Hello! Been a while! I’ve been busy living out this piece as I wrote it. Thanks for being patient with me, and gentle, as it is still very much alive :) I am so grateful to you for being part of this lovely little corner of the internet <3
At the end, you’ll find the content and mantras nourishing me right now.
I. Missing, finding, and losing the pause.
I can’t remember whether I tied my sneakers or slipped them on.
I can’t remember whether I shampooed my hair.
I can’t remember whether I said that thing I wanted to say. I say it. Again.
I’m frozen, bleeding on the concrete as my mind drags me in laps around “could haves” of the past and toward “shoulds” of the future.
I want to escape. I want to melt, pause, and absorb this moment, but I’m stuck on a hamster wheel powered by the expectations of my conditioning: move fast but be thorough, optimize for today while preparing for the future, be perfect but exert no effort, sacrifice yourself but be healthy, embrace your individuality but conform to norms, grow but stay in your lane, lead but follow the traveled path.
Though these expectations come with benefits–resources to develop and foster new and innate skills, and mentors who helped me see I’m capable of more than I believed–their unattainability gets lost in seductive praise for those who appear to meet and exceed them.
Living amongst unicorns, the most beautiful horse believes its greatness rests on becoming a unicorn. It is too busy running toward greatness to find peace in the greatness lying within and around it; pausing is to surrender to life as a lowly, weak horse.
And yet, over the past year, the less I grasped for and clung to those expectations, the more space the unicorn inside of me had to emerge: seeds of joy, alcohol-free living, improving my relationship to my body, 80% is perfect, suspending the rules.
Strength and power come from realizing I’m already a unicorn. I can safely step off the hamster wheel, discovering, accepting, and loving who I am right now. I can stretch my hands wide, preparing them to absorb the sights, sounds, and textures of this moment.
But then I step back on the wheel. Every single time.
Habits are hard to break, and even harder when still surrounded by the molds that formed them. Like a recovering alcoholic in an alcohol-infused culture, I must find the strength within to continue pausing, giving the unicorn inside of me space to emerge, knowing the culture will urge me to do otherwise.
II. The tipping point.
I moved to a new country, an experience which demands slowness and presence. Unfamiliar with the culture, language, and streets, I don’t yet have the muscle memory that enables autopilot. I keep tripping over my own two feet: my bike tumbles over, I put the key in the door upside down, and I stumble through a far too-advanced ballet class.
Harder is bringing slowness and presence to the routines I brought with me. I’m still building trust that, in a place far smaller and slower than New York City, I’ll keep flying in the absence of the tailwinds I’ve always known. When successful, I sip my tea slower, watching the tiny bits of surviving loose leaves swim at the bottom, and I walk slower, admiring red leaves giving way to their younger green siblings.
The moments and days feel longer, but not in a dragging sort of way. Time feels neither too fast nor too slow: each second feels like opening and diving into a Ziploc bag instead of running over the seams. I trust each bag holds only what I’ll be able to explore in its entirety.
Leading up to the move, I felt drained each time I posted on Instagram and Tiktok, feelings that skyrocketed once my feeds filled with hate and misinformation about the war between Israel and Hamas. My fingers stopped flying to Instagram so readily, and within a few days, I was reminded how much more peaceful and present I feel without the intense pull to sink into my phone, or to scan physical moments for digital share-ability.
A couple weeks later, my grandmother passed away. My heart hurts in a way it hasn’t in a long, long time, and unlike the loss I experienced while focusing on becoming a unicorn in early adulthood, my attention isn’t skipping over the pain. I am allowing my emotions time and space to breathe and mature.
The flow of warm, salty tears feels shocking and overwhelming, but also wonderful, like an unexpected return home. The tears seem to be accelerating the melting of a glacier at my core where negative emotions, smothered with rationale, could never decay.
As my yoga teacher said today, “pain is inevitable but suffering is a choice.” To bury my emotions is to suffer. I cannot heal what I do not feel.
I had to pause while writing this to go let out a big, large sobbing cry. I feel a greater sense of calm now. Allowing the emotions to come up is terrifying, and yet, relieving.
I’m tuning in where social media enabled me to tune out.
I’m reading, writing, and noticing the sights, sounds, and textures of the physical world way, way more. I’m engaging in conversations with people I don’t typically converse with, trying new forms of exercise, and learning how to knit. I’m still not drinking and I’m more in love with my body than ever, treating her with the utmost respect. I’m looking in mirrors again and, for the first time since I can remember, see a beautiful body staring back at me.
I’m slowing down. I’m softening. I’m melting.
I am welcoming the Tish at my core, as Glennon Doyle explains about her daughter in Untamed:
Tish is sensitive, and that is her superpower. The opposite of sensitive is not brave… The opposite of sensitive is insensitive, and that’s no badge of honor… Even as the world tries to speed by [Tish], she is slowly taking it in… [Sensitive people] are considered eccentric but critical to the survival of the group because they are able to hear things others don’t hear and see things others don’t see and feel things others don’t feel. The culture depends on the sensitivity of a few, because nothing can be healed if it’s not sensed first.
III. The pause.
Cross. Cross.
breathe
Under. Pull.
breathe
Loop. Loop.
breathe
Cross. Under.
breathe
Pull.
breathe
I’m tying my sneakers. I notice the way the laces hug my skin and how the cotton pulls on the dryness of my fingers. I notice how the knot comes together as I pull the loops in opposite directions. My breathing slows as I relax into my body. I’m grateful for this moment.
I’m shampooing my hair. I hear the cap snap open, watch the clear viscous soap flow into my palm, hear the cap snap closed, choose the place to put the bottle, and feel the soft, frictionless rubbing of the soap between my palms. I feel the strands of hair eating my fingers as they crawl through my scalp. I feel the pressure of water rush through the soapy strands until the warmth breaks through and the suds slip from my hair down my back, butt, and legs. I notice my breathing slow as I melt into the clear, warm water. I’m grateful for this moment.
I’m saying that thing I wanted to say. I see your facial expressions, hear the words you’re replying, and notice the way my body feels as my mind processes them. I’m grateful for the connection between us. I’m grateful for this moment.
I’m governed by three things:
I cannot control how the future unfolds.
Time is neither precious nor finite. Each present moment is precious and finite, which, when treated as such, makes time feel expansive.
The present moment cannot possibly consume too much time. It is the only thing consuming time.
I’m healing.
_ _ _ _ _ _
*A couple of things nourishing my mind right now:
Buddha’s Brain by Rick Hanson
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Mantras I am repeating to myself right now:
I am safe.
Let there be peace.
If you made it here, thank you so much for reading. I hope sharing my experience helps you in some way. If you enjoyed what you read, the best way to support me is to share this with a friend! Letting me know with a <3 or a comment doesn’t hurt either :)
Sending you love & light,
Syd