Format

The ways we can accommodate ourselves.

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve been able to carve out time to write, and some of that is because I have been living my life.

I entered a new age. I’ve begun new knitting projects. I’ve attended online community spaces. I’ve seen Superman (big feelings about this!). I cleaned and organized my desktop, files, and browser tabs after attending Systems for Artists with Cody. I made bolognese. I covered my body in three layers to mow my lawn without mosquito damage. I started reading Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk. I went to the swimming pool by myself. I started moving my body three mornings a week.

Still afraid that I might disappoint people if I don’t do something a certain way, with a certain amount of consistency or vigor or structure, I have been working to format my days and weeks in a way that allows for the truths of my current body and processing. In this way of operating, perhaps it will be easier or at least more fluid to manage the structures and practices I need and want in my life.

Some questions I have considered:

• What is the purpose of the structure or practice I’m implementing? Or is it essential and being implemented externally?

• What is my capacity, physically and mentally, to uphold or engage in this structure or practice?

• How do I manage these structures and practices?

• What is working and what is not working when it comes to my ability to manage these structures and practices?

What are my structures and practices? Work is the largest, how I schedule my work days to make room for documentation and business management. Practices include tarot, movement, virtual community, writing, and now facilitating. I also have a family, which requires care of the home, of my relationships, of my pets, and of myself. Broader structures and practices include financials, wellness, health, socializing, creativity, and time management.

There are some truths about me that I have to radically accept instead of experience the friction of forcing it to change:

• If I cannot see it, it does not exist. Solutions to this include setting reminders, alarm clocks, and utilizing the shit out of my Google calendar.

• My bodily tolerance for standing or sitting for longer than 1 hour is 25/100. I have time in my day to address this and I am proactive about changing positions during work hours.

• Focus requires silence or, to my surprise, either resonance or garage music. I can also get down to the sound of river waters moving.

• I do better without solid plans. An outline is fine, but this body changes drastically every 6 hours or so, so it’s better to solidify plans within 24 hours for best results.

• It is better to eat something than nothing. A scoop of peanut butter. A frozen burrito. Keeping things around that I can quickly eat is essential, since I don’t always know I am hungry until I am hangry.

• I need 2-3 hours after waking up to be fully logged on to reality.com. In high school, I’d roll out of bed and into the building. I’m not that brave anymore.

I could feel bad about myself that I am not able to work 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. at a fully sitting or fully back-bending job. I could be upset that, for some reason, my ability to tell what message my body is sending my brain is absent. I could just really get in my grief and anger about having a brain that moves so fast it misses the important details, but also gets overwhelmed in a split second and I had no way of anticipating it, because, as mentioned, I can’t read my body’s signals to my brain until it’s too late.

But I choose not to. I choose to accommodate myself. I have let myself feel bad in the past and that has helped no one. I want to be able to have a mostly manageable day. To enjoy my hobbies, to make room for spontaneity, and to be graceful with myself.

So what’s the format? Of a day? Of a week?

It is one that meets the above needs. I work 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. I do most of my work virtual, because I do my best when I have access to my comforts and amenities. As a therapist, I like to provide focus and listening that is prime and I do that best if I see 15-20 people per week. To recharge this attention capacity, I knit, I play video games, I rest with my pets, I sit on my porch and stare at the sky, and I go with the flow instead of a hard routine.

My morning time is reclaimed to do movement, drink coffee, eat a meal, pull a card, read newsletters, write my own newsletter, and to ultimately be gentle with myself. My weekends tend to have 1 or 2 social plans, which take shape as the weekend approaches.

The point of this is to be so gentle that I don’t suffer things that are within my control. I will suffer in life, that’s just being human, but if I can set up things that are within my power to set up, then maybe I will suffer a little less.

The other thing I would highlight is it took a long time to believe I deserved this. At my last job, although we were encouraged to prioritize self-care, there was so little room for that. The structures of the work did not allow for self-care, and even if we could engage in it, I believe there was not enough recovery time between sessions, days, and weeks. I had to leave that space, in addition to having shifted away from 15 years of service industry work, to really believe I was worthy of operating at my own pace. I hustled SO HARD serving tables and managing restaurants. I crammed my schedule during grad school, my internship, and during my training years because I felt like I had to. I really didn’t have to. I let external pressures shape my time, my schedule, and my capacity.

Ultimately, I hope to encourage you to take time to notice what you might need when it comes to your structures and practices. May you be fortunate as I have been to take risks, to shape your time in a way that honors your body and mind, and that you have what you need as you navigate this capitalist hellscape.

Another reminder that I’ll be hosting Grief Writing for Children of Immigrants on the first Sunday of every month forever as long as people are interested. It will be virtual from 10 a.m. - 11:15 a.m. CST. To sign up you can visit my new website. Please spread the word!

What are you participating in that feels like it’s holding you together?