This morning I went for a walk by the lake, and it felt so good to move slowly, to stroll aimlessly, to stop often, and watch the ducks. To listen and feel. Not talk and do, but just listen, watch, and really feel. To just be. (Even if it feels weird sometimes — especially if it feels weird — and looks weird to others.) It’s so different than how most of us spend most of our days, in active activity, lost in thought. I started to deeply enjoy just being there in that landscape, just being alive, in this body, on this ride, this experience, with its ten thousand joys and ten thousand sorrows. The richness. All of it.
I felt a deep sense of gratitude that I knew I wouldn’t have felt if I hadn’t slowed down to feel it. (Sure, there is a time and place for moving and talking and thinking and planning and doing, but I would wager we spend much more energy on these than we need to.)
And it seems that this sense of peace, this goodness, is always there, just shrouded by all the noise, the busyness, the clutter.
There is so much to be said for making space. For letting ourselves just be. Without doing anything. For slowing down then pausing, for being quiet long enough. For opening up the notebook to a blank page and just standing there on the shore. Turning our palms upwards and not begging, but just waiting patiently. For sitting up tall to let breath in. For pulling the shoulders back and opening the heart space. Letting the door stay open. It might be a little scary, but if we can be brave and stay open (and yes, sometimes stay weird) through the fear, we make space. For possibility, for creation. For joy. For all the answers and wisdom that we already have inside.