I love gazing at waterfalls. Have you ever noticed that after the stream crashes to the pool below, something quieter happens? The water slows down and circles a while in the pool before it continues down stream. I think that is a perfect icon for regrouping. Isn’t it the way we are after great effort or disturbance? We circle as in a slow moving vortex, maybe a reconstituting hug, one we need in order to go on.
Phrases posted on Facebook, May 2023
In regrouping we may not have to change everything. We may only need to change how we see things. When the lens is turned in a kaleidoscope all the same pieces fall into new patterns. This cheers me and when things are hard I can ask how I can see things differently.
Successful regrouping can only happen when there is no forcing element. We may have little fearful voices that say, “I can’t”, “I won’t” or “I’m scared”. Overriding them will cause disruption down the line. Better to do some self-inquiry and ask, “What will let you be less afraid? What help do you need?” That listening alone matters and is itself a kind of regrouping.
Besides not forcing ourselves, to have a dynamic image of where we want to go is central. How does it feel? What about it makes us hopeful? I have found that an image of a goal that is dynamic and somehow feels right will be more likely to bring my fearful parts of me to cooperate. The same old, same old won’t budge me at all.
Why not spend quality time softly asking, “What in me wants to live now?” There may be no answers for a time, yet simply asking the question will start a process that becomes clearer each time we give such a question time.
For me one of the best ways to regroup is to spend a day in complete silence. It rests more than I know.
Regrouping can also seem immediate and spontaneous. We get a new idea and everything falls into place. As if by magic there is energy and will to do something new. It’s a heady feeling, but later comes the work of integrating the idea, giving it body, mind, heart, and soul and hopefully having all that at work as one unit.
The word “group” in regrouping seems important. I am, and probably you are, dealing with many aspects of life. I’ll have feelings about each of them, a whole group of thoughts and feelings. To be conscious of them I need to listen to as many of my inner responses as I can and take them into account. Don’t they have to somehow get along with each other in order for me to function with discretion? For me to give myself time for this is what regrouping is all about.
I love this wise quote by Teilhard de Chardin about what happens when we are ready, regrouped and feel we are on our way. “Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way in something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability – and that it may take a very long time.”
Here’s more from that same wonderful quote by Tielhard de Chardin. “And so I think it is with you; your ideas mature gradually – let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Don’t try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, what time and circumstances acting on your good will) will make of you tomorrow.”
“And here is the rest of that quote by Tielhard de Chardin. “Only God can say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.”
Kaleidoscopes have always fascinated me. Turn the knob and all the same colorful glass pieces fall into a new pattern. This, for me, is a good icon for regrouping. When I am able to turn the perspective I have on my circumstances even just a little, the same old stuff can be seen in a new way and with a different alignment. I love knowing this.
