How do you react to hearing the words “bare minimum”?
Me:
Well that’s lame and pathetic.
Why not roll up your sleeves and go all out and do the goddamn maximum until you fall flat onto the floor and need a full week to recover?
This is an entirely unsustainable approach to life (trust me). Because: Mojo Descendent. And the Grand Undulation of Things.
Mojo Descendent is the name I give to those low-energy/mood weather systems, where your entire Being feels like the Universe is sighing an existential ennui through you. Mojo Descendent might be characterized by sleepiness, a dragging of the heals, a rounding of the shoulders, disappointment, judgment, swimming slowly and sluggishly, and failed attempts to gather yourself up and out of said funk and into the role of a character in a musical like “Oklahoma” where it’s always a beautiful morning and you leap out of bed each day bursting with song. 👯♀️💃🏿
Let’s get real.
It’s not always a beautiful morning. There are many, many, many un-beautiful mornings. Some mornings where the first thought is “I can’t wait to go to bed tonight.” Also: Life undulates. There’s no escaping the highs, lows, and the everythings in between. The mehs.
The question, then, is this: Why do we insist on railing and wailing against these gentler, more passive states of being? Why do we want to flatten out this beautifully surprising, undulating rhythm of life, and refuse to see what the various resting points have on tap for us? Why is it so hard to give ourselves an enormous menu of options and then adjust our activities to go with our own little personal zeitgeist?
Because it feels like crap, silly!
But why? Why does it feel so crappy to not be bursting with enthusiasm day in and out? (Exhausting right?) Only because we’ve decided that not charging out of bed and eating the day in one gulp is … lame? Under-performing. Un-American? Lazy maybe. I’m not like those superstar businesswomen/athletes/humans on Instagram ripping it up, why can’t I be more like that?
In short, some of us might have an idealized vision of life that involves being in a vessel of full-potential flourishing all the f-ing time. Or at least way more than we are.
Imagine if we rebranded the entire Mojo D experience. For example:
Instead of “lame-ass underperforming ungrateful wretch” I could be “calm glassy lake reflecting surrounding trees.” Not lame; but magnificent!
What if instead of “major funk” we could celebrate an autumnal state of mind and body, and just as we know that the sun marks our bodies, we would know that Mojo Descendent is nothing more than a still lake of the spirit? We might stop, gaze, admire, listen, learn, and rest up for the next burst of inspired motion.
This lame-ass state could be instead a sweet adagio movement on life’s journey. (No one, I’m telling you NO ONE will complain that the second movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto is pathetically unambitious; it’s sublime.)
Enter the Bare Beautiful Minimum
This is where Bare Minimums come in to save the day/s. Let’s say you’re in a Mojo Descendent phase; why would you expect yourself to go after life in the same way you do when you’re all morning song and firing sparks of ambition? That’s like asking a tulip to bloom in October. Or a grizzly bear to dance a jig in January. Insane.
Bare Minimums are made for Mojo Descendents. This is when we remind ourselves about what, exactly, our mind-body system really likes to do, how it likes to express itself, and how we might tend to it all. Make sure you include just the bottom-line essentials to keep yourself fed. It’s like losing your appetite due to illness or grief or No Good Reason. You still have to feed yourself—but in this state, you’ll settle for going through the motion of eating, rather than savoring every bite and splurging at your favorite restaurant; you might supplement with green smoothies, choose easily digestible foods. Practical stuff. Eventually, the appetite will return, and you’ll do what you need to until it does.
What Are Your Bare Minimums?
Who knows. Find out. Play with it. For example: If your spirit has a request to be social, active, and creative, then do the easiest, no-brainers to stay in the game. It might be morning coffee, a movie, or a social run, bike ride, hike with a couple friends. Reach out to one person, go for a walk. Skip the party and put off hosting a large gathering for when the energy rises. As best you can, make business decisions that you can reasonably meet. Let yourself be the listener instead of the talker. You can sit at your computer, or converse with a client as effectively from a quieter grounding as you can from a WHAM BAM energy field. Don’t mistake the dip as a sign of losing interest or needing a change. Just get curious about it. Ride it out, see where it takes you.
You don’t have to feel an overwhelming gratitude for Life. Even if it’s going through the motions of these bare minimums. Let’s fall in love with the funks, quiet down, slow down, and see what they have to offer.
And take a cue from nature, like this sea creature in its undulating shape. Never has it said, “I’m really not reaching my full potential.” We are this sea creature, the sea creature is us—undulating through the journey of life.
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