Woke up this morning with that feeling in the pit of my stomach that lets me know I’m about to be in overwhelm. The reaction I had last week to three cats at a friend’s house is still playing havoc with my breathing, and breathing exercises are one of my best practices to take care of myself.
I know I’m paying for having overdone it – returning home after four days in Atlanta for book signings and performances of Stillpoint, my new book on self-care, followed too closely on the heels of a relaxing ten-day vacation trip to Northern CA, which followed without enough pause, an earlier visit to family in Southern CA. One might say, I’ve had too much of a good thing.
Most people I know of most any age have periods of “crazy busy busyness,” and seem to look at it as just the way life is. But while feeling grateful for the blessings of many opportunities, I find myself missing the chance to savor my experiences, to reflex on what’s occurred and what it means to my life and me. On my vacation at the Sea Ranch with my husband, we slowed way down, reconnected to nature in a reinvigorating way, and brought back some somatic practices, with the intention of integrating them into our lifestyle here in Pittsburgh. But I’m still catching up with myself. Listening to my body wisdom it tells me I haven’t yet returned to my “regular” or “usual” life at home.
The anthropologist Margaret Mead warned us, that due to the increase in the speed of change in our culture, our generation and those to follow must learn to make our nests in the eye of the storm. Fortunately, that calm and quiet place is there, in the center of a storm, and in our own centers. My co-author Christine Gautreaux and I call it the Stillpoint. As we move about the country presenting programs and workshops that teach caregivers and others how to find and live into that creative self-care center, we must keep in mind the amount of swirling behavior necessary to organize, arrange and create, and the time necessary to recover and self-renew.
Sheila
To find out about upcoming Stillpoint events you can connect with us on Facebook at:
Stillpoint: A Self-care playbook for caregivers
or www.stillpointselfcareplaybook.com
or to purchase the book click here:
Stillpoint: A Self-Care Playbook for Caregivers to Find Ease, and Time to Breathe, and Reclaim Joy Paperback – July 23, 2018
