day four: manual
Everyone is flailing through this life without an owner's manual, with whatever modicum of grace and good humor we can manage.
-Anne Lamott
Yesterday may have been a challenging day. If you’re the type of person who finds reality too painful to bear, whether it’s your individual reality or the reality of the world, it’s normal to feel the need to escape. Numbing is how we escape. And it’s understandable that we’d be reluctant to give up those comforts, no matter how short-lived, until we install coping mechanisms that directly and effectively address our pain and fear.
When we buy a new car, there’s a fancy pouch in the glove box that holds an extensive and official-looking manual. If you’re like me, you’ll never read that thing until the day comes when some light starts blinking on your dashboard and you wonder, What the hell does that mean? The blinking light grabs our attention. That’s when we pull over, rip off the plastic for the very first time and discover that the flashing orange light only means we need to change the oil or get more air in the tires or let the car warm up. Whew. We drive on, relieved. The whole manual is pretty simple, albeit long. There are different books for each make and model of a car. Human beings don’t come with a manual, but what no one tells us is that we must write our own.
This human form we live in requires learned expertise and maintenance to function well, and it’s our job to figure out what works for each of us. Many of us grew up with parents who didn’t see us, hear us or know how to address their own needs and feelings, let alone ours. Not to mention that messages about how to look and what to feel and how to be may have led us to ignore whatever inner knowing we were born with. Be nice. Stop crying. Nice girls do this and big boys do that. But even if we weren’t met with love and acceptance in our childhoods, or by the world, that doesn’t mean we can continue to withhold these things from ourselves. The sooner we write our manual, the better life will be.
We all fall prey to thinking we’ll follow the latest diet or exercise regimen. We’ll take the supplement-du-jour. Do you remember ever having kale growing up? No! Kale was something that was used as decorative greenery around gas stations, but now it’s impossible to be healthy without it. We think that our grief has to follow the five stages. Or that to create happiness, we can take this pill or do that particular kind of therapy. Life is far more difficult when we attempt to use someone else’s manual for our own guidance or think that a one-size-fits-all approach can work. It never does. There’s no way to bypass the step of figuring out what we each need regarding exercise, diet, sleep, healing, emotional support, stress management, stimulation, inspiration, etc.
Please note, an owner’s manual is a work-in-progress. It’s an evolving, living document. Perhaps right now when you feel anxious, you need connection, but at some other point in life, you’ll need solitude. That’s okay. If you take the steps of avoiding numbing agents and feeling more fully, writing an owner’s manual for yourself will get you through with more kindness and more compassion, and no one in the history of humankind has ever overdosed on that.
Reflective Journal Prompts
In what ways do you judge and shame your own needs and feelings? In what ways do you meet those needs and feelings with kindness and compassion?
Select some of your “uncomfortable feelings” from yesterday’s prompt and write out your own personal approach for how to be there for yourself.
Discussion Prompts
Ask someone to share what they’ve learned over the past year about what they need in times of crisis.
Suggested Action
Create an owner’s manual. Let it evolve slowly. Write what you need re: diet, exercise, connection. Make it as creative as you’d like. Include times of tension, grief, injustice, transition. This is a great project to do with children or as a family. Imagine what your life might’ve been like if you had started asking yourself these kinds of questions early on.
Further Reading
Take the free quizzes on The Five Languages of Love (also for anger and apology) — great information to put in your owner’s manual.