Entering Overwhelm
As I reenter my life after my New Year’s workshop experience, especially in reentering my organizational life in Sevenoaks and Pathwork, I find myself in a state of overwhelm. In the past two days of dealing with finances, accounting, fundraising, all the matters of the Pathwork Council — including planning, forecasting, and marketing workshops, deciding the direction of Pathwork within the school, considering various policies and procedures, working with a diverse group of strong personalities on a wide range of interests, and the like, quickly drowns me in matters that feel so important and yet defy my capacity of cognitive logical thinking for supplying the leadership I feel responsible to provide. Yes, overwhelm is a good word for this.
Last night I sent out a complex agenda for an upcoming Pathwork Council meeting. But this in itself, instead of grounding me with a rational framework, led me to see the complexity of our issues. What to do? How to lead? These are my questions.
During morning coffee time, as I shared my sense of things and my overwhelm, Pat responded that her sense of what was needed here was a combination of strength and flexibility — the ability to flow with what is, to be aware of what is and of what wants to happen. No room for forcing my own agenda or even my own vision. Just bring my felt-sense as my inner beingness meets my environment.
My first response to this awareness was to confess my overwhelm and reach out for help. And this I have now done — arranging to speak to most of the Pathwork Council members one-on-one before we meet on Thursday morning. As I envision these conversations, I feel a peace coming upon me.
But I am also aware that my entry into the EmbodyBeing program mentioned in my previous blog provides perhaps an even more solid grounding, a grounding from within, from my body wisdom, my inner core. I am reminded of words from Pathwork Lecture 69 that suggest that my inner wisdom sees ahead more clearly than my rational mind, and this inner Knowing leads me to seek out the spiritual resources needed to support what is coming up on the journey in front of me. This seems almost literally true as I reflect on the juxtaposition of all on my plate as I enter 2011 and having just entered Mary Stokes’ EmbodyBeing program.
I find myself more settled, aligned, and at peace. I find my faith strengthened. I find myself grateful.