The Swing
I always find re-entry from a retreat difficult. So much awakening is done in a short amount of time, but once I am returned to my habitat, I am so tempted to return to my familiar and comforting behaviors.
After my recent retreat, I was equipped with the knowledge of why I was constantly creating self-imposed busyness, but also that looming realization of now what do I do with this knowledge, and how do you course correct something that feels so intimately part of you? A behavior that was learned in youth, and kept you feeling safe for the last 25 years is not going to become easily disentangled from my web. I am blessed with a good amount of will power, but I had a sinking feeling this was not an exercise in will power.
I know this will take time, commitment and patience, but I also know when I put in sustained effort the reward is usually much more and sometimes literally quite different, than I anticipated as well. I would LOVE to report that I’m off to a swell start, but I’m human, and I’m in the stop and sputter stage. I commit, and then I need to recommit. Old habits die hard.
So, what am I doing to combat my self-imposed busyness? To be clear my definition of self-imposed busyness is basically when you make shit up to do just to keep from being still for any significant period of time. Trust me I do busy well, if it was a college course I am sure I would be rewarded a 4.0 in the study of busyness. I started out thinking I would have either my morning coffee on my screen porch or lunch outside on the dock with no electronic devices in tow. Let’s be honest here a digital device is self-imposed busyness, as it distracts from me being alone with me.
To put some of this in perspective, I sold my home in Massachusetts and bought a home in rural Eastern North Carolina so I could afford to live on the water and enjoy a tranquil living on a DAILY basis. A dream come true, and YET I do not sit and enjoy my porch, my yard or my river view on a daily basis like I thought I would. If truth be told I don’t enjoy it more than a day or two a month, and sometimes not even once a month. This past week I would say I spent at least 4 days either on the porch or dock, so progress was made and it did feel good, almost seductively indulgent. But then the trickster busyness starts trying to lure me back, with thoughts of you need to be proving your worth, get going!
But the real breakthrough came on Sunday. When we bought our home in 2021, I fell in love with the wooden swing on my property that overlooked our yard and the river. I envisioned myself sitting and swinging, all the while drinking in the beauty of the nature all around me. This Sunday almost 3 years after I purchased this home was the first time I sat in the swing. I was just too busy to take the time to stroll across the lawn and sit and do nothing. Something about NOTHING scares me. I’ll be judged…but who is judging me, and why the hell do I care so damn much? Why do I deprive myself of the gift of stillness? Why do I feel I’m not deserving of that gift? I now know the answers, and knowing the answers brings up a bit of sadness. I’m sad that I felt the need to punish myself.
So, I sat and I swung and all of a sudden, I saw things from a different perspective. Change your view and your world may just shift with it. The tree that from inside my home I thought infringed on my view of the river, now looked magnificent as it overhung the river bank. The garden bed next to the swing had birds dive bombing into the bird bath that had me giggling, and I felt my shoulders glide away from my ears. I felt a type of odd feeling slip over me…dare I call it peace
I’m determined to live my life authentically. To be comfortable in my own skin, and to find away to combat wondering what other people think of my choices, me or my life. I don’t know how long this is going to take, and frankly I don’t care. I’m glad to finally know, this is what my calling is.
You see when we shut off or deny a part of ourselves, we lower your energetic vibration. By rewiring our brain pathways to embrace a new direction, we start to turn that ship around and raise our vibration! I believe when energy flows freely in us, our physical, mental and spiritual lives improve as well.
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