If I’m being honest here, very little. I looked at the prompt earlier and thought about it while I was in the shower. I’d love to say that I’m calm while I’m relaxing and watching a movie. I’d love to say it’s when I’ve finished everything for the day and I can take a deep breath. But there really isn’t much that makes me feel calm. Maybe for a quick second I can take a deep breath and know that all is alright, once I’ve solved a problem, or once I’ve completed a task…but then I’m right back to thinking about what’s next.
I’ve always been this way since I can remember. As a kid I found myself worrying about things that I didn’t need to concern myself with. I would worry that we might get lost while we were on vacation, stuff like that. I was like, 12 years old! And lately I’ve been worrying more. I did a hike the other day that I had read was very steep & had lots of loose rocks. With my clumsy nature, my fear became paralyzing, and the night before, I cried wondering if I should even go because, what if I fell? What if I hurt myself and there was no one around to help me? I worried about every possibility and worried that I couldn’t trust myself. (I went and it was actually fine, heh).
I like seeing the world in pairs, whether as partners or opposites. It makes for a very black and white world either way. The opposite of calm is worry. And the more I worry, the less calm I am…and the calmer I am, the less I worry. So there’s a bit of ebb and flow with this. Unfortunately for me, and especially as of late, there hasn’t been much flow because I’ve spent so much time worrying. It’s quite awful.
But I want to think about those rare moments I feel calm. When I close my eyes for a second and I can hear the crickets outside. When I stop and think about the sun on my skin when I walk around outside. When I finish my workout and I lay there for half a second appreciating how hard I just worked. When I sneak a piece of the Tillamook extra sharp cheddar cheese and it crumbles just right with a very sharp and pungent taste. There are many more moments like this…but the problem is that they are all just moments.
But who cares, right? Why does it matter that I find calmness only in these small moments? Well, it matters to me because sometimes my inability to find calmness interferes with my ability to function at a top level. Which is ridiculous, right? Why am I putting so much pressure on myself to be at that level all the time?
What if I just stopped and allowed myself to be imperfect (and admitted it to myself), instead of fighting it and getting angry at myself when I fail? And what if I worried less and trusted myself…and let things happen as they happen, because they’re going to happen anyway? Normally I hate “what-ifs”, but this is an exception because I know doing these things will help me find more calm. But the issue is…what if I do them and then I fail at finding calm? Ahh, there’s that fear.
So, welcome to my brain! I think it’s funny that thinking about finding calm makes me the very opposite of calm. Well, maybe not so funny, more just aggressively and painfully frustrating. I’m not sure what I’m going to do next, to be honest. And maybe that’s totally okay. Maybe instead of worrying about finding calm right away and perfectly, I could think about making my short moments of calm just a little bit longer. Baby steps.
I don’t know the answer to the question. I don’t like that everything I just wrote is kind of unorganized. But it’s okay that it’s not perfect, because it represents me more closely than if I were to agonize over every little detail (actually, I’m not sure? Technically I often agonize over every little detail because my thoughts are somewhat disorganized, but one of those is a little easier…namely to allow that disorganization). Well, whatever. I’m not necessarily looking for flow right now, I’m looking to turn the thoughts from my head into actual words. Funnily enough, I kinda feel calm now. Interesting, huh? :D
