On the hidden teeth of towels

from Satya Robyn, and in them I will tell you a little story about something and muse on what I've observed or what I've experienced, and hopefully, um, you'll be able to apply something of what I discover to your own life. And we're starting with towels. So this morning, um, I dried myself after getting out of the shower, and I, uh, something sharp hurt me, hurt my leg. And I looked, looked at the towel. I thought maybe there was a thorn, or I didn't know, stick, didn't know what it was. And I found a little plastic tag, which is the little kind of— it's like a, it's like a little string with two ends on it. And I even Googled it before I went live, and it's called a swift tack. What a beautiful little phrase, swift tack. Um, so there was a swift tack in my towel, and I hadn't noticed it before, and we've had this towel for at least a year, probably many years. Um, and this morning it just happened to catch me on my leg, and I thought to myself, oh, that's interesting. Now I've noticed it, I wonder if I'll notice it again. And, and when I wiped my mouth after brushing my teeth, it caught me on my lip. And I was smiling at the way that we can be in relationship with something or someone for a long time before we get prickled by them, before we encounter some part of them that snags us or gouges into us a little bit or nicks us. That the, the way that I was using the towel today was different to how I'd used it in the past. And, and that's how it is with people, is that we can, we can really sort of rumble along quite happily with people for a long time in our relationship if we especially once we work out what each other needs to sort of keep us comfortable and keep us safe without encountering any teeth. In my experience, if we continue to be in relationship with any person or any object or any group, there is an inevitability about encountering a swift attack. And that often happens if we're maybe under pressure, like maybe going on holiday with a friend for the first time, or when you're in a new relationship and the kind of the honeymoon period starts wearing off a bit and you just enter into a conversation where both of your raw spots just really start rubbing up against each other. Or in groups, it's often, in my own experience anyway, a gradual disillusionment in the perfection that we hoped for, regardless of our sense of the sensible parts of us that know that that's not possible. So I think that for me, what's helpful is to remember that just because we haven't encountered a swift tack yet, it doesn't mean that we will never do that. That, that, that all of our relationships have that potential once we hang out with each other enough, once we become intimate enough, once we rely on each other in a certain way, once we see each other in certain situations which will be difficult for us for particular reasons. And to also remember when we encounter the swift tack in somebody else that we may have already prodded them really hard with one of ours without knowing, or we might have known that we have. And that there's no avoiding it, there's no we get into even worse tangles when we try and avoid it than we do if we just accept that it's a part of life. And I think that when we do know where the swift tack is, I will be able to snip the swift tack out of our towel, but unfortunately people don't work in that way, and The best we can do is to respect that there are ragged bits in our friends and objects that we use and groups, and be careful when we approach certain areas, be sensitive, and of course it's important to protect ourselves when we need to. So if there is something that happens that, that we feel damaged by, then we take whatever action we need to make sure that we don't put ourselves into that situation again. Yeah, and I think that the other, the final thing to say about these, these teeth that come out sometimes, um, that in people and in groups, it's, it's always a protective function. It's always to keep something safe, to keep something away, whether it's unconscious or conscious. And there is always a potential that behind the, the teeth, behind the protection, we can encounter something very real, very vulnerable, very alive. That is a window into a deeper intimacy or a deeper understanding or a deeper empathy or a deeper connection, that there, there can be a real opportunity from these encounters with, with each other's jagged parts. Um, and sometimes when we're caught by someone else's jaggedness, it also reveals something in ourselves that we haven't wanted to look at, but that once we see it and feel it, um, is, is good for us, is, is allows some healing in us or allows some honesty. So be careful with swift tags and, uh, don't be too surprised when you encounter them. And thank you for listening, and I'll be doing these every so often, so if you are interested in keeping up to date, then you can subscribe to the channel. I'll share the link. Thanks for listening. Take care.