Something I have noticed lately, in that vein of “the way we do one thing is the way we do everything,” is that I am prone to rushing when I get excited.
This isn’t always a bad thing; those of you who have taken my courses know I can fit a TON of information into a relatively compressed amount of time, meaning my courses are dense with value and participants end up getting more and more out of them even through multiple replays, and that my enthusiasm for the content means I can make a lecture interesting and exciting for three hours straight.
However in my 1-1 work lately I have noticed a need to convey information to the client *at the speed that I myself am receiving it* and while there’s a lovely honesty and transparency to that that is missing from many sectors of the mental health industrial complex where practitioners seem to harbor feelings or conclusions about their clients that they do not share with them in the moment (out of a pervasive lack of respect for clients throughout the culture of mental healthcare in general), it’s occurring to me that it may not always be the *optimal speed for the client.* And that slowing down and presencing with them is at least something that I ought to practice so that it’s a more accessible option for me in the moment.
This is also showing up in my music – I have a tendency to rush the beat out of a fear of taking up space (time), the root of which is a mild discomfort in being present in my body, a need to rush to the next moment or the next note in order not to have to feel the entirety of the note I’m presently singing. There’s a fear of making a mistake there, or of being unable to sustain the note, but it’s really not a technical fear as much as it is an underlying fear of the intensity of presence.
This also shows up for me in bed, though I definitely have patriarchy to blame that aspect on as I was conditioned by early (male) partners to learn that men don’t enjoy foreplay and that in order to be desirable I should rush into intensity that my body isn’t necessarily ready for, causing an overall desensitization as my body numbed out when it couldn’t catch up. When someone is really slow and present with me in bed I tend to get shy about receiving it (in a “this feels too good to be true” sense) and try to move past that into greater sxual intensity that doesn’t feel so vulnerable. Don’t get me wrong, I love receiving slowness and attention, but I am still working on being able to be present enough to fully receive it. (Str8 m3n don’t on the whole tend to make for great practice partners in this regard, no offense guys – although there are certainly many of you who have bucked the cultural tide to cultivate this, some of whom through their own presence I have to thank for helping me become aware of this pattern to begin with, it’s not exactly ingrained into men by society.)
All three of these patterns root back to a discomfort in really truly feeling comfortably at home in my body in the present, in such a way that I don’t have to skip past it to rush to the next moment.
I think it’s also related to my neurodivergence in the sense that my ADHD likes to take me out of the moment and my autism means that feeling the present moment unmasked is super intense for me, which causes me to try to avoid or control it.
I’m pretty excited to tackle this one because it means broad sweeping improvements across multiple fields – my singing, my facilitation, my speaking/teaching, and my personal life. Also, I’m great, my body is great, my spirit is great, my voice is great, and all of it deserves to take up the full range of every second it occupies.
I’m excited to see where focusing on it takes me. No advice needed; just sharing my process for those who enjoy following along. Personal shares welcome as always if you relate.
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