Who Are We Being in Our Doing?
This Field Note reflection begins with a question that has long stayed with me:
Who are we being in our doing?
We often hear that we are human beings, not human doings — and this question feels like a deeper invitation. One that encourages us to notice the quality of being that sits inside our actions.
In the Celtic tradition there is the concept of the thin places — geographically important places in the world, where the veil between the material and the spiritual feels thinner. Where our connection with the divine (whatever that may mean for each of us) feels somehow easier.
My sense is that we’ve all felt this at some time in our lives. A place that has made us gasp or go silent with its beauty and felt meaning.
In the deep inner work, we can find there are times in our lives where the space between the seen and unseen — the known and the unknown — feels almost transparent. And we are somehow more able to connect with our deepest inner wisdom.
I call these the thin places.
These times may be accompanied by a significant life stage shift, such as losing a loved one or going through menopause or facing retirement or becoming a parent or experiencing ill-health.
Or it may be that we have a moment of profound clarity; an awakening of our awareness that there may be more to our life than we could previously see or sense.
For me, this can be where our deepest conversations and inner reflections begin — when the walls between ourselves and our inner world grow thinner, and we can see and feel life more acutely.
Being in a thin place can feel vulnerable.
It can also be illuminating, empowering and exhausting. This is where discernment matters: knowing when, where, and with whom we allow ourselves to enter that depth.
Sometimes, when we are first doing deep inner work, it could be we feel the desire to just be with ourselves — perhaps supported by a trusted guide or therapist. At other times, when it feels safe, conversations with loved others may dip and rise naturally, in and out of those thin places of truth and presence.
Sometimes it can feel our connection with the thin places becomes hard to find; hard to hold.
There are times when some deep knowledge we’ve previously gathered to us feels lost. Perhaps mislaid in the busyness of our lives, lost in the ether, or simply out of reach for a while. And yet, when we trust and surrender, we find it resurfaces at precisely the right moment.
This to me feels the essence of the thin places.
That we are not striving to get there, or clinging to them when they appear. Rather we trust what is present, just as it is.
So I leave you with this:
The next time your emotional skin feels thin, embrace that moment as a time of deep connection with something greater. Feel into what it is offering. And ask what might be my kindest learning here?