeks.

After arriving in Scotland, we spent our first couple of weeks getting used to life in a small town, walking to the grocery store, grateful for Amazon’s existence in the UK, both getting and rebounding from covid, and befriending countless neighborhood cats.

Moving through our days, I could feel my body carrying so much — joy, relief, fear, grief, doubt, certainty, and many more things that may or may not have words to describe them. There have been moments of writing at my keyboard and singing at my piano that have unlocked tears, giving me a glimpse of the reservoir of emotion inside. But apart from these glimpses, I haven’t been able to fully tap into everything happening within.

And I get it, I’ve spent my professional life walking alongside others who have been carrying heavy emotions, emotions that aren’t ready to spill out — emotions that protect parts will not allow to be spilled out just yet. And knowing this, I’ve felt torn.

I’ve had parts of me that have felt a need to try and create space to feel and cry… If I’m being really honest, reread that as: parts of me that have wanted to schedule and force myself to cry to just clear the emotion out. Not my best look… I am aware…

I’ve also had parts of me that seem to be shutdown, unwilling to let me get anywhere near these emotions, not willing to engage in any sort of negotiation about feeling them, trying to keep me distracted and disconnected from my internal world.

And I’ve had parts of me that are terrified of feeling the depth of what I’m holding inside, facing the reality of loss of the life we left behind to step into a new life here, wondering if the pain of the grief will entirely overwhelm me.

And who knows, maybe these parts are actually all one.

And in the midst of what already feels so complex, I’d love to say that big existential and theological questions aren’t also swarming around in there. But to be totally honest, I instead need to say that questions that have been simmering underneath the surface for the last year are becoming increasingly inescapable, while simultaneously increasingly impossible to answer.

It’s been a rich and weighty season of both-ands, missing a place that became home while falling in love with a new one — all while finishing a manuscript and starting a PhD program… perfect timing, right?

More than ever, I’m seeing just how much there’s never a perfect timing, there’s just the right-now timing, the reality of what life is. And in this timing, emotions don’t simplify based on life being busy or full of transition. Questions don’t get answered just because we have too much on our plate. And no matter how hard we try, if protective parts of us are keeping certain feelings, grief, or pain on lockdown, it’s going to stay on lockdown as long as it needs to, until it feels safe enough to feel them — a timing we don’t get to determine.

All we can do is simply be right where we are, with all that’s happening inside at this very moment. All the feels, all the unanswered questions, all the unsettled transitions.

Deep breath. That deep breath is for me, and an invitation if you’d like to join me :)

In all seriousness, as I sit on the other side of this keyboard wondering how these raw words will be received, I hope they offer an open hand to hold for any parts of you that might be able to resonate in some way, any depths of your being that are carrying heavy things and aren’t so sure how to feel it without being wrecked by it, any parts of you that are wondering how to navigate all the things that are in the right-now of your life.

And while I will do my best not to schedule and force myself to feel what’s stirring within, I have been reminded of the importance of practices and play that have been most therapeutic to my embodied being, practices and play I’d love to invite you to join me in. So…

This week, want to join me for more time breathing in fresh air and delighting in trees?

Over the next month, want to join me to spontaneously throw on music and let our bodies dance around, moving through and shaking out the tension that we all too easily become accustomed to carrying each day?

Whenever works for you, want to place our hands over our heart and our body to simply ground in being, taking a break from doing, even if it’s just for a second?

I hope you’ll join me, and as you do, know I’m right there with you on the other side of these keys.

AC :)

For more Scottish scenery: @a.c.seiple