Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Pausing

Sometimes we give good advice that we don't listen to ourselves.  I have a friend that one time I told to just take a breather, to pause, when she was experiencing too much stress and was overcome with anxiety.  She reminds me of this periodically when she is stressed, "I should listen to your advice, just pause." (I actually don't remember saying this to her, but it is something I talk about in yoga.)  We are so often human doings, we forget we are human beings.  We can experience the being part more if we just take a moment to pause every now and then. 
For some reason, the last few days, I have been present in this pause.  It's almost magical when it happens....today, as I witnessed a friend, who felt like her life was unravelling, as I sat with Elsie on the couch, a bowl of goldfish/cheerios/raisins (her current trail of mix) in our lap, reading her a story I used to read to Ruby.  Yesterday, as I listened to a friend share of a frightening experience, tears running down my cheeks, feeling full of compassion and a desire to comfort.  We all have these simple moments in life, where we can get caught up in the doing of what is taking place, our energy gets wrapped up in another's,  or we can pause and soak in what beauty these moments have to offer.  Even in the midst of the suffering we all experience, we all create for ourselves in big and small ways, there is beauty, there is joy, there is something to be grateful for.
I've been on a search for more time for myself, for more breathing room.  I love my children dearly, yet a piece of me wants some independence again.  I want of be able to leave spontaneously, to spend hours unplanned, uncommitted to anything.  The other half of me is thankful every darn day, that I have the privilege of raising these three amazing little beings, that I get to be home with them most of the time, that I get to be at drop offs and pick ups for school, that they don't spend one more minute than necessary in child care.  There is a balance here, that I am seeking to find.  A place where I get time to myself, time to pursue things that make me feel full, that give me the energy to give back to my children.  There is a reason they tell you when flying to put your oxygen mask on first.  You can't help someone else if you can't breathe yourself.  Duh!
It's a journey, isn't it?  There is not one great day when we wake up with the stars aligned and say....aha!  I have arrived.  We might do that, actually, and then life happens and we say...oh boy, I guess I didn't have it all figured out, did I?
So, we take it day by day, juggling what we do, finding those sweet moments of pause, in between the doing, so that we can feel our way back when we stray from simply being.

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