Doubt is a feeling I've been grappling with this week. I've slid back into a previous life: same room, same work, same people. "It's as if you never left," said a friend. But life flows and I flowed with it, evolving and growing. Slipping a new self into an old life is still jarring. Returning to a place is new to me, someone who only looks forward and never back. So doubt comes in and sticks, like melted caramel, just under my ribcage. Struggles are the mainstay of life. They are there to test and strengthen our mettle. Doubt seems weak but has a strong undercurrent. It's antidote, it's remedy has to be quietly tenacious. These have been my steps towards winnowing out the seeds of doubt within. This is how I get to "okay" and, perhaps, a better day...
Breathe: Be with the breath, is a phrase commonly heard during yoga or meditation. Last year, I stumbled across Yin yoga. This yoga is slow in pace and filled with stillness, as postures are held for a few minutes at a time. It is a practice I appreciate because in a fast-paced world this is the one place that asks for my stillness. It is my breath that bridges one moment to the next, from initial discomfort or pain to acceptance and gratitude for simply being in my body.
Remember: My word for this year is "intention". I try to move, act, and speak bearing that word in mind. An attempt to move through my world with an awareness, instead of by automation.
Read: See and feel a world outside of your own. A book that clawed and grasped my heart this week was Nina LaCour's "We Are Okay". The author pulled me into the crux of her story of grief and friendship, building the character's emotional momentum until I am left gasping at the end with the sheer force of it. Her book made me feel alive, in touch with another person's raw emotions as well as my own.
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