Contemplative Writing Prompts for Lent: 16

I made it back to the pool today. Two bouts of ailments kept me hopping to different doctors trying to figure out what was wrong. They sucked up 20 days of my life, plus recovery between. But, today, finally in the water. Another reason it took me a bit to get back in the groove: I’m going to a new pool. The procedures felt complicated. The physical layout is complicated. It intimidated me. So we get to Contemplative Writing Prompts for Lent: 16.

I wasn’t intimidated just because I didn’t know what I was doing. I would be walking around in my swimsuit not knowing what I was doing. One route the staff showed me when I signed up had me walking through the lobby. That’s not gonna happen. The other route, when I gave myself a test run, it was closed. Which left the complicated, but perhaps best, route. Then there’s the communal norms of this particular pool about using changing rooms or stripping at the bench, and on and on.

Today’s prompt: take 5 minutes to make a list of things that intimidate you. Please be as ticky as you can possibly be. What aren’t you doing because the thing itself feels like it might be beyond you? Or doesn’t suit your skill set. Or might embarrass you.

After you have your list, pick one to go deeper into. Go beyond “I don’t know how the app works to get into the gate” to “I feel old and out of touch not knowing how to use my phone to get into the gate.”

The goal is not to do this thing. It is to understand how you might be bringing more to the thing than the thing itself (those are all technical terms.) For me, contemplative writing is not about sitting quietly and emptying my mind. It’s about opening ourselves up so what we know about ourselves can surface. Then we take that understanding with us as we move more easily out into the world.