Look Around and Find What You Need

Shifting how we pay attention to our needs

Hello friend,

I had planned on sending you an email series this summer all about rest. I mapped it all out, made lovely graphics, and wrote the introduction. 

But at 3am on the night before the first email was scheduled to arrive in your inbox, I woke up in a panic. I loved the ideas in the series — inspired by experiences in Italian art museums — but something deep down inside me did not want to commit to producing anything over the summer. I went back and forth in my mind, both sides making good arguments, but it boiled down to this:

It was 3am and I was not resting. 

How could I write about rest with integrity if my writing process infringed on my own rest? I pulled out my computer and canceled the email.

This was new.

Paying attention to my needs, even my desires, and letting them guide my actions is not a skill I have been developing in the demands of early motherhood and pandemic parenting and a PhD program. I have been pushing through, getting done, bearing down.

So, in this newly expansive summer, I finally had some space to open myself to all those needs circling under the surface, begging for my attention.

I began to listen inwardly, asking myself over and over:

What do I need, right now?

Which led to:

Where can I find it, right here?

Our brains work hard to find what we need. They quickly triage massive amounts of stimuli to determine what will get our attention. We drive down the street with eyes out for traffic signs, bad drivers, and pedestrians; we walk through the woods on high alert for bears, poison ivy, and (worst of all, for some of us) chatty hikers.

But this focus inherently means there are things we are not seeing. There is simply too much to take in. Look around and notice everything that is yellow; now close your eyes and remember everything that was green. It’s harder, because that’s not what you were paying attention to.

The thing is, we find what we look for. 

This is something we can play with. When I lived in Paris, I used to give myself creative challenges to see museums with new eyes. Each month, I would pick a theme (beginnings, home, celebration, love) and visit museum collections with that lens. For my first theme (outdoors), I looked around the Musée d’Orsay for the color green in paintings, mused in Sainte-Chapelle about the interplay of indoor space and outdoor sunlight through stained glass windows, and visited statues in the Musée du Louvre that had once decorated the gardens of royal châteaux.

There were so many ways to look at these familiar places. And I always found what I was looking for — in interesting and surprising and beautiful ways.

This summer, I practiced being an active listener to my needs. They had a lot to say.

And, as I reflected on the forms of support and structural adjustments that would be necessary to meet these needs, I also experimented with shifts in my attention in daily life. I asked myself: What do I need — and where is it waiting to meet me here and now?

Here is what that looked like:

• In the tightness of anxiety, I needed spaciousness. I found it in empty space around me, tall trees, a deep breath.

• In the instability of uncertainty, I needed connection. I found it in wind blowing on my skin, a hug, my shadow dancing on the wall.

• In the sharpness of overwhelm, I needed softness. I found it in Queen Anne’s Lace flowers, my son snuggled up against me, a well worn sweater.

And when I needed time to slow down at the end of a family trip, I had to laugh when for two days almost every stoplight we encountered was red. Time may have been fleeting, but I found pauses along the way.

There’s a poetry to this, a playfulness and a trust.

I am not here to tell you that rubbing your cheek on a soft flower will cure your anxiety. But meeting our unfulfilled needs with 

awareness and 

compassion and even a little bit of

cheekiness,

this is the way to come home to ourselves.

I’d love to know: what do you need right now — and where are you finding it? Share your thoughts here and maybe you’ll inspire someone who is looking for the same thing:

And if you know someone who would resonate with this email, feel free to pass it along.

I hope the end of your summer is full of spaciousness, softness, and surprises.

Warmly,

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