What Helps, What Hinders?
The following is an excerpt from a newsletter published February 29th, 2024
"What helps, what hinders?"
We can always count on Pema Chödrön to give us the good stuff.
I heard this on an audio of hers (or was it in a book?) and found it to be such a gentle re-framing of “what works, what doesn't?”.
I've reflected on the questions “what works, what doesn't?” every week/month for years and lately my brain has been jumping too readily from, “Look at all this stuff that isn't working!” to self-punishment. More useful, I've found, to reflect on “what helps, what hinders?”
What's moving me toward what I want? What's moving me away?
Same practice, new language. More room.
Sometimes that's all it takes.
A few other tools that have been helping lately:
— Create a list of decisions to make
One of the reasons we put off work is because we don’t actually have a list of tasks to do, we have a list of decisions to make. Separating the two can help.
You can separate the two in your planning (i.e. “choose email software” rather than “start newsletter”) or you can have an ongoing list of decisions to make in your business ("how do I want to use LinkedIn? what do I want to do with my newsletter archive?). Having an ongoing list tucked into my weekly planner has been super helpful for my brain.
— When caught in an either/or, pause and be with the part of you who's trying to decide
If you’re agonizing between options—“Is it this or that?!"—pause and focus on the part you that’s trying to figure this all out. Not on the two options themselves! But on the part of you who’s working so hard to decide between them.
How do you feel toward this aspect of yourself? What does this part of you need? What does it want you to know? Just be with it for a minute (breath, brain dump, draw a picture) and see what happens.
Rather than try to force your way forward, be with the part of you that's forcing.
— Separate witnessing and sense-making
Similarly, try separating out the stages of information gathering and decision making. Or witnessing what's going on and making sense of what's going on.
Can you be with the information as it comes without rushing to a decision or meaning-making?
This helps us accept the fullness of our desires/needs/fears and, ultimately, allows us to make grounded, integrated, wise decisions.
Related: How to debrief a project and why it matters (I share my 3-stage reflection process)
Creating room before untangling the knot always helps.
That's all we're doing here—finding ways to create healthy distance and playing with perspective.
Remember: this is a practice.
We are choosing tools that help us be in practice of what matters to us.
I look forward to spending the rest of my life discovering, forgetting, and remembering the practices that work for me (🫠).
— Kate
P.S. One of my favourite Pema Chödrön resources is her audio, Getting Unstuck. It's about learning to stay, learning to see, and taking delight in the process. “Identify with the wisdom that sees, rather than the failure you see.” I rented it through my local library.
P.P.S. The header photo was taken at Naomi Daryn Boyd's BLOOD, WATER, BATHURST STREET interactive textile exhibition. The exhibition won Best in Festival at DesignTO this year (congrats, Naomi!). Shared with this issue as a reminder of what's possible when we create maps that allow us to “enter into” things from different angles.
