From Regimen to Rhythm
When I learned about the necessary shift from mechanical to ecological thinking, which is a fundamental world view shift from anthropocentricity to ecological-centricity, I was totally on board. I decided to make the cognitive shift straight away. Done and done.
This was ten years ago. As time passed, I continued to feel scarce, depleted, used up, and stretched thin. I grew increasingly rigid and regulated. While I had decided that I wanted to live in the regenerative paradigm, my internal operating system seemed to still be programmed for the current, domination-based, and mechanistic one.
Only the past few years have I begun reorienting my whole Self on a deep cellular level. Inspired by living systems, I describe the felt sense of shifting paradigms as moving from regimen to rhythm.
From living in regimen
For the bulk of my life, my knowing of the world was logical, technical, and reductionist. Space was structured, and time was scheduled. I was trained by academia and became quite skilled at making rational sense of my thoughts. Dualism reigned king; there was clear denotation of good and bad, better and worse. Being a visual person, my figurative interpretation of the world was highly structured like a filing cabinet that compartmentalized ideas and concepts.
As I excelled in my career and business intensified, pressure, urgency, and expectations increased. I needed to produce more output with less input, increasing efficiency and maximizing outcomes. So I refined my personal machine and optimized my operational performance. How it sounds is how I felt - industrialized. I felt like a Borg. (This will not be the first Star Trek reference you’ll find in my writing).
To living in rhythm
Contrary to popular belief, knowing isn’t entirely cognitive. At the time, I didn’t have the language to articulate what I was seeking, but I felt deeply that I needed help breaking out of the regimen that had commandeered my world. I took a leap of faith and sought out help to learn another form of inquiry - the feminine way.
“The word rhythm originally derives from the Greek word 'rhuthmos', which relates to the word 'rhein' meaning 'to flow'.” - Macmillan Dictionary
I got to work reconceiving myself as a whole person. Slowly, my understanding of the ecological paradigm began to penetrate below the surface of my shell. I began to connect my deeper senses of being into a greater Self. I slowly began to feel my nervous system calm down. With continuous, but not rigorous, work the rough edges of my regimented world began to soften. Now, when I visualize concepts, the shape has changed. It is more fluid. When I speak in figurative analogy, the patterns have shifted from regimental to rhythmic. My emotional body feels softer, more forgiving, and more continuous.
From day to day I now seek out a rhythm of life, rather than a regimen. I notice the rhythmic beat of life most in my mundane moments, like drying my hair or loading the kids into the car. The orientation of rhythm stretches across a much greater stance of time, which is far more conducive to responding rather than reacting. Rhythm is imperfect. Rhythm is located in my breath and body instead of my mind.
Why being in rhythm matters
Ecological repair involves a shift in perception of human identity from individuals to a collective - from being alone to being within a whole ecology of life. If we perceive ourselves as separate from the ecosystem, all we can influence is further breakage. Alternatively, if we are aware of being within the ecological paradigm, we can influence repair of the fractured ecosystems we are a part of.
Dive into discovery:
What is your felt sense of being within the mechanical versus the ecological?
