Pomba Gira’s Dance — Make Space For Rest and Recovery
Time to reclaim our right to slow down in winter, and digest what we’ve learned.
The first time I went Deep into Inner World work, I found myself in a cave with a massive bear.
I had no idea what I was doing there. I was having a hell of a time with my son once again expelled from a mainstream school because it had no autism provision. My health was going heywire; I’d just come out of hospital yet again, smack in the middle of December and my second year of a company I’d created and loved. Everything was going wrong and I needed to know why. Instead of going to my ancestors or to one of my patrons, I was in a cave with a bear the size of a minibus. I wanted answers, so I had gone Deep to try and find them.
I grew up in a state where black bears were common and sometimes hunted, so I’m no stranger to bears. But this bear was huge. I hadn’t expected it to be there, and I might have let out a little involuntary squeak at the mere size of it. There wasn’t much light, just enough for me to see its huge bulk and the walls decorated with paleolithic paintings and hundreds of hand outlines.
The cave bear looked up at me blearily with its small, calm eyes.
Sleep.
And then it closed its eyes again.
O….kay?
It wasn’t a request, and I wasn’t going to argue — the bear’s claws were longer than my entire hand. Gingerly stepping over a massive paw, smelling fur and leaf mould and dampness, I sat down and leaned into its huge side, feeling the rise and fall of its ribcage as it breathed ever so slowly. And somehow, I slept.
It was the best sleep ever.
Time seemed to slow; it gave me time to think in a very remote, objective way. My arms and legs seemed to drift, until all was dark and serene. Not only did I sleep the best I’ve ever done in my life, but as I did, solutions to the burning questions I’d had slotted into place. Not easy answers, but the right answers. I pulled them out of the silence and the stillness and the rhythm of the bear breathing behind me.
Rest. Think. You know what to do.
And She was right; I did.
I shut down the business — it broke my heart at the time, but it was absolutely the right choice. I had to make my health and my son’s dilemma my main priority. It was a difficult couple of years financially, but at the time the safety net of social services in the UK had yet to be ripped to tatters. I found a new GP who referred me to a rheumatologist, and this resulted in a diagnosis of seronegative arthritis, fibromyalgia, and chronic anaemia so severe I required iron infusions for six months. I moved to a council house in a woodland, even though everyone at the time thought I was mad for doing so without owning a car. Not only did it heal my spirit to live so close to nature for years, it had the knock-on effect of kickstarting my case for a special school as no school in the immediate area wanted to cope with the challenges of an autistic, hyperactive pupil (discrimination, but nevertheless, I won the battle in the end).
It all worked out. Honestly, I’d always known what I needed to do, but I’d not taken the time to work it out in my head, nor the courage to enact any of it. I was keeping so busy, trying so hard, and running so hard just to stay in place I never had time to sit, reflect, heal, and take care of the basic foundations of my life. It wasn’t an easy process, but it was a necessary one.
I do not worship at the altar of productivity and busy-ness. I am extremely privileged in this regard. Ironically, my illnesses mean I can’t work 40 hours a week. I qualify for social services assistance on top of the small part time job I’m able to do, so I have a modest income. My partner is in a white collar job and makes enough for us to get by. Financially, we’re doing well.
But it still isn’t easy emotionally or mentally to function at a pace that goes against the socially accepted grain. As a person with a chronic illness, I have to both go the extra mile to prove I have some form of value to society while at the same time fending off the nauseating view of being ‘inspiring’. I don’t always manage to fight off the societally induced sense of busy-ness equals success which has coded into our Western culture, and I have to stay vigilant. I realised this week I’ve been overdoing things because, thanks to different medications, I’ve been in the least amount of pain in years. The urge to be “productive” is strong, but I know from past experience I can’t let myself get sucked into it. I will pay dearly if I do.
I’m not the only one bombarded daily by messages of increasing productivity and being mindful-yet-busy. We’ve all seen the same messages if we’ve spent any kind of time online. Exercise routines to do at your desk, meditation to cram into your lunch break while you work at your desk, and fitness gyms and eateries at your office so you spend as much time as possible near your job; these are now common and applauded facets of our lives, all promising the completely unachievable status known as “work-life balance”. Do a quick search on Medium: how many articles for ‘productivity’ can you find in the top listed articles?
Exactly.
In my opinion, humanity wasn’t meant to work nonstop throughout the year, even before modern technology supposedly made our lives easier. We weren’t meant for this amount of busy, this level of being tuned into news and atrocities at all times. We are more depressed, more stressed, and suffer from more dis-ease and inexplicable illnesses than ever before; we never have time to recover. Because we are so busy, we are too tired and stressed to pay much attention to anything but how to survive. Forget having the energy to tackle inequalities, fight bigotry or chip away at the status quo…exactly how those in power like it, really.
I do my best work in winter, whether it’s Woo or creative mulling over a new project. While it’s dark and dreary and sometimes hard to concentrate (Seasonal Affective Disorder is a drag), I have a slower schedule. My garden is all packed up till spring, and my son is now a teenager who keeps himself occupied. I have more time to sleep, more time to dream, and more time to brainstorm. I can do very deep and somewhat un-fun inner-self work — which I heartily recommend to everyone, even though it’s not a bundle of laughs by any stretch — and handle household issues I might not have had the time to tackle in summer.
If you’re hustling for your meagre two weeks’ vacation time, or you’re working two part time jobs with no holiday pay at all, then taking a few months off in the winter is impossible. I hear you. But reclaiming your time is never going to be easy. If there is something you can ditch, wintertime is the perfect time to ditch it so you can give yourself time to relax and breathe. Stop working at your desk during lunch break, and leave your work at work. Cut an evening class. Carve out some time for anything that gives you extra rest and ease. We shouldn’t have to fight for it, but we do. I know.
If you fight for anything this winter, fight for time to rest, to practice whatever form of self-care you have which allows you to answer some deep questions about where your life is right now. Face some shadows, fight some demons, get inspired, so you can make some decisions on where to take yourself in the coming year.
I wish you peace, kindness, and prosperity in the new year.
