It’s Beyond Me
Just four weeks into the new year, and already I am feeling a bit overwhelmed by some things I can’t even begin to process here. What I can share is that my family is sick with the flu-rona, so we’re muddling through all three of us doing work/school from home, slurping down homemade chicken noodle soup, and using more tissues than my poor face can take.
I have had quite a bit of horizontal time in my recuperation and connected deeply with Brene’ Brown’s new book Altas of the Heart, which explores a wide variety of our emotions, putting language and insight to the experience. Instead of arranging the emotions like a glossary in alphabetical order, they’re clustered by where we might experience them. Hence the book is an atlas. Each chapter title starts with “places we go when…” and then walks through the associated emotions. Two chapters in particular caught my attention, like a call and response of brilliant light in the darkness.
Places we go when things are uncertain or too much: stress, overwhelm, anxiety, worry, avoidance, excitement, dread, fear, vulnerability
Places we go when it’s beyond us: awe, wonder, confusion, curiosity, interest, and surprise
Clearly, I know what I would like to be experiencing here, but the question is how to shift from stress and overwhelm into awe and wonder? It’s right there in the chapter title: when I realize that it’s beyond me.
Usually that phrase, “It’s beyond me!” is a rather snarky retort like someone did something really stupid. But what if we uttered that phrase with a bit of humility and grace, a more gentle “its beyond me…”? This is an entirely different posture, which gives me permission to not have all the answers, to stay curious and open, to wonder what will happen next, and to know there’s a something greater than myself at play here.
When I recognize that a situation or experience is truly beyond me, I can open up, instead of locking down. Then I can have another view, to see beyond, over the hill, around the corner, into the deep and mystical, through time, connecting with the Infinite warehouse of possibilities.
When things are uncertain or too much, I can surrender to the fact that it’s beyond me, but not with resignation, rather with curiosity…to connect with the Divine and start questioning everything that seems limiting in my life. Then I realize that the limitations are my thinking, how I’m choosing to approach the situation.
Whether it’s my health or things I can’t even get into here, I know the Divine is on the job in greater ways than I could have engineered. So I let it go and open up to truly know: it’s beyond me.