I woke up this morning and could hear the spring birds. When I let the dogs out it was so warm I didn’t need a jacket. The snow was melting in little mud rivers throughout the yard. It smelled like warm earth and the donkeys were grazing at the top of the pasture with the deer. I thought about trying to capture the smell on my video camera.
Back inside the house, just standing there, I felt a muscle in my back tighten up. I wasn’t even doing anything. I told myself I’d do some yoga and loosen it up. Then I started to think about what needed to be done to get the Pig Barn Gallery set up for a show and I felt the beginnings of a panic attach coming on. I went to my studio and started sewing and half way through my potholder the needle seized and the machine shut down.
“Why?” I thought, “Why bother, doing yoga, meditating, eating healthy, trying to do good work, working on relationships, working on my own issues, when again and again, things just go wrong.” Then I thought of all those people in Japan and felt shallow and guilty for complaining.
I could see where this was going, it would be so easy to sit around feeling sorry for myself, to crawl into a dark corner and hide.
So, why bother? I guess life isn’t about being easy. I guess it’s about how we deal with what comes along, how we deal with the choices we make no matter what their outcome is. Maybe ease comes with acceptance and the ability to let go and allow for the world to enter our lives even when it’s inconvenient. And being open to everything that comes with it.
Wonderful message here Maria. Thanks. So..what did you end up chosing to do?!
Cindy
I didn’t give into the panic attack, just saw it for what it was, I made less potholders that I intended to and accepted that sometimes my back will hurt.
How we deal with what comes along…that’s what it’s all about. We all have days like that…
So glad that you are getting the Pig Barn Gallery going. Your first show sounds great.
Sometimes we try to stretch ourselves to far to fast(at least I do). Life has its own way to slow us down. Thank Goodness I think that technology can not transmit smell(not yet anyhow). Like walking into a scented candle shop. Too much info for the senses. Nothing wrong with leaving technology behind at times. Find a stump to sit on, listen to the birds, smell that damp earth, feel the whisper of breeze on your face. It is all there for you for free. Let all the work of being a better human wait on you.
I like seeing it as life slowing us down, I guess it about listening more closely sometimes.
I needed to read this today, Maria, as I’m dealing with my mother’s fifth emergency room visit of the new year and am about at my wit’s end. Your comments put everything in perspective. Thanks!
The ‘high’ that comes with trying to do positive things in your life (yoga, meditating,eating healthy, etc.) can tend to disappear when several moments of the ‘other’ life barge in. You can only stay high so long and then you have to absorb and deal with the next annoyance. I think that’s the Yin and Yang of it. It’s not an easy lesson.
My yoga teacher/mindfulness mentor taught me a valuable lesson (one of multitudes!)about allowing the ‘ordinary dreary’s’ to get me down and feeling sorry for myself.
She told me to invite it in, sit with it, offer it tea and cookies,breathe it in/out and LISTEN with compassion. Purposefully exaggerate it;allow it to grow bigger,darker,scarier until it’s enormous.Then give it a warm embrace,a kiss on the cheek and ask it to dance! With movement, waltz it to your mind’s door and send it on its way.
At the very least, you’ve calmed yourself with conscious breathing and the human body loves to move. And that’s why we bother…to move beyond.But you are already miles down that road, looking back with a smile, maybe?
That’s wonderful Cheryl, I recently heard a spiritual leader talk about not running from the darkness, but bringing light to it. But to dance with the darkness and send it on it’s way, how delightful!
Hi Maria, I
It seems we are conditioned to run from any kind of pain. On a positive note, your lovely quilt arrived! It is so special and I love your choice of fabrics and the multi-colored ties. It’s just great and it has a fabulous view of Mt. Pisgah. ha ha Thank you for offering it to me.
Oh Lucky quilt!
This was such a helpful read for me this morning Maria! Thank you.
Thanks for sharing this. It was just what I needed to read this morning. Have a great day.
The last paragraph is so true – and yet, even though not new, gains credence each time someone adds their own life lessons to it. Thanks for your thoughts – and I really like the pitholder with the chair and bookcase 🙂
oops – meant potholder!
Maria,
Have a good pity party for yourself, then leave it all behind.
Your frame of mind should be healthy and positive.
Thankful for health (not dying of cancer), thankful for
housing ( Japan disaster) and overall the wonderful life you lead.