The power to choose
Cultivating space in the unending “busy season”
Hello dear friend,
Its late in the evening. The candles are lit and the windows are open, letting a cool summer breeze into our living room.
I’ve been calling this a “busy season” in my life. When friends or family ask how things are, my reply is most often, “Good! Busy!” I wake up early and go to bed late. I work a part-time freelance job during the day and my evenings are spent on a branding project that I’m doing solo and am therefore acting as, account, finance, project management, as well as design and art direction. Life ebbs and flows between days that feel so full I barely remember to breathe before I’m flopping into bed wearing the same thing I woke up in earlier that day, and the “recovery” days where I’m too tired to do anything very useful. Balance feels elusive, and then there’s being a mother, a partner, a daughter.
I am grateful. So grateful. And tired.
In all of this, I find myself reflecting on the fact that I have labeled most seasons in my life as busy, and in fact one could argue that aside from the specifics there isn’t a lot that’s different about this time period than many in the past.
There seems to be another theme that threads throughout my life; the yearning for a time when things don’t feel so busy, when I imagine I’ll be able to exhale and relax, and find the balance that feels too slippery to grasp in the “busy seasons”.
I wonder to myself as I drive home savoring the silence that comes only after the morning children drop off; what makes a season feel busy? What makes the difference between the feeling of being rushed and out of balance and the feeling of being centered and in balance?
For me, I think it largely has to do with the small moments in between the “doing”, and whether or not I intentionally choose to practice presence in the in between.
It’s the moment in the morning when I’m pouring the hot water over the ground coffee as the warm chocolaty scent fills the kitchen, and Norah Jones sings us awake. It’s the three minute meditation that I do before my kids wake up and climb into my lap and rub sleep out of their eyes. It’s the thirty second pause, hand on my chest, deep breath, after waving goodbye to my kids as they drive off with my mom. It’s the ten minute walk after my last meeting of the day, no phone, no podcast, just the sound of the birds and the wind in the trees. It’s the candle at dinner, all four of us around the table, even if only for a moment.
And I can tell myself there isn’t enough time for all that, but I think more and more, there isn’t enough time to not do all that.
This is my life. This moment. Here. Now.
Busy is a choice.
I have the power to choose to create space.
Space, balance, peace, ease, are created moment by moment and have more to do with the present state of my mind than the circumstances now and in the future.
I can only do one thing at a time. It is only possible to be present for one moment at a time.
Guiding my mind out of the future and back to the present moment is how I reclaim my power and cultivate the peace, the exhale, the balance that I yearn for.
- ‘s recent newsletter. How they talk about “…revisiting the location of grief between denial and anger…” and how it can manifest in feelings of jealousy when we encounter the things, people, or experiences we don’t have access to but deeply yearn for. A reminder to look at my own jealousy with less shame and more curiosity and compassion.
Tonight, I pulled a dusty book off my shelf, The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, and I read poems I haven’t read since high school. The words on the yellowed pages took me back and I felt the shadow of the feeling of my sixteen year old self as she read those same words all those years ago. Tenderly embracing this younger self.
Allowing five minutes to be enough. Five minutes of meditation, five minutes of stretching my precious human body, five minutes of sitting on the front porch feeling my lungs fill and empty with the same air that the trees are breathing. Allowing it to be enough even when the inner dialogue poses the tired argument that it isn’t.
What little effort it takes to share how much someone means to you, and how infinite the impact can be on them.
Thank you to everyone who already signed up for coaching sessions! I am very excited for our time together.
There are plenty of spots still available in the coming weeks. You can schedule a session here!
Each coaching session is 45-minutes long, held on zoom, and $11/session.
And please feel free to share the link with anyone that you know who may be interested!
These sessions are for anyone who’s looking to create more awareness around a challenge you may be experiencing, a dream that’s been growing in your heart, or anything else that may be coming up for you.
Coaching is not consulting or advice-giving (you know yourself better than anyone after all), but rather it’s a container for opening to what is already within you with the support of someone who can hold space, reflect without judgment, and help you inquire within through powerful questions.
You can find out a bit more about coaching with me here. And if you have any other questions, please reply to this email and ask away!
With endless love and deep gratitude,
Raina
www.findingstillness.one
@findingstillness.one
