A quick note: My sister in law died from breast cancer last week so we’ve been navigating the aftershock of what we knew was coming, but still hoped was a little ways off. Given that, I haven’t had capacity to write with the intention of sharing, hence why I didn’t post last week, so this week’s article is something I wrote about a year ago and feels fitting for digesting death and grief and the new normal of our family.
I’m sitting on the stoop of my backdoor, plate resting on my knees while I eat my fish tacos and sweet potatoes with full attention and awareness. No distractions.
Memories start to flash in my mind’s eye. Conversations from years past. Situations that feel like they never got closure are playing out like a soap opera in my inner-screen. People and places I haven’t visited in awhile are calling to me like ghosts.
The urge to pick up my phone is high. I mean, I go into a slight panic wondering where it is, twisting and turning, patting the ground around me as if I’m trying to call it over like I do my dogs. And when I notice this—the urge to distract and numb—I come back to the bite in my mouth. The temperature, texture, and taste. I remind myself what I’m doing and that I purposely placed the phone on the coffee table for later.
This is one of the big teachings of Ayurveda: to eat your food without distraction because you’re not just digesting your food, you’re digesting your Life.
They say that food is only 25% of the whole experience. The other 75% of digestion is influenced by the emotions, energy, and environment of the experience.
This hasn’t been easy for me lately—eating with undistracted focus. We’ve fallen into a pattern of plopping down in front of the TV at night and plowing through our meal while watching a show only to be left feeling too full because, well, we weren’t paying attention. Or I eat while scrolling, or while replying to work emails. And “goddamn, it’s uncomfortable, can’t I just get a little hit please? Just one little scroll and I promise I’ll be done.”
But when I sit with it, I discern that it’s a good kind of uncomfortable. Like I’ve just stretched for the first time all day and I’m remembering I have this body that desperately needs some tenderness these days.
The more I practice it, the more I become aware of undigested patterns still living in me. They rise to the surface ready to be worked with, ready to be metabolized and broken down into fuel for the next cycle, the next phase of growth. So I chew on the sinewy pieces of my tendency to overwork, overdo, overextend with much frustration, wondering if I’ll ever be able to swallow the lessons I’m having to learn, yet again, about the effects of such tendencies.
It’s not lost on me that the etymology of tendency means “thin; stretched out” because that’s how I feel right now. Yet tendency also has the word tend in it, meaning “to stretch toward.”
Oh what a reframe. I see my inner wise woman who lives in the cave of my heart reaching her hand out to me, stretching toward the part of me that thinks her worth is found in how much she does, gives, works, creates, knows, and inviting her into this safe cave to find solace, to know rest and rejuvenation, to feel her worth and belonging.
So I chew this bite and I eat this pattern. I gnaw and chomp and devour it completely so I can finally digest it and let its wisdom assimilate into my tissues, the visceral memory of having learned my lesson. The tangible experience of Life being lived through me.
Beautifully written, cousin. I’m so sorry for your loss. Hug Davis for me…