Distinctions

The other day in the car listening to a song by Tyler Rich called “The Difference” and theres a line in it that goes, “Yeah, there's a hell of a difference in saying three words or kinda just meaning two. And there's a difference in "love ya" and "I love you”. And with that, my brain was down the rabbit hole exploring the idea of distinction.

On the surface, some distinctions seemed easier than others to build into my consciousness. For example, the ability to compartmentalize verses to integrate. To honor verses to protect. To restore verses recover. And one of my current favorites for contemplation, dignity verses grace. Pondering these distinctions led me in a number of directions. The consideration of building goals around them being the least strenuous, the reflection of my personal position and actions in relationship to them perhaps the most strenuous. In reading the Sacred Enneagram, by Christopher Heuertz, I read a challenging passage where he spoke on the necessity and gift of stillness. “In addition to our drive to build a better world we also live in a time when productivity and impact feed the lies we believe about ourselves. The constant pressure to do more, to fill up our schedules, to work harder. But we have to stop the busyness or we will be stopped by burnout and exhaustion. Stillness teaches us restraint and in restraint we are able to discern what appropriate engagement looks like.”

Ahhh, the act of creating space in order to make critical distinctions. Making time to consider, with depth, who we are being and does it serve us? What is the best path forward, not just in expediency but in wholeness? Allowing ourselves honest reckoning on where we truly are and where we honestly want to go and what distinctions are required to get there is critical. Would it start by being cognizant of when we abdicate our own conscious choice of direction and self, when we allow others to dictate where we ought to go or how we are identified? Rather, what if we were to rest confidently in those distinctions having taken a moment, a breath, to honor ourselves and figure it out on our own.

Until that work, the hard work, the work that is ever evolving is begun the rest is busyness. In waiting to do the work, do we thereby hold ourselves arms length from grace? Does life lack focus? How valid is a goal built on a false premise? Critical distinctions for self actualization are numerous. And while it is an ongoing and ever-evolving process, without stillness, without giving ourselves the space and the grace to explore those distinctions can we indeed progress? Or is it just busyness….