So a lot of things have changed in this past month, so I thought it was time for a more personal post. I can’t quite announce all that is going on yet, but I promise that it is good in so many ways. I know I work in a field where change is constant, but I am in no way an early adopter. I’m much more of a researcher, and then when I decide to change, it’s usually through a series of calculated steps. Well, sometimes, God sees your polite, calculated steps and simply insists that you take the elevator. Over the last six months or so, I’ve developed a habit that has really helped me deal with change.
I try to start every morning doing something that I love and that is good for me. For a while is was going to the gym, but lately it’s been drawing or hand lettering a quote or a saying. I try to look for something that describes where I am at right now. I do this because I need that daily check in with myself.
I mean, I used to go around all day asking how everybody else is doing, and never stopped to ask how I am doing.
The idea of self-survey comes up while practicing yoga all the time. Usually at the beginning of class, I’d hear, “Scan your body up and down, and just sense how you’re doing today.” Rocking from toe to heel. My inner dialogue becomes, “Man, helloo lower back, I see you’re not feeling so great. I promise to engage my core extra to protect you.” Honestly. I will talk like that to myself. Not out loud or anything, but over time I’ve come to view the way my body feels without expectation. There’s no question of whether this feeling is right or wrong or bad or good. It’s simply a feeling. It’s where my back is today. It’s ok.
It’s harder to take that subjectiveness to the way our mind feels or how our heart is coping with sadness or loss. Our culture teaches us to hide our ugly and presenting only the good, and we treat our minds the same way. I wonder if we could change that, if we could do a brain scan every morning and just sense how we’re doing on that day, in that hour. I wonder if we could feel each feel and accept it as a valid way to be in this moment. Not right or wrong, not good or bad. There’s such a release in that. To say to yourself that it’s okay to feel scared, or shaken up, or embarrassed. It’s not wrong or bad to feel angry or jealous. Because it’s not, and this feeling is not forever. It’s ok.
When you can identify how you feel and trace it back to its source, it’s so much easier to let it go, heal, and move on.
I’m still working on this concept, but once I began to feel the good and the bad and not try to change it, it became a lot easier to have grace with myself. It became a lot easier to understand why my Creator would have grace with me, too. Believe it or not, He picked this spot, and this feeling, this elevator ride, and this back ache just for me, for reasons I can’t understand quite yet. It’s just where I’m at today. It’s ok.