Thrive!

I could see around the next corner — there was a continuous line of cars and trucks and buses moving very slowly — rush hour traffic.

I logged in on my laptop; the numbers were still greyed out. The account hadn’t yet funded — money, the ever stressful issue of money.

I sat at the long, heavy, dark board room table and looked down the line of board members on both sides as we sat bemused by the the tension between paying our employees well and providing affordable services to the underserved — decisions, decisions and more decisions.

I sat in my chair looked him in square in the eyes; he was looking me square in the eyes, and I said, “When you are with people be present, put your phone away, listen, focus on them. This is going to be something you will want to work on.” It was an evaluation, an  employee evaluation, and with it went the stress of balancing affirmation and correction.

I am stressed. I have been for a long time. All of are. Being responsible is stressful. Not being responsible is stressful. Life is stressful.

What to do?

Recover. Take time to recover.

We all need to recognize that we all need to recover, to heal, to repair, emotionally, physically, spiritually from the labor and anxiety and stress of life.

To do this park. To heal we must park ourselves; we must park ourselves in safe, beautiful, quiet spaces and we must sit with ourselves, and honor our need for rest, our old donkey’s need for rumination, for chewing, for reflection, for aloneness, for recovery.

Yesterday, I did just that. I went to the park, and parked, and sat by the lily pond, and took in some the music from the cool, longhaired musician playing an electric guitar for tips, and walked over to the art museum and ogled the Bruegel they have there, “The Parable of the Sower.”  And I sat some more.

I am learning something. After years of hard driving and achieving and succeeding, I am learning to listen to my body, to respect my body, to let my body tell me —  the amped up, productive, hard-driving, anxious, image conscious me — to settle down, and rest. 

Here is the deal. In each of us, our mind, body, spirit, and emotions are all connected and for for us to heal one is to help to heal all. Current somatic therapy emphasizes listening to our selves better, paying attention to what our bodies need, paging attention to what our bodies are speaking, what our bones and muscles and nerves and skin is telling us is needed for life, for a truly good life.  

I need to do just that.

My body is talking, all the time. Often I have failed to listen. I tell others to be present and yet often I am not present to myself. I am hungry; I deny it. I am anxious; I ignore it. I am tired. I push on.

For years my body has been saying, “Rest. Please, rest me. Please, just sit with me. Please sit with me and listen to me. Please cloister yourself away, please hide away for a time from traffic, money, decisions, evaluations and stress, and sit in gratitude for what has been done, for what is, for who you are, for the gorgeous, spectacular simplicity of being.”

I have listened; I am learning to listen better now. I am sowing. I am living within the parable of the sower. I am sowing more tranquilly —  a more robust tranquility — within my own lovely, sacred, intimate, garden borders.

I am sitting more, doing nothing more, doing nothing but recovering — which is a big something — healing from life more in a large, safe, friendly, soft, warm pile of quiet self-awareness and gratitude.