Tending to Yourself through the In Between
Four thoughts on moving (kindly) through change
Reflections on Tending to Yourself
Author Note: The following are four reflections on tending. At the end of this piece, I have provided a few journal prompts. I would love to hear your thoughts. If a comment feels too out in the open, feel free to message me directly. I hope this finds you where you need it.
With love,
Kim
1.
I wrote the following in my journal:
I am lost in the In Between. It is a terrifying place./ Well, it is only a terrifying place because I am afraid of not having control./ I am also afraid of time, and change, and letting myself change./ Erin Rose Belair writes “Nothing is small.”/ Nothing./ My life is not small. It is grand. It is beautiful./ Maybe that’s why we do sky studies, maybe that’s why we make art. We look at the world, relate to the world, and pull meaning out of it./ Maybe that’s why I want to write so much./ It feels good to see my life as immense, as beautiful./ My favorite parts of Spain were the moments, I was really looking./ Present./ That doesn’t negate the hardness./ That doesn’t make the hardness any less worth it./ Everything new is going to be uncomfortable./ Everything./ I am afraid of the inevitable.
I ask you this, dear reader. Are you also scared of the In Between. Are you also scared of change, of changing?
I ended that journal entry with the following: Maybe this says more about how I don’t trust my own tending./ I am all fists, especially towards myself.
2.
In Spain, while at our Workaway, I was tasked with starting the seeds.
It always surprises me how small seeds are, how fragile. How easily lost they are to the world. While planting daikon seeds and cabbage, I accidentally tipped over the seed bag, and had to painstakingly put them back one by one. These seeds, if left strewn on the ground, would not survive the hot Spanish sun. If I were to bury them too deep in their pots, which I was careful not to do, they’d equally have little chance of survival. A seed’s capacity to become anything other than a seed is precarious.
Everyday I would go to the two dozen plastic pots, I had carefully placed my seeds in (not too close together) and checked their soil. I made sure to keep it moist, but not too moist, as a seed is also prone to drowning. I’d talk to my seeds, re-cover any that had found their way above the soil, and gently create the conditions for them to grow.
Within a week, tiny sprouts broke through the top layer of earth.
I think, my seed babies sprouted so soon (and so well, I might add) because of how deliberately I tended to them.
I want to be able to do the same for myself.
3.
The word Tend means to “regularly or frequently behave in a particular way” It comes from the Old French word tendre which means to stretch and Middle English in the sense ‘move or be inclined to move in a certain direction.
I like the idea that to tend to something is to incline it in a certain direction. With great care and attention we can point a seed perhaps in a certain direction, but we can’t force ourselves to arrive there.
What I am saying is that we are the seeds. We can’t really force ourselves to arrive anywhere.
4.
If your first instinct is to force some kind of hustle, or busy yourself with any amount of unnecessary doing and or knit picking in the name of achieving an outcome for yourself, then this is not tending. This is control. Tending makes space for uncertainty. It draws on our capacity to know how to care for ourselves and to also give ourselves that care even if it seems like nothing is happening.
Journal Prompts
If you find yourself in the In Between and are afraid, I hope you remember that while you might feel like the seed (and you are), you are also the gardener.
In what conditions do you need to grow?
This may be physical but maybe more so mental, spiritual, emotional. For example, in thinking about this question for myself, respecting that “I know what is right for me” (not hustle culture) is a condition .
What do you need to relinquish control?
Or worded another way, what do you need to feel (within yourself, within your environment) to relinquish control?
In what direction will you incline yourself toward?
Maybe this is a way of being, a way of relating to yourself, rather than a state of doing.
As a result of a back situation that required surgery (8 weeks ago today!) I was forced to tend to myself more over the last couple of years than I had ever before. It was enlightening in many ways. There was a reluctance to do it in the beginning but eventually I had no choice and the acceptance and embracing of it were spiritual in a sense. Now that my back is well again and I can resume the activities I had to give up as part of tending my broken body, I find I do not want to give up tending to myself. In those dark months of soul crushing pain and mind numbing drugs I somehow gained a connection with my self that I had never had. I will not go back to not tending to myself. I will continue to be kind and patient and to listen deeply instead of superficially. By tending to myself like this I am able to be a better person to others as well.
Thanks for this post ❤️