This morning I woke up lost.
Feeling alone in the darkness I’m creating inside my mind.
Listen on the Wildspire podcast here:
I knew what I was doing and still couldn’t stop hurting myself with fear and insecurity. Nightmares of what will happen if I do or don’t do something, and a desperate urgency to do something about it right now!
I was reminded of how real that feels, how absolutely solid that feels, when I’m in it, and I don’t know what to do.
My mind spins stories: no one cares, no one wants me, no one understands.
Even as I hear those stories, I feel the lie of them. It’s a compelling lie.
The thing was, I did know what to do. And it wasn’t to solve my problem. It didn’t look like beating myself up more for my flaws and failures. It was simple.
Go to the beach.
Nothing more than that, just go to the beach.
On the short walk to the beach, with tears in my eyes, at first, I was afraid to look at anyone. I didn’t want them to see.
Then something shifted, and I found myself looking at a cat on the sidewalk, with dogs approaching from both sides, trying to decide what to do.
The cat was so confident, so sure of itself. Even when it was scared out of its mind.
Looking at that cat, drew me out of myself, and out of this swirl of darkness. Then I saw a person, and another, and I found a smile on my face that was real.
All this before I even got to the beach.
I notice this resilience. How natural it is to bounce back.
No matter how I might try to keep myself down with my thinking, it only takes one thing to bounce back up.
This is how buoyant I am. This is how buoyant you are.
This is how unstoppable hope is.
Resilience is a force.
It is what draws a plant toward the sun. You can put it under a basket, you can hide it behind things, and it will find a way through.
Something in us knows the way toward the light.
There’s not a process in this shift happening here on the beach. This place is no more or less magical than any other.
The magic is following the simple thing I know to do in the moment to move me towards the sun. To find the light.
You can feel it, like the draft in a room where the window is open somewhere and you can follow it.
It feels like a stirring inside, small at first. Then when you bring your attention there, it grows.
Before you know it, something is created. A poem. A story. A sketch. A painting. A cup of tea.
There’s nothing wrong with us even though sometimes we feel broken.
It’s part of the game these dark thoughts play. The minute I stop listening to them, the second, something else is there for me.
Always.
Turn your gaze inward toward resilience right now.
Feel it.
It is always there.
Like a fresh breeze.
Like the scent of lilacs in spring.
LIke the sun on your face.
______________________________________________________________________
Subscribe to the Wildspire podcast: https://www.theawakenedbusiness.com/wildspire
