The Calm in the Storm
Most of us think we are too busy. Possibly we are, but also the way we think about life matters. When you’re watching the second hand on a clock or timing something you’re doing, it can feel like it is moving slowly. And then there are times when it feels like time flies by, when that holiday isn’t long enough, or when your racing to get to an appointment. There are still the same twenty-four hours in a day, which means the feeling of “ not having enough time” doesn’t align with the objective reality.
When you’re caught in the time-driven scarcity or moving through unconsciously from one moment to another, you become a prisoner of your thoughts, trapped in the daily grind and not realizing you can stop, change and open the door to a new existence. We think that adding a slowdown or rest time to our daily routine is another thing to add into the mix of what seems a busy day already. The reality is we need to live in one moment at a time. Working as an acupuncturist, you do just that, moving from one room to another; treating clients requires you to step into the moment and treat each individual within that present moment. The body tells the story, regardless of what the clients perceive to be the issue.
Have you thought about being addicted to busy? We confuse rest with non-productivity and laziness. “No time to waste!” we move from one activity to another. All done in a continual state of partial attention, with the thought we are accomplishing more than what we are doing. It is constant activity that leads us to become invested in our exhaustion.
Rest is found when we are present instead of letting our minds wander; rest comes when we become more by doing less. When we don’t allow the urgency of life to become more important than the rest—decluttering the mind, stopping and sitting in the moment. I slow my mind by sitting at the local park on the bench and having complete quietness, no phone, no book, just the view of the sky and the trees. It’s allowed me to get back into the rhythm of nature, moving away from the business of life. It can feel like the calm within the storm some days.
Being here and now is the only place of rest.
