The first time I truly understood the value of a tool was four years ago, when I set the goal of developing a daily yoga habit. After a few weeks of slipping and bumping my knees on the hardwood floor, I had a moment of clarity: I’d feel more inclined to stick to this if I had a yoga mat. I immediately made the purchase and have practiced some form of yoga nearly every day since.

 

Almost anything can be a tool if we see it as such. An upside down bucket can provide respite to tired legs. An ink pen can draw you towards your dreams. This week I thought I would switch things up by rattling off a few of my favorite tools. Each tool that I list below is unique in its strengths and equally unique in its limitations. But they do seem to have one thing in common — they’re intangible. Conceptual. Invisible mechanisms for understanding the world around us or even making the world a better place, depending on how they’re used.

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Language

Language helps us put names to what we see and experience — to describe the indescribable! It is largely through language that any two or more people are able to reach a common understanding about literally anything. For example, when we see light travel at the frequency of approximately 430 terahertz, language allows almost anyone to point to it and say Red! Language also helps us describe our inner experience. For instance, only in recent history have people been able to describe themselves as intersex or as having C-PTSD. And thank God for that — not long ago, the only words that anyone was using to describe people with these experiences were mad or broken.

 

One major limitation of language, however, is that language itself is limiting. Any attempt to squeeze an expansive, amorphous human experience into a combination of 26 letters — say love — will ultimately water that experience down and rid it of nuance or subjectivity. When language is at play, it’s important to keep in mind that words used to describe an experience, an emotion, or an identity will never be a 1-to-1 representation of the phenomenon it’s attempting to describe. In that way, language acts as “a finger pointing at the moon rather than the moon itself” — to use Richard Rohr’s terms.

 

 

Categories

Similar to language, categories are helpful tools for breaking down our ever-expansive universe into understandable, bite sized pieces. Categories can be a means of better understanding ourselves or others, by way of comparison and contrast — and can often be a helpful way to determine where we “fit in” to the larger picture. A Democrat might consider themselves to have different values than, say, a Republican. A Leo might find issue with discovering that their blind date is a Gemini. A queer person might find reprieve to hear that their new doctor is queer, too.

 

But just like language, categories can be reductive — especially when it comes to categorizing people. We can run into issues if we try to make a person (a dynamic entity) fit entirely into a single box (a restrictive entity). I learned this the hard way while trying to determine what number I was on the Enneagram. At first I thought I was a 3. Then I switched to 5. Then I settled on 4 for a while, but not before I flirted with being a 1. The point is, I couldn’t make up my mind about which number completely defined me because I can’t be completely defined. Categories are tools and only that. They should never be a substitute for defining ourselves or others in their entirety. We’re, simply, much too alive.

 

 

The Mind

All of this language, all of these categories — there must be a mechanism that helps us make sense of it all. That is the role of the mind. The mind helps us process our experiences, create order out of them, and employ discernment, logic, and decision-making. The mind is effectively a narrative-making machine. A computer that separates inputs into binaries — good or bad, safe or dangerous — and spits out a series of recommendations in the form of thought: I should go to the grocery store today. The mind is even capable of becoming aware of itself and employing decisions that override its own hard wiring! Today that’s called Mindfulness and could be considered the latest and greatest in human evolution, depending on who you ask.

 

The mind is most helpful when it acts as a passenger so that we (the driver) can call upon it to help navigate as needed. It’s like phoning a friend on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? But the mind becomes limiting when we over rely on it, over identify with it — when it becomes the driver and we become the passenger. A hammer is crucial in the task of building a desk, but if we went around hammering everything, it would undoubtedly do more harm than good.

 

 

Relationships

Relationships help us expand to parts of ourselves that we could never fully be on our own. Every relationship — every interaction with another human, really — holds a mirror up to ourselves. Like a dentist holding a mirror to the backside of your teeth, it is our relationships that illuminate our shadows so that we may do the work that’s asked of us, should we so choose. In that way, relationships are an invaluable tool for discovering, growing, and determining which parts of ourselves we wish to hold onto and which we wish to let go of. Which parts of ourselves feel like costumery and which parts of ourselves feel most true.

 

But as with all mirrors, your reflection can only be filtered through a version of reality. It’s up to us to determine whose version that is. Relationships can be limiting when we mistake someone else’s way of seeing as our own. If someone suggests you are weak, for example, it is up to you to determine whether or not you believe that to be true. If we say something that hurts someone’s feelings, we mustn't take it as a pure indication that we are unkind or inconsiderate. We should instead ingest their response. Sit with it. And ultimately determine the judgment of our actions ourselves, using a lens of both discerning honesty and radical grace.

 

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A few things I’m thankful for:

- My boss Naomi and her ability to accept me for all that I am

- California plant life! Truly nothing like it.

- Camel Coffee (I drank the juice, literally)

 

 

Pop culture things I’m thinking about:

- New Billie Eilish album is a masterpiece I reckon

- Reading “Feel It All” by Casey Tanner and finding benefit in every word (thanks for the rec Kelce)

 

 

A random journal entry:

12.31.19

i think one of my favorite things about me is the way i hear music

i had nothing to do with it

but i’m so grateful for it

 

 

A random thought:

Yesterday, when I went to grab my morning coffee, I waited in line behind two muscley guys wearing tank tops. Later in the afternoon, when I indulged in a second coffee run, I decided to throw on a tank top myself. If they can do it, so can I! Usually I prefer to hide my body instead of letting it be seen — especially my “skinny” arms. But I’m entering a new phase where I’m questioning and even challenging my own biases around what’s considered “attractive” or worthy in general. I’ve come to realize there’s something fundamentally flawed in my current, inherited definition of worthiness — especially since it has never seemed to include me!

 

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Thanks for reading :) Talk again soon.