I was walking in the woods yesterday, and I chose to wear a big floppy hat to keep the damn deer flies away. It worked, thank God, but wearing the hat also meant I couldn’t see the woods, because the brim kept flopping down and cutting off my vision.
How often does this happen? We address one problem only to create another.
We take an aspirin to prevent blood clots, and our bowels go wonky.
We take a new job to get more pay, and now we have to fight traffic every day.
We try meditation to lower our blood pressure only to be inundated by our thoughts which keep buzzing and biting our brains like deer flies.
Not being able to see the trees on my walk might not sound like that big a deal. Couldn’t I just go for a walk on a different day or wait until fall when the deer flies had disappeared?
No, because I’m about to live in Japan for four months. I can’t wait to go. . . and I am a small town girl through and through who often frequents these treasured woods to be alone and center. It’s one of the best ways I know to handle my stress and overwhelm.
As I prepare to go, I keep wondering, what will it be like for me to live in one of the most populated cities in the world where I am surrounded by people and noise all the time?
This last walk in the green wild woods was supposed to be a going-away present to my uncertain spirit. Instead, my flopsy mopsy hat meant I could only see the dusty path beneath my feet.
It wasn’t how I expected this walk to go.
And isn’t that also often the case? Since life is an unending stream of causes and effects, we might like some effects, but not others, and so we choose and act again. And again. Life turns into a hamster wheel of choosing and readjusting, choosing and readjusting. No wonder everyone I know is suffering from decision fatigue.
And if that’s you, it’s okay.
It’s okay to be overwhelmed.
It’s okay to be exhausted.
Where it gets dicey is when we act in ways that exacerbate the imbalance. This means being exhausted and overwhelmed and still choosing to do more, push more, because our society values productivity and achievement over presence and wholeness. Or it means choosing to put everyone else’s needs before your own, because that’s what we’ve been told good and loving people do.
Please, be on your own side. Please, listen to your body and spirit. If you are tired, choose rest. If you are overwhelmed, choose to trust the messages of your body and spirit and make choices that nourish. And for the sake of all that is holy, please quash the “yeah, but’s,” those little demons that love to sow all kinds of trouble and lies.
Choose.
Center.
Breathe.
And while a part of me didn’t like the narrow vision my hat was giving me, it did remind me of one of my favorite mantras: Be where your feet are. Because when life feels too big, too overwhelming, one way to handle it is to get small, to focus on the near-at-hand, the next best step.
For me, a next best step is to trust that I will find incredible ways to center and settle when I am in Japan. I can’t wait to stumble upon a quiet temple, or a still koi pond in a tiny and meticulously manicured park.
What matters is the choosing. Choosing to seek out the things that center the self.
Choosing to breathe . . . and meet whatever arises . . . and breathe some more . . . and trust the fragile voice in the silence.
The one that promises you are okay.
You are whole.
You are enough, just as you are.
The quiet and insistent voice that begs you to love the hell out of your fierce self wherever you are and to live light and shine.
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Beauty Betsy, the words, the art, you❤️