There’s a phrase that runs like a thread through my book, How to Fall in Love. It sits at the end of each chapter, inviting readers to think about what they’ve just read, rather than race to the end without digesting its words.
That phrase is Pause and Reflect.
It’s great advice, for life and for love.
Only like most pieces of great advice, it’s hard to follow.
I know this from experience.
You see, I’ve always had a tendency to push rather than pause and to rush rather than reflect.
I’ve done this all my life, ever since I was a little girl.
At first, I was unaware of it, oblivious to it. It was my normal.
Now I know that it’s one of the coping mechanisms I developed in my childhood, in response to developmental trauma, in order to feel safe in the world and to numb painful feelings that were too big to feel when I was small.
It was my flight response - flight being one of the four ‘F’ types we traditionally develop to cope with challenging circumstance, the other three being fight, freeze and fawn.
For me (and for many women I coach), flight looks like busyness, hyper-activity, over-working, over-doing, over-eating, over-thinking, running, rushing, multi-tasking and finding other ways to avoid being present and to escape emotional pain.
I know I’m in flight when my heart is beating fast and I’m feeling panicky, anxious and stressed. In short, when I’m in my sympathetic nervous system rather than my parasympathetic nervous system.
In my younger years, this hectic way of being was a badge of honour.
Life in the fast lane. Sleep when you die, and all that.
Going slow was boring. Resting was for wimps.
Following a burnout and a breakdown in my first career as a political journalist for Reuters, I now understand that slowing down, for me, is the path to sanity and that rushing is the road to physical, mental and emotional ruin.
Despite that awareness, though, I can still speed up instead of going slow.
Trying to fit it all in
The bruises and grazes you see in the photo above are the result of going too fast and doing too much. I fell flat on my face while playing tennis on holiday in Greece and had to dash to a medical centre late at night to get stitches in my lip.
Ouch.
More than two weeks on, my wounds have almost healed although some parts still hurt - reminders of a lesson I’ve learned before but need to learn again.
Some lessons are like that, right?
For some, falling on your face while playing tennis is as simple as that - a sports injury, an unfortunate accident.
For me, as a deep thinker and a writer with a history of flight and self-harm, the fall has many layers that are worth exploring, both to prevent myself from falling again and, hopefully, to steer you clear of tumbles too.
Here are the lessons I learned from my close encounter with Greek tarmac:
1) Always ask yourself what you need
The whole point of pausing and reflecting is to create time and space to connect with my intuition and to ask myself what I need in any given moment, rather than ignore my needs and hurtle headlong into a situation (or a relationship) that isn’t right for me, driven by a hunger or a yearning for something, which is often connected to an unmet need from my childhood.
Let me explain further, using my tennis injury to illustrate the point.
On the surface, I joined the social tennis game at ten o’clock at night because I wanted to have fun and be sociable. Fair enough. I’m on holiday. There’s nothing wrong with that.
However, on a deeper level, there was something else going on, as there often is.
Deep down, I wanted to belong. I wanted to attach. I wanted to feel part of. And that longing for attachment overrode my intuition, which was saying slow down, chill out, rest and relax.
This is a valuable lesson for other areas of my life and, I imagine, for yours.
In any given moment, I need to ask myself if my hunger for belonging and attachment (which are unmet needs from my childhood) is overriding my intuition and blinding me to what I truly need.
The question must be, ‘What do I really need?’ rather than ‘How can I attach?’ or ‘How can I belong?’
I wish I’d had this awareness when I was dating and looking for love because there were many times when I allowed my hunger for attachment to override my intuitive sense that the guy or the relationship wasn’t right.
I was so hungry to attach that I ignored all the red flags - the fact that he was emotionally unavailable, distant or attached to someone else.
I was so hungry for belonging that I tried to make the relationship work at all costs, staying well beyond its sell-by date.
And, at the same time, I was so scared of true attachment that I walked away as soon as we got too close or I only attached to unavailable people (you’ll find more on this topic in my previous posts, and future ones, as it’s my specialist subject).
If you can relate to the above, to feeling so hungry for attachment and belonging that you’re blinded to the facts and can’t hear your intuition, the key is to do whatever you can to heal your early life wounds yourself (to meet your own needs, to love yourself, to attach to yourself, to feel your feelings, to re-parent yourself).
The more you do this, the more you’ll be able to pause, reflect, heed your inner voice and give yourself what you truly need.
If I’d have done this in Greece, I wouldn’t have been on the tennis court.
2) Do a few things, not all things
In my earlier life, I had the energy to do everything, partly because I had youth on my side and partly because I fuelled my hectic behaviour with excess sugar, carbs and booze (I had a binge eating disorder for several decades and I used to binge drink too, numbing my feelings and powering through my exhaustion).
Now, at 53, in perimenopause, bordering on menopause, I don’t have the same amount of energy. I need more sleep and I’m incredibly grumpy and low if I don’t get enough shuteye.
I’ve also discovered recently that I have ADHD, which explains why I drain so quickly when I’m in company. Part of me is hugely extroverted but when I’m out and about, I give my all and soak everything up (conversation, light, noise, emotional cues), only to feel like my head is going to explode.
Doing too much and cramming my time also leaves me feeling anxious and adrenalised, which used to feel comfortable as it was my normal state, but now, after many years of healing, doesn’t feel nice.
So, I am learning, the hard way, to plan my time better and limit my social engagements and commitments, rather than continue on as an experience junkie, trying to fit everything in.
The late night tennis match was one thing too many.
3) Vulnerability is courage and fosters connection
My nasty lip wound almost caused me to pull out of an important engagement last Friday, which ended up being a superb experience.
I had been nominated for an award at The Speaker Awards in London for my talks on mental health and wellbeing, specifically on being real and honest about our feelings as the path to connection, healing and freedom. I’d bought a ticket to the Speaker Summit, paid for my dinner at The Speaker Awards and paid for a hotel room.
Yet two days before, I had the thought that I could just stay home. My lip was a mess. I felt self-conscious, tired and vulnerable. Hectic London felt a long way from my tranquil home by the beach.
But I went along, sharing openly on social media beforehand about how vulnerable I felt about my face, eliciting heartfelt support.
My wound was also a conversation starter or a conversation deepener as others shared their experiences of painful tumbles and black eyes, bringing us together as humans, creating connections that went deeper than the surface level.
Isn’t that what it’s all about?
4) Healing takes time and isn’t always pretty
Two weeks on from my encounter with the Greek tennis court, I was swimming in the sea and the rather large and ugly scab on my lip slipped off in the water (or almost slipped off, but I won’t go into the gory details), revealing skin that had mostly healed, save a few stitches that have yet to dissolve.
This was a reminder that healing takes time, requires patience and tender loving care and that it may not look pretty while it’s happening.
It was also a reminder that we heal better with support - I’m grateful for the input of friends and professionals in terms of scab and scar management.
Finally, I learned that there are no shortcuts when it comes to healing. We have to sit it out. But if we keep the scab on long enough, it will fall off in its own time, when it’s ready, revealing new life beneath.
The same applies to any wound, physical or emotional.
Of course, I wish I hadn’t had to learn these four lessons. I wish I’d learned them before, on one of my previous literal or metaphorical tumbles.
But we learn our lessons when we are ready and sometimes we have to bang our head against a brick wall, or kiss a tennis court, or kiss a frog or an unavailable man, many times until the truth sinks in. And ultimately, it’s a privilege to have the opportunity to continue to learn - not everyone does.
So, I send you strength to learn the lessons you need to learn as you journey towards your dreams and I send you courage and patience as your wounds heal.
Thank you for writing this Katherine, I can relate to it completely and had begun to realise I need to take things slower. Sometimes when I know I need to prioritise rest it also comes with being on my own as I live on my own and work from home now. I like my own company but sometimes I feel I’m on my own far too much and it can get lonely which then drives the need to make arrangements with someone when in reality I just need to rest. 🙈🙈!