On boats, bailing and smooth sailing…
Or: why emotional boat maintenance is important.
I've been thinking about boats.
And about how it's necessary to maintain them if we want them to keep sailing.
Imagine we're in a boat, and it's taking on water here and there - maybe we pass through a big storm, maybe it rains, maybe we hit something and end up with a hole, maybe it's wear and tear over time. If we don't bail it out and keep the water low, we're going to end up with wet feet.
And if we keep not bailing it out, we're going to end up with water in our pockets, and our boat is going to get harder to sail. It'll wallow, and won't have so much grace on the water.
And if we still don't bail it out, we'd better be really good at swimming, because our boat will sink.
Being human is kind of like being in a boat.
It's necessary to take care of ourselves in different ways to maintain our quality of life. Exercise is good. Eating well. Spending time with people who make us feel good.
Less talked about is emotional maintenance, particularly grief.
We're not all that good at knowing what to do with loss, disappointment, sadness, the feelings of 'it's not fair!' that often come with expectations unmet. Most of us file it away in the 'deal with this later' basket, if we think to file it anywhere at all.
But grief doesn't go away, it's still there, in our bodies, and after a while our feet get wet. Maybe we notice we're feeling out of sorts and we're not really sure why. So we figure it's the weather or hormones or just something in the air, and we keep going.
And the losses are still there, in our bodies, and after a while we have water in our pockets, and maybe we feel stuck, heavy, lost. Maybe we're feeling like we're in a haze and not really sure what we need. But from the outside, everything's fine - we don't really have a reason to feel how we feel, and so we keep going,.
And the unfelt emotions are still there, in our bodies, and they start to feel stagnant and bottomless, like if we turn towards them we'll drown - our boat has sunk and we're getting tired of swimming and the shore's still not in sight.
It's time for some emotional boat maintenance - preferably before it sinks, but it's never too late. Take this as a gentle invitation and reminder to schedule in some time for maintenance. If you have a griefwork practice that you love that works for you, maybe check in with it. It's been a wonky few years, through the pandemic and the loss of 'normal' and the future we thought we had.
Take care of the boat that is your body, so you can sail through life with more grace and ease, and not with pockets full of water.
If you don't have a grief work practice that works for you - perhaps you'd like to join my workshop series that's starting soon. Emotional boat maintenance - or creating a solid ground for grief. We'll be playing with a lot of different ways to tend to our boats, and we'll be doing it together, because grief isn't something we should be doing alone.
Here's a link to find out more. If you'd like to come and want a payment plan, I'll set one up specially for you so that it's something that works best for you :)