November: on readiness
When you don't feel ready for something that's probably going to happen
Readiness is vague concept to me. In movies and books, it seems more tangible, how a character has a moment of internal clarity followed by a deep breath, a determined expression, and a serious “I’m ready, let’s do this.” A settled intention. I think of readiness idealistically, like a state of being where heart and mind and body align and move forward together and therefore it’s easy to do whatever you’ve needed to be ready to do. Did I subconsciously learn this from Spongebob? He is ready. Even google defines readiness as “the state of being fully prepared for something.”
But in my experience, there haven’t been many times where I get that sparkly feeling of “readiness.” Even so, it seems like there are several ways to get there. There’s the readiness that you arrive at by choice and then enact. Or the readiness of being fed up with the way things are, or at least recognizing that the status quo is unsustainable. Or the readiness that comes when you have no other choice- a mother in late stages of labor about to give birth. At a certain point, there isn’t another option. Is this readiness?
Recently I don’t feel ready. I know a change is needed (and would be welcomed, in some ways), but I don’t feel ready for the work that it would require- emotional, physical, financial, social, any of it.
If I knew what the outcome would be, would I be ready?
If I knew I’d be ok, would I feel ready?
Do I have to feel ready to be ready?
I moved to the UK over 3 years ago now, and I had a sense of peace knowing that even though this was a big and brave move, it was the next right thing. I don’t know if I felt ready, but I felt sure. Recently I came across some thoughts I had written down while journaling about 2 months after I moved…
“I’ve been thinking a lot about ‘readiness’... How do I know if I’m ready for a change at work? For a medication, for a conversation, for a big move, for this thing or that thing. But I think for me readiness is something you have in hindsight. Readiness is just willingness to try.”
It’s funny- now 3 years later almost exactly, I’m thinking about the same thing. Maybe that’s how it goes in life… so many chances to dig deeper into the things that are hard for us. And that’s a good thing. It’s loving. When a child learns a hard skill, they are given many chances to try again. But my first instinct is to question why I have to go through this again. Didn’t I already learn this?
Nope! Apparently, I did not. Or maybe there is more to learn.
But now it might be time to go, and this time I don’t have that internal sureness about the next right thing. This time I can feel my human nature screaming to hold on to the creature comforts that I’ve gathered around me in the the past 3+ years here. This time I’m less excited to make a change. I don’t even feel willing to try, if I’m being honest.
And I don’t know how to become more willing.
One thing I’ve been trying, in an attempt to convince myself I’m ready, is to pay more attention to my nervous system and how my physical body and mind are doing, to give myself some hard data for why a change is needed. I’ve found myself thinking about the way I make decisions at work… I’ve spent the last 6 years as a feeding therapist for infants in the neonatal ICU. My job is to help these fragile babies learn how to eat, since they are not following the same path as a well or term-born baby might. But what I’ve learned is that often the most helpful feedback I can give is to just describe what I am observing with my own eyeballs, and interpret the signs that are right in front of me.
Babies can’t talk, but they definitely communicate… they give signs that they are comfortable, at rest, stressed, or in pain all through their body language. Most of it is subtle— a baby can show stress cues through hiccups, wide eyes, splayed fingers, a head turn, extended legs, elevated heart rate... Half of my evaluation is usually reading a baby’s body language to determine if what we are doing is actually comfortable and safe for the baby.
Similarly, I’m learning to notice what my own body is telling me (it’s me, I’m the baby). Like, I notice I feel anxious and disregulated at work a lot, in a way that I don’t think I can sustain. Other times it’s harder for me to see my own signs. Some of the most helpful feedback friends can give is when they describe my body language while listening to me process. Sometimes it’s subtle: ‘you sound hesitant.’ Sometimes it’s more obvious: ‘you lit up when you talked about that.’ Sometimes it’s physical: ‘you actually just broke out in hives describing that’ or ‘you’re not really making eye contact anymore.’ Our body language can make the decision for us a lot of the time if we pay attention to it. Or at the very least, it can reveal how we really feel about something. It cuts through the cognitive loopholes and mental gymnastics right to how it actually sits in our bodies (and I’d argue, our souls).
Does this help me to be ready? Maybe. I don’t know. But maybe it’s also ok if readiness takes time. At church on Sunday, one of the pastors shared a thought about our use of phrases like “I don’t have the bandwidth for that” or “I need to unplug” etc. He described this as the language of machinery. And that machines exist to be productive. But humans are not machines- we cannot unplug, we cannot increase bandwidth. We are feeling hearts moving through a complex world, and this deserves more reverent and gracious language. It deserves space. And time.
So maybe the readiness will come in hindsight. Maybe it will come in time. Maybe it will come sooner than I think. Either way, I’m learning to allow there to be space for my emotions and to not treat myself like a robot. Even if different parts of me arrive at “readiness” at different times, I think that’s ok.
These photos were taken in December 2022 a few months after moving to the UK, on a solo trip to Geneva Switzerland over Christmas holiday. Shot on a little Japanese point & shoot with Kodak 400Tmax film.
Some songs I’ve collected throughout the November days, a very random bunch.
🫶