Division
It’s back to school season for the mom’s out there. Here in Colorado it’s also back to church season. The beautiful weather in the summer beckons us to be outside and usually with the return to the rhythm of school, the church rhythm is found again too. For women serving in churches this can be a very busy season as new home/school schedules emerge, new groups and programs are launched, and honestly in just a few short months we’ll be full steam into the holiday season.
This quote showed up in my social media this morning, and got me thinking and reflecting…
My brain and heart divorced a decade ago over who was to blame about how big of a mess I have become.Eventually, they couldn’t be in the same room with each other now my head and heart share custody of me
I stay with my brain during the week and my heart gets me on weekends, they never speak to one another
Instead, they give me the same note to pass to each other every week and their notes they send to one another always say the same thing: “This is all your fault.”
On Sundays my heart complains about how my head has let me down in the past and on Wednesday my head lists all of the times my heart has screwed things up for me in the future. They blame each other for the state of my life. There’s been a lot of yelling and crying.
So, lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time with my gut who serves as my unofficial therapist most nights, I sneak out of the window in my ribcage and slide down my spine and collapse on my gut’s plush leather chair that’s always open for me and I just sit sit sit sit until the sun comes up.
Last evening, my gut asked me if I was having a hard time being caught between my heart and my head I nodded I said I didn’t know if I could live with either of them anymore, “my heart is always sad about something that happened yesterday, while my head is always worried about something that may happen tomorrow,” I lamented. My gut squeezed my hand. “I just can’t live with my mistakes of the past or my anxiety about the future,”
I sighed, my gut smiled and said: “in that case, you should go stay with your lungs for a while.” I was confused, the look on my face gave it away “if you are exhausted about your heart’s obsession with the fixed past and your mind’s focus on the uncertain future, your lungs are the perfect place for you. There is no yesterday in your lungs, there is no tomorrow there either,
there is only now, there is only inhale
there is only exhale, there is only this moment
there is only breath,
and in that breath you can rest while your heart and head work their relationship out.”
This morning, while my brain was busy reading tea leaves and while my heart was staring at old photographs, I packed a little bag and walked to the door of my lungs.
Before I could even knock, she opened the door with a smile and as a gust of air embraced me she said. “what took you so long?”
~ john roedel (johnroedel.com)
Working Together
My youngest child started High School today. She’s the youngest of four, we’ve done this before. I know that the next four years are going to fly by and my heart is a little tender and also excited. It’s the beginning of the end, of a season with kids at home that has lasted 24 years (with 4 more to go). It’s also the beginning of a new season which promises freedoms, and maybe sleep, and plans which felt elusive and distant for the last 24 years.
As I swirl in the emotions; pride, joy, hope, sadness, fear, loss, expectation, I become increasingly aware that each of the feelings lives somewhere in my body. The fear and control live in my brain, as it plans and worries about the future, the hope and joy and sadness all live in my heart as the pulse quickens with joy and hurts in sadness. Stress and worry rest in my neck and shoulders. Pride and expectation and loss all hangout in my gut as I alternately feel my stomaching dropping or quieting as I reflect on this stage.
But today, right now, this moment, lives in my lungs. One breath at a time. One moment at a time. One experience at a time.
There was a time when various parts of my body, sought divorce, or at least separation from each other. Much like in the quote, my mind and heart were often at odds with each other. Sometime I just couldn’t find the doorway to my lungs or find the time to visit. Sometimes my gut overruled everything else, and sometimes it was mysteriously silent. But my body is not divorced. It is sharing space and working together. Jesus is molding and guiding me on seeing and honoring each emotion, each experience, and then laying them at His feet.
This month, as we establish our new rhythm, It is my prayer for all of us that we would walk in the balance between head and heart, gut and shoulders, and that we remember to prioritize our time with our lungs. Our time breathing in and breathing out. Our time being in the moment. Experience now. Learn now. Reflect now. See Jesus now. Tomorrow will come with it’s own worries, lets not lose today.
“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” – Matt 6:34