What if the impulse is enough?

While I’m sure you have heard the axiom, “We are human beings not human doings,” I also am pretty sure that it’s hard for some of us to relax into the wisdom of that statement.

We human beings, of course, must do a lot of things in our lives: feed and house and care for ourselves and our loved ones; the work of generating money to pay for it all; anything that delights and entertains and connects.

We are constantly doing- and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. What wisdom can we find then in this cliched adage about being vs. doing?

So often people misinterpret the saying and assume they must do less or do nothing in order to relax into the being-ness. But look at monks: they were so active! They illuminated manuscripts and built apothecary gardens and created heritage recipes- and they did those things while being mindful and devoted.

For me, the polarity between being and doing can be mediated first by mindfulness. If I am doing any old choore and I am mindful, then I get to be both doing something and present for each moment of existence. (This concept is the basic framework of Ritual + Reward.)

The second way I embrace the being-ness of my humanity is to realize that I don’t need to DO anything in order to be loved, whole, safe, complete, content.

I get to cultivate those states of being regardless of what I do. In other words, I don’t have to earn those states by performing tasks that I or society deem worthy of those desired feelings.

I don’t have to act in order to earn or deserve all those delicious ways of being. I can learn methods to experience those states of being in my physical body regardless of what’s going on around me.

A third and final way that has only recently come into my awareness is the concept of impulses.

2023 was tough for me* and I enlisted even more support in the form of therapists who could help me navigate an unusually challenging time. It felt strange because I have a ton of internal and external resources for mental health crises.

In the past when I have encountered a challenge or a problem, my best/worst instincts are typically fight and flight bound up together. First I gear up (get my adrenaline pumping, aka fight) and then I do allll the things I possibly can to end the challenging situation (constant busyness aka flight).

I would search out, digest and act on every piece of relevant research, try a bunch of different modalities and basically go hog wild on a quest to Fix It. In other words: I’d be a human doing not a human being.

This time, however, I was too exhausted to do anything. My bed was my best friend.

At that time all I could do was the bare minimum. Food prep. Walking the dog. Taking care of my daughter. I watched TV during the day. I did nothing remotely productive. One day I told Justine, my therapist, that I had thought about doing some writing.

She responded with, “Just the impulse to write is enough.”

“What do you mean,” I asked incredulously. “How can the impulse matter?”

I couldn’t fathom that my thoughts about possibly putting pen to paper could be as worthwhile as actually writing.

She brought me around to the concept that giving myself the space and compassion to allow for the mere idea of change/of doing something is enough all by itself!

In other words, we don’t have to cross something off our to do list in order to heal or to feel better or to accomplish something.

The idea (the impulse/the state of being open) to do is enough.

People, I cannot tell you how revolutionary this was for me. I used to think there was only value in having done the thing. I was superglued to the necessity of accomplishment. I was a proud member of the cult of “it doesn’t count unless it’s done.”

And here comes someone- whose wisdom I trust- telling me that I can consider the possibility of going to exercise or perhaps doing my taxes or maybe finishing my book proposal as enough. And not only was just thinking about doing something good enough, but also my thoughts alone, not backed up by action, are good, full stop.

Slowly, a new way to perceive my human being self started to emerge where I celebrated and spent time with my impulses. I started to appreciate my impulses to garden or write or get dressed in something other than “lazy mom clothes” as a sacred part of my process.

But I didn’t do anything about these impulses. Not right away anyway because Justine encouraged me not to act on the impulses immediately.

This was anathema to me!

So I didn’t.

I thought about them.

And then I set them aside and watched netflix and read novels and lived my day to day.

Then ever so slowly, like a tiny trickle of water, I started to take small steps. I bought a ceramic palette and brush holder and sat it on my desk.

My thoughts about writing turned into reading and editing what I’ve written so far in my Ritual + Reward book proposal.

The impulses (the being) gradually morphed into mindful action (the doing).

As you may know, I’ve started to embrace gentle as an overarching life theme, and impulses are very gentle. In fact, I think impulses work on human beings much the same way craniosacral therapy works on the body.

Craniosacral is about allowing the body to find its natural rhythm and harmonize with very little interference- and certainly no pressure- from outside forces. Impulses function in a similar way. They open up energetic space in the mind and the spirit- to create a realm of possibility free from pressure or expectation.

In that gorgeous, open space preceded by impulse, the human being will naturally harmonize with new activities, new relationships, new perspectives with very little effort.

This is what I think was at the core of the shifts I’ve seen in my own life in the past few months (and what I wrote about earlier this week).

Now one of my own personal mottos is, “the impulse is enough.”

Here are my questions for you today:

How do you feel about the human being vs human doing concept?

What impulses have you noticed within yourself recently?

Can you sit with the impulses and not do anything about them?