Do you ever think you’ve got it all together and then suddenly you don’t? What helps you to keep moving forward?
I recently had an experience that stopped me in my tracks and gave me pause to think. As you may know, I’ve been doing my self-care work for the past two years. I was just starting to think I might have a handle on it. This past month I was hit with a health challenge in the form of vertigo. I’ve had to slow down to slower than I thought possible. I had to stop my regular yoga practice, driving and walking without support. Yes, that slow.
Now that I’m starting to come out the other side, I’ve started to think about how to make sense of this apparent setback.
I am realizing some opportunities have been opening up during this period of snail’s pace activity. I started a restorative yoga practice morning and night. And, I started meditating – yes, when the only thing you can do without the room spinning is sit, meditating by just focusing on the breath is an option. I’ve always resisted mightily the idea of meditating, and thought of my yoga as my meditation, but it has been powerful! The restorative yoga and meditation were what I needed to regain a sense of calm in this situation.
I’ve also done more writing and had the opportunity to think about what could I do if I could only operate at this speed? What would I really want to do? My answer to that was that I would like to write more, design and hook lots of rugs and exhibit my work. And I’ve identified a way to create healing mats at the group and community level. I found being forced to a standstill opened up clarity and flow on the creative level.
So what have I learned from this experience? I’ve learned once again that as we do our own inner work, new challenges will emerge and new layers will present themselves.
I promised you two questions. They are:
- What is the opportunity for healing in this challenge, and
- What do I need right now?
