Racing in hot pursuit

Sunday swimming

On Sunday morning, shivering on the wooden steps looking at the dark water in front of me, I wondered why I hadn’t just stayed in bed. It was warm there.

Plunging forward, I was forced back into my body as I tried to regulate my breathing and process the shock of the cold. The water insisted I submit to it. It demanded all my attention. And I was reminded why I was there: to get out of my head and spend some time in the beautiful world.??

After an emotional week, my prescription was to get out of my head: take the dog for a walk with Maggie, go for our favorite food with Sasha and Noah, paint, and swim.?

Escaping the cave

I spend too much time in my head. I believe in the power of imagination and enjoy exploring thoughts. It can feel good to visit the places and people I love in my mind, moving back and forth through time, reliving memories and projecting future possibilities. It’s not always fun though. I can get lost in there. Not every thought is welcome. They are not always even mine. There are plenty of uninvited guests whose agenda doesn’t always feel benign.?

I know that being stuck inside my head is a distraction from being alive in the world. My thoughts are just shadows on the cave wall, insubstantial compared to the lived stuff of life. The bracing cold of the water on a Sunday morning. Walking with Maggie watching the joy of our puppy running full speed through the grass, with her goofy tongue lolling out the side of her mouth. Banter with my kids who have a skillful knack of bringing me forcefully down to earth, with their healthy disdain for their overly earnest dad. The more I get out of my head, the more alive I feel.

Running in hot pursuit

Zach shared something with me last week that I haven’t been able to let go. It strikes deep.? In response to James Baldwin’s rallying cry to ‘go where your blood beats’, Leon Bridges acknowledges a truth we all face: “It can take many of us half a frigging lifetime to be so freaking bold, to go racing in hot pursuit after ourselves.” I love this. I love how physical it is. It recognizes the courage that living your life requires, and gets at the exhilaration you feel when you go running after it. For me, this requires getting out of my head and back into the world. I am still not very good at it.

Out of your head and into the world

There is a mesmeric quality to the endless stream of moving images across our screens. Seeing other people’s lives, other people’s friends, homes and experiences may make our own seem less vivid somehow. I don’t believe technology is the only or best solution to Mary Oliver’s insistent and all important question: “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" But I think it can help.

Technology is a tool. Our hope is that we are building a useful one. We hear from people that Monograph helps them process feelings, capture ideas and work through thoughts. Some people describe it as like a “journal you can talk to.” In the same way that writing helps you make visible thoughts and feelings, talking to your Monograph helps you better understand yourself, with the added benefit that you’re building your own tool for the journey ahead.?

Reflection has been traditionally positioned as a retreat ‘inside’, but the real value is getting things out, so you can observe them for what they are, shadows playing across the cave wall. Whether you choose to let them go, or turn them into action plans, once you get things out of your head you can get on with running in hot pursuit of your life. We only get one.

Try Monograph here

(Photo credit: Pool Bridge Farm, York).