Taking Comfort Where We Can

Gentling ourselves away from the Tyranny of Should

A quick note about Neuroqueering Your Creative Practice, the course I am co-teaching this fall with my pals KR and Meg—there are only about 24 hours left to book discounted Early Bird Tickets (sales end Aug 22nd at 11:50 pm UK, 6:50 pm EDT, 3:50 PDT ). We are currently almost 90% enrolled! So now is the time to grab a ticket if you are planning on joining us. You can do that by using the link in the Early Bird email from KR, or you can use this link and enter password NQYCPEB1024. And remember, there is the option to pay in instalments!

If we reach capacity, we will keep a waitlist, which you can register for here, and if there is enough interest we will run the course again as soon as we are all able.

And now some thoughts on comfort and the tyranny of should….

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After a recent bout of grueling anxiety, I am happy to report that I am feeling much better! Very content in my life; happy, even, much of the time.

Yet the past couple of mornings, I have woken with just the tiniest hint of anxiety stirring in my belly, snaking up into my chest. It’s nothing like the immobilizing anxiety I experienced earlier this year, and many times before in my life—and likely many times to come, as I am accepting that I am someone who has anxiety, and it comes in cycles, and it’s just part of my spiral through this life.

But I’m pretty sure this isn’t that.

I’m pretty sure this is something else, and what it is started to become clear to me during Peer Support in DDS yesterday. The topic for this week was suggested by a member in the chat of a previous Peer Support session: “What do people do / have / use for self comfort and self soothing? I'm realizing that I am having a tricky time articulating my comforts.”

Several people started sharing some of the things they find soothing and comforting: yoga, swimming, going outside, being in nature—all really wonderful ways of finding comfort and self-soothing, ways that have been extremely helpful to me in the past…and yet, I felt anything but comforted. In fact, I started to feel the tell-tale pricks of shame.

What is this about, I wondered?

I unmuted myself and started rambling a bit, as is my way. I wondered out loud about why it’s so difficult for me to sometimes do the things I know I should do to comfort myself. I confessed that most of my self-soothing these days involves reading silly genre fiction, watching YouTube videos, texting with friends and colleagues, and basically not moving from my comfy corner of the couch. I barely leave the house these days, and I haven’t been walking, which is my main form of exercise and is almost always good for me in every way.

And yet, here I sit. Feeling anxious that I should be getting out now that the heat has broken, I should be back into my regular walking routine. Why am I not taking better care of myself, now that my anxiety is gone and I am feeling so much better?

How ironic, right? Anxiety is beginning to prick at me me again because I’m not jumping back as fast as I should be from the sloth of my recent bout with anxiety…

Walking, getting outside in nature, just leaving my house and being a bit social—these are all things that are good for me, and do soothe and comfort me. But so does eating toast with butter and marmalade. So does binging my favorite TV shows with Joel at the end of the day. So does watching my favorite vlogs on YouTube. These comforts may not be as obviously “good for me” as getting outside and walking, but right now, they are doing the trick. As long as I let them.

I do know the fear that slothfulness will take hold and never let go if we aren’t hypervigilant. But I honestly don’t believe that slothfulness is the problem. The Tyranny of Should is the problem. The self-shaming in the name of self-care, the toxic self-talk that we’re not taking care of ourselves in the right ways, in the ways we should be—this is the problem.

Shame spirals interrupt our natural cycles of self-care. When we can trust these cycles, when we have enough self-understanding and self-compassion that we can sit with our anxiety without blaming ourselves for it, without—as Joel’s boss says, “shoulding on ourselves”—we will eventually spiral back around to the all the things that feel good in our bodies and minds.

Slowly slowly…these things take time.

Right now, as I write this, I’m sitting on the couch eating Ritz crackers right out of the sleeve. The air is cool and the humidity is gone, and it is such a relief. My skin feels comfortable again; I don’t feel like I want to crawl out of it. It is perfect walking weather—yet here I sit.

Eventually, I will go for a walk. But for right now, this is enough. I am content, I am comfortable, and this is enough.