On Sitting, Swimming, and Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud

What Are We Speeding Past?

Hi friend,

I almost didn’t write this issue. It’s been a heavy week, and honestly I sometimes feel like I’m writing these into the abyss, but… then I went swimming. For the last 5 weeks, I’ve been going swimming every Friday morning. Sometimes I swim for 15 minutes, sometimes for 40. Sometimes I swim fast, sometimes I swim slowly and gently, feeling my muscles as they push away the water. Sometimes time flies by, sometimes I have to urge myself to try for 5 more minutes. But I show up. It’s only been 5 weeks and who knows how long this will go, but each of the last 4 times - since I discovered the backyard of the pool - as I sit on my towel and read in the sun (don’t worry, there’s a sunbrella and I wear sunscreen), I encounter this luxurious feeling, a mixture of accomplishmemt and deep rest.

My Complicated Relationship with Habits

I have a relationship with habits. On the one hand I’m easily bored, I was only ever employed (as opposed to working for myself or a company I own) for 5 months in my life, I need to feel free, I hate repeating meals. On the other hand, I derive immense comfort from repetitivenes and structure. Add to this that I have ADHD that makes executive fuctions a challenge - and you get, well, a very conflicted relationship to habits.

One habit that I was adamant to develop for decades has been taking public transport. I grew up in Israel during the second Intifada and bus bombings were de riguer. The few times I took the bus as a teen against ny parents’ wishes I didn’t know if I was more scared of them finding out or of the bus being bombed, and I’d usually exit the bus wayyy before my stop because I’d seen someone wearing a suspiciously bulky backpack. I never really developed the habit of taking a bus after that, and a someome who doesn’t drive (story for another day), it became an issue. When I was a startup founder I had the excuse that taking taxis allowed me to work and even pop on zoom calls while commuting, but… I didn’t really believe myself. Long story short, I now take the bus regularly (I even have an IG highlight for it), and I get a lot of satisafction from it, especially when I beat the traffic. And yes, it took many years, but then it took no time at all. Do you know what I mean?

One of the biggest gamechangers at my previous business, Rooms & Words, was when I decided on a weekly structure of meetings and heads-down worktime, including time to work on the business itself. And that discipline also has a lot to do with habits (and executive functioning, my old pal). I’m now working on doing this at Consider, and maybe consistently showing up here (even though this lil’ corner of the interwebz predates Consider by A LOT, like 3 years?) is part of that. But enough about me! I had other things I wanted to discuss before going on this tangent, if you can believe it.

Clarity and Sillness

There are two topics I keep going back two this week: Clarity and stillness. It started when my new coach Dana asked me what I’m proud of. After speaking about my parenting and my career, these two immediately came to mind. And then they somehow came up again and again in a few conversations.

Here’s what I mean by clarity: Speaking in a direct and specific way. I have always been a person of words, I started writing at the age of 3 and I have notebooks of “novels” from as early as 6 or 7 years old. But what drove me was always the beauty of language, the understanding of characters and concepts through descriptions. In other words: I tend to get a little bit long-winded and flowery in writing, and also in my thoughts. I focus on the emotions, the environemnt, the lived experience. And that’s beautiful, I enjoy it both as a writer and as a reader. But it can also get in the way of getting to the point or even of getting my own point. The older I get and the more lived experience I have, I understand that sometimes it allows people (including myself) get away with not dealing. Not owning up. Not taking accountability. And the older I get the more I feel the importance of saying the silent part out loud, of uncovering what’s hidden in plain sight, of being direct and clear. Not at the expense of empathy, but in service of it.

Here’s what I mean by stillness: I’m a doer by nature, even if it doesn’t sound like this from the previous paragraph. I’m decisive, verging on impulsive and I do everything QUICKLY. I can read a book in an hour (this came in handy when I was being paid to read back in the day), I can also build the infrstructure of a business in a day or furnish a house or get you connected to whomever it is you need. What’s harder for me is sitting. staying. waiting. That’s why I found it so critical to not jump into a new startup when I closed mine, to think over my dovorce for years before reaching a decision, to percolate. It does NOT come naturally to me, but I’m practicing all the time.

These two can seem like opposing ideas at first, but actually upon thinking about this, I found that my speeding and doing often come when I’m hesitant to face clarity - or make others face it. That’s when I’ll skip a paragraph in a book (why that book? why that paragraph?) or start talking in order to fill the silence and not actually say the very specific thing that needs to be said. or just let the silence do the work.

Learning to Sit Still

To tie this all together, I was sitting at the pool’s backyard this morning and reading The Diamond Cutter (a book I’ve been avoiding for a while), when I found myself skipping a paragraph, realizing it, going back to the previous page, skipping it or skimming it (which is almost the same) again. It was the clarity I was avoiding.

This issue is already over 1,000 words long, so I’ll leave you with this question: When I’m stalling, speeding, procrastinating or avoiding - what am I trying to protect myself from?

A Moment of Gratitude

For my nuclear family (my son and I), for the man who loves me softly and fiercely the way I thought only existed in fairytails, for friends (including those who equate me to fine whiskey), for deep meaningful conversations, for my grandma whom I lost 18 years ago, for the courage to create a new business, and for good books.

And for you. If you read this far.

Let’s end this war and all wars so no people experiences a Tisha B’Av ever again.

Until next time,

Yours,

Chedva x