back to my practice
In an effort to get back into publicly writing on this blog, I’m going to practice short-form (i.e., 500-ish-word) posts. It’s not that I’ve been in any sort of trouble over these years of hiatus; it’s that I’ve fallen out of practice. Here we go . . .
In the 75 days leading up to my birthday last November, I’d quietly gone through a private typing challenge, which I interchangeably referred to as the #75daysoftyping and #75daysofmovement challenge.
The criteria were simple: commit to two-handed typing practice for at least five minutes a day, record myself doing it, and take notes on what I was learning.
The trap, for me, though, is biting off more than I can chew.
The thing was, I’d finally gotten myself re-enrolled in neuro-PT and OT over the late summer and into the late fall, and I was barreling ahead within the structure given me by external organizations without checking in with myself on what it was I deeply needed for it all to be sustainable on my nervous system.
Additionally, I’d finally created an Instagram account for this blog, which I didn’t feel ready to launch publicly until I’d created more content and gotten a feel for how I wanted to use the account. (It’s still not open for public viewing.)
So even though my typing challenge was inherently a very private and low-key one, I turned it into this huge project — capturing daily video footage of myself typing, uploading it to the ’gram, posting daily reflections and often Stories to the account reflecting on what I’d experienced in the world of rehab.
This was fine for a good long stretch, but eventually toward the end I found myself too tired to complete my self-imposed content, opting to post placeholders to get around to again later (I’m noticing now that the final few posts are all placeholders, which is initially frustrating, but I’m choosing compassion for that part of me that always wants to do more, more, and then burns out).
The good news is, though, that I did type daily with both hands for 75+ days.
My intention was to continue my typing practice on a daily basis without posting about it, but evidently this only lasted till 4 December and then I eventually forgot about the practice almost entirely.
Today when I sat down to write this post, I set a five-minute timer so I could start out writing this 500-ish-word post with both hands for five minutes and then continue on with my right hand —
but without getting into the nittiest-grittiest details of what’s going on right now, I’m not in my most physically optimal state at the moment . . . after about four minutes, my left hand had hit the point of neuro-fatigue. Which feels disheartening, but again —
the move is self-compassion.
Self-compassion over self-flagellation, always.
If you looked over the long history of this blog (which I began in 2008), you’d see that I’ve consistently gone through stretches of starting and stopping for long stretches. I used to be really, really hard on myself for this — but now I see it for what it is: a lifelong pattern of overriding my actual underlying needs.
I’m sure this theme will crop up again and again in my future posts, as it’s a HUGE one I’ve been working with in this season. As with anything else re: the nervous system, it is likely many of you have experienced a similar pattern.
My intention & prayer is that these 500-word posts I write will seed some awareness that you find supportive, transformative, and (importantly!!) digestible. Something I am learning over and over and over (and over . . .) again is that information is useless without metabolizing/integration of it, leading to a different embodiment.
With love,
Pamela
PS. I’m keeping this practice as bare-bones and simple as possible today, so just getting this post published is a win. I may (likely) one day decide to “make it pretty,” but that day is not today. 😉