Slow down or melt down

Slowing down scares people. We try to avoid it at all costs. However, if we don’t slow down, we will melt down.

We’re all aware of the fact that we are living in the “digital age”, where technology is supposed to be “helping” us live better lives. Be more “productive”. Hustle faster and more often. Do more.

But, at what cost?

For all the advances, humanity cannot spiritually or emotionally keep up. A huge aspect of our inner life is getting ignored and left behind to our detriment. We’re already seeing it with the whole “analog” movement that is ramping up. For many people, the digital age is horribly distracting and is keeping us out of touch with our emotional selves and environment.

My friend in the previous post, who lost her husband and mother just 8 days apart, is in a wheelchair. She has survived cancer yet has a lot of other problems left over from the chemo and some experimental crap she was given. I drive her to City of Hope for her appointments because she can’t drive herself. I’ve been doing this for about 5 years. I cannot tell you how many people walk around with their faces in their phone screens, not paying one whit of attention to where the fuck they’re going. In a hospital. Where there are patients walking with their chemo treatment IV poles. Confused patients looking for the lab or clinics. Visitors looking for the cafeteria or Starbucks while their loved ones are in surgery or recovery. There are patients with walkers, canes, crutches, wheelchairs and in beds being transported to different parts of the center.

And then there are the clueless idiots, people who work there, some of them visitors, walking with their heads down, out of touch with the precarious, precious and fragile environment around them.

I wanna smack them. Hard.

Sometimes I’ve had to yell “look up!” more than once, while pushing my friend because someone is getting ready to walk right into her, startling them out of their digital reverie (insert extreme eye roll here; the one where I can practically see my own brain).

Those of you out there who have pushed loved ones in wheelchairs or accompanied them in walkers know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s annoying. It’s entitled.

And it shows exactly the impact the digital world is having on us. It shows why we don’t want to slow down.

If we weren’t distracted, we would have to deal with our inner stuff. Our shadow stuff. We would have to look at why we’re dissatisfied with our lives, why we have envy for people who look like they have their shit together but really don’t. We would have to question why we stay where we are when we hate it, why we are not standing up for ourselves (because we don’t know how), and why we’re afraid to make decisions and take actions that would improve our lives and our mental health.

But not looking at it is worse. Not addressing it doesn’t make it go away. We’re running on empty (thank you Jackson Browne). Now the overwhelm has caught up. The stress and strain taking its toll. And we’re slowly (or quickly) freaking out.

For women, we don’t tend to express our emotions the way we want because if we did, we’d scare the hell out of everyone. Seriously. We just pretend it’s all okay (“I’m fine”) and carry on, stuffing what we’re feeling without an outlet of expression. This is why some of us have meltdowns in public places like grocery stores, at the coffee shop, pulled over to the side of the road howling like a freaking banshee. It’s why we yell at our lazy co-workers and horrible bosses then rage quit our jobs. It’s why we sit in our cars and cry in a lonely parking lot where no one can hear us scream.

It’s why our blood pressure is through the roof, why our stomachs hurt, why we have total mental health breakdowns and we’re forced to go out on administrative leave for “rest & respite”. Ya’ll know what I mean. You know you do.

Believe it or not, stitching can give you an outlet. No, it’s not a cure. It’s not meant to be. Many women engage in activities such as knitting, crocheting, quilting, and do a bunch of other things that bring decompression and relief. However, you must learn how to do those activities.

Laying down simple stitches requires no skill whatsoever. Just pushing a needle and thread through some fabric pieces in way that will hold them in place, to a backing of your choosing. In so many of my pieces, I’m just stitching in rows cause in the beginning, it was all I could handle.

I want you to ponder the last time you told someone “I’m fine” when you knew damn well you weren’t; the last time you swallowed words of anger, frustration or even rage at a situation when it felt out of your control, was unfair or unreasonable. What did you eventually do with that energy? It doesn’t just go away. It gets turned inward and starts causing problems.

Stitching allows you to stop while you process emotions that feel too much and too big to speak about. It gives you a place to put that energy. It becomes a liminal space, a spiritual & sacred space, that takes you out of “normal”, where all the b.s. is and allows you sit for a while in a place that allows for deep rest of your psyche.

So, grab a cuppa (tea or coffee) and…

Sit, sip, & stitch with me.