By now, those of you who follow my podcast, YouTube channel, or social media may have read the additional blogs that accompany each episode. I will continue to blog and post for My Front Porch in 2021, but this blog called Pause, and Go Gently will actually be quite different.
It occurred to me late last year. Yes, thank God we can say that now that 2020 is over! Still, just simply transitioning a calendar page doesn’t really change much as a whole. Ultimately, it is we who must change year over year. And that is why I suppose that people make new year’s resolutions. They are seeking change. They want to feel different. They want a fresh start; a new beginning.
Like most of us, 2020 was a year of challenges for me as well. In many ways it was quite surreal to be honest. The changes that I faced took me to ground zero. I had wished for my life to be more simple, and well quite frankly the universe complied. Anything I had expected or predicted my life would look like last year ended up 360 degrees different.
When you get to that place so far out of your comfort zone, the feeling is not well…comfortable at all. And it is usually in the sandbox of life where we find ourselves having to make those life altering decisions about where to go next. It’s scary, and causes you terrible anxiety. You lose sleep, motivation, friends, your livelihood and other important things at times like this. But it is also in these moments that you gain perspective. And that is what happened to me.
At the worst moments came my biggest awarenesses, and trust me, they were not pretty. Did you know that when your body suffers a very traumatic event that the brain immediately responds by shutting virtually everything down? It’s called shock. Basically, that is how I felt. Like my whole existence had shut down at times. Some days, I just loafed around the house, reading, listening to music that kept my mood up, writing or journaling. I’d call a friend, go see my life coach. I walked in the park, meditated, and I prayed… a lot.
The message overall? Be still and do nothing. That was it. So I did exactly that. Sort of. And that is where all the A-Ha moments, the awareness, the epiphanies, the soul searching took place. Painful moments, and then relief. And the less I tried, the better I felt. The less I fought my down days, the easier they became. The less I tried to control everything, the more everything turned out okay.
I’m no therapist, I have no answers, and this journey is not intended to help anyone but me. I’m glad if in the reading of it or the viewing of it, you connect to something and if you do please let me know by commenting or liking what you saw. But my journey is my own, just as yours is yours even if you can empathize with the experiences I share.
So what of this year, 2021? Well, if I can keep at it, I hope to post a short video and blog each day to share as a part of my healing and growing process. I don’t really have any new year resolutions other than less or no wine, getting up earlier, and living a less ego-driven life. That won’t be easy I’m sure.
Instead, I feel I’m in a better place to finally start moving forward again, but this time the message is telling me to pause, be with the moment, the emotion, the change. Sit with it and let it speak to me for a bit before I decide to respond or not, and then if I do, to move gently into the action. By gently, I don’t mean in a fearful way. No, confident that I am making a decision on being present in the moment that is happening, not running too quickly to get to a solution or some future that looks the way I think it should. Not with expectation or trying to control the outcome, but open to the possibilities and opportunities that each gentle move I make will produce.
The journey will be very unscripted, so bear with me. I’m really looking forward to sharing with you. Until tomorrow…
Pause, and be gentle to yourself and to others today.
Christina
We all have a journey, and this one is mine. Curious to see where it goes? You can watch the corresponding video below. #like it, #subscribe to it. 364 more days to go!
