Slowing down to speed up

Thank you all for your incredible outpouring of kindness this past week. Writing to you all about the death of my Dad – sharing the realities of our messy beautiful lives is one of the gifts of this community – really healed a piece of my grief.

I won’t keep our focus on this subject next week, but wanted to see if I could return the gift a bit with one other truth I’m reminded of daily right now.

You gotta slow down to speed up when you’re struggling.

The Jewish tradition has very clear structure for people who’ve lost a parent. For the first week you do nothing. Like really nothing. You don’t cook or clean or work or even get up when people come in. There are do’s and don’ts for the first month and the first year as well. But in that transition between week and month you go back to work, back to home-managing, parenting, lots of things. And I have to tell you, I’m very much feeling like I’ve felt when going back to work after a serious illness. Eager to get back to it and shocked – SHOCKED – at how distracted, irritated, out of it I feel so quickly. I need to speed up from “all grief all the time” to “mostly a functioning human who is still not able to make important decisions.” And I can. But only if I actually rest and recover a couple of times a day. My culture has supports for that – I’m to go to synagogue and sit with people in my community and pray twice a day during this time. My father did this when his Dad died and so I do for him. But, like so many things we “do for our parents” I’m learning that it’s really for me. It’s a way that his example is strengthening me because for those 40 minutes in the morning or 25 minutes in the evening I am not working or managing or trying to control anything. I’m just saying the words that are prescribed and thinking, feeling or resting, all in an effort to connect and recharge.

There’s no question that connecting is really the “carb loading” of resilience. The science is clear that the neurochemicals we produce in response to feeling connected and supported, to having a chance to think ad process all calm the amygdala and improve our cognitive and physical strength.

Listen, I’m a person whose personal hell is anytime I have to do only one thing at a time, and slowly. Yoga and I, for example, are not friends. But this time in my life is showing me that if I want to do more – and I always do – doing less for discreet periods of time is a crucial ingredient.

Where are you feeling pressed to do more – and could you carb load some rest and connection to get there?

All my best,

Dr. G