Noticing & Naming: A Monthly Practice

Embracing limits, exploring procrastination, and a few lessons from nature

June was a busy one. She taught me about joy and beauty and community, but she also brought me face-to-face with my limits. Today I’m sharing seven things I noticed and four things I named, plus a few questions and quotes to give us a little more language for our daily lives.

Seven Things I Noticed:

I’m trying to pay attention to the world around me and to the details of my days. Sometimes these observations may lead to bigger realizations, but other times, the act of noticing is enough. Here are seven things I noticed last month:

1. The way this taper candle burned. Is it chaotic? Is it beautiful? Can it be both? It reminded me of Parker Palmer’s words: “The insight we receive on the inner journey is that chaos is the precondition to creativity . . .”¹ 

2. When Isaac was sick for a week and a half in June, I noticed all the things he does on a regular basis, from mowing and taking out the trash to playing with and walking Marty. I was already aware of these things, of course, but his absence from normal rhythms (due to sleeping pretty much all day, every day) made me appreciate his presence even more. (And I know Marty felt the same way.)

3. I noticed this little guy (Fear from Inside Out) staring up at me at the park. What are you doing here? I thought. I could have ignored it and continued with my walk, but I was curious, so I bent down to pick it up. Later I wondered, What would it be like to approach my own fear that way?

   

4. Some friends and I stumbled across a neighborhood concert, and as we lingered on the edge of the crowd, we noticed a young woman dancing in the middle of the street. She wore tall black boots and pumped her arms and kicked her feet repeatedly, seemingly uninhibited by the humidity or the people sitting in lawn chairs around her. We enjoyed the music, but she embodied it.

5. During a trip to the zoo with friends, I noticed intricate geometric patterns on bright blue fish, the way seahorses wrap their tails around each other to anchor themselves, and how jellyfish look otherworldly.

   

6. During a couple of especially busy days last month, watering the plants completely slipped my mind. I glanced out the back door one afternoon and noticed my basil plant looked . . . crispy. I figured it was a lost cause and promptly bought a new one, but then we had an unexpected downpour. In a surprising display of resilience, the original plant is thriving again. Next time, I’ll look a little closer. 

7. I noticed summertime magic in the form of yellow wildflowers, ever-deepening purple and orange sunsets, and fireflies blinking asynchronously among silhouetted trees.

Four Things I Named: 

I have a loud internal life, and naming what’s going on the inside helps to quiet things down. When we can put thoughts and emotions into words, fear begins to lose its power, next steps come into focus, and we realize we’re not actually alone. Here are four things I named in June:

1. My instinct is often to think: What if this all goes wrong? As I noticed this pop up last month, I tried to talk back to myself. I want to acknowledge my anxiety but also consider there could be other possibilities. Yeah, it could go poorly, I say to myself. But what if it all works out? 

2. Kind words can settle my soul. A sincere question, a thoughtful text, or an intentional thank you can anchor me, like those seahorses wrapping their tails around each other. It’s amazing the stories our minds can spin about the ways we don’t fit in or don’t measure up. But sometimes all it takes is a few well-timed words to ground me and remind me that I am seen. 

3. I just have to start moving. When I’m anxious or I don’t know how to do something, I tend to put it off. According to my therapist, this procrastination is often a form of protection. I’m trying to protect myself from potential pain that could come from making mistakes, disappointing people, not getting what I’d hoped for, or realizing that I can’t live up to the standards in my head. I am trying to remind myself that I just need to start moving because once I get a little momentum, anxiety loosens its grip. That doesn’t mean the risk evaporates, but movement shows me there is more than one way through a thing. I have agency. I can change directions or ask for help or seek out more resources. I may still have to wrestle with fear of disappointing people (or myself), but I am no longer stuck.

4. Embracing my limits is a way to trust my community. Few things demonstrate the power of community quite like a wedding. It takes countless minds and hands to pull it off. Leading up to the wedding of two beautiful humans last month, I kept thinking about this quote from Parker Palmer:
   
   “Yes, we are created in and for community, to be there, in love, for one another. But community cuts both ways: when we reach the limits of our own capacity to love, community means trusting that someone else will be available to the person in need.”²
   
   We meet our limits every day in the form of energy, capacity, health, and other responsibilities, to name a few. In the weeks leading up to the wedding, I wanted to be as helpful as possible. Though there was no pressure from the bride and groom, I put pressure on myself, wanting to show my love for these dear friends through my actions. But (as obvious as this sounds), I couldn’t do everything and I couldn’t be everywhere. I had to actively remind myself that I was not the only person willing to help—far from it. Where I met my limits, I needed to trust that someone else would step in. (And they did, over and over!)
   
   The desire to show up for other people is good and beautiful, but we’re always bumping up against our limits. We can love our people (and ourselves) by honoring our limits, asking for help, and trusting other people will show up too.

   

Questions for Your Practice: 

1. When was the last time someone said something that settled you or helped you feel seen? Why did those words make a difference? Consider telling that person what their words meant to you. 

2. Is there something you’re putting off right now? If so, see if you can identify what’s behind the procrastination. Is there fear? Is there self-protection? What’s one small step you could take to start moving? 

3. Where are you encountering your limits in this season? Are you trusting other people to show up when you can’t? If not, what would help you trust your community more? 

Words That Resonated

In an effort to give us more language for our lives, here are a few quotes that stuck with me last month. 

“We listen for guidance everywhere except within.” —Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak

“Each of us arrives here with a nature, which means both limits and potentials. We can learn as much about our nature by running into our limits as by experiencing our potentials.” —Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak

“What if the miracle of living this life is not that we all get our way but that we sink our roots and souls and bodies deeper and deeper into the place God has put us, for just the time God has put us there? This place is not even a physical place—remember, there is no moral good or evil to leaving or staying—but simply the space we inhabit today. Adsum. [Latin for ‘I am here.’] What if the miracle of life is that we move through belief and unbelief, doubt and faith, joy and sorrow, anger and grief, truth and faith, being as wholly ourselves as we can be in that moment? Is being here, wherever here is, wholeness? I think it is.” —Lore Ferguson Wilbert, The Understory

“We all crave this inner peace, but how do we ‘acquire’ it? There’s no one answer to this question, but the business consultant Stephen Covey once said, ‘We achieve inner peace when our schedule aligns with our values.’ Because our schedules are so often not aligned with our values, many of us live with this electric current of anxiety pulsing through our nervous systems all the time; it’s just there, nagging at us and draining our energy reserves. . . . To live a life of peace in the digital age will demand a kind of resistance.” —John Mark Comer, Practicing the Way

“Choose your own constraints, or they will be chosen for you, not by the Spirit of God stirring your own heart toward love, but by a programmer in Silicon Valley working to steal your time and shape your behavior.” —John Mark Comer, Practicing the Way

Thanks for reading! As we head into July, I hope you’ll join me in paying attention to your limits, leaning into your community, and noticing beauty along the way.

1. This quote is from Parker Palmer’s book Let Your Life Speak.

2. Also from Let Your Life Speak.