Inhale, Exhale, Create, Be Quiet

I’m sitting here drinking the only kind of wine I’ve ever enjoyed (a local wine available at Lee’s if you must know) and feeling like I’m about to write a very rambling and divergent post. But aren’t they sometimes the best – to read or to write – when we can find this one common thread through all our thoughts, even if we can’t quite tell what that thread is other than what our wandering minds tell us.

I’ve been reading a book entitled “What We Ache For: Creativity and the Unfolding of Your Soul” by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. It’s been so reflective of where I am, emotionally and spiritually – trying to find that creative muse, the things that feed me. It amazes me how she writes about exactly where I am and how I stumble across her words right as I need them. I just want to hug her.

And in this latest chapter she talked about the need for quiet places. For a pause before the inhale of creative spark, after the exhale of creative endeavour. All this right after I had trusted my instincts on creating a quiet place for myself and had decided to pull myself away from outside distractions on a regular basis.

I sometimes feel as if I’m on information and sensory overload. It’s as if I’m bombarded with thoughts, opinions, music, news, and noise almost every day, all day. And because of all these incoming “distractions” I can never really tune in to things spiritually.

Sometimes I find Zeb, sitting on the couch, staring at the wall. When we started unschooling and I found him doing this, I would think to myself “Ha! He really is doing ‘nothing’!” But he never was. He was processing; thinking on all he had experienced or heard. He was taking quiet moments to absorb everything that had been coming at him. It’s similar to how our bodies do most of their growing while we sleep.

But how many times do I, as an adult, take that same time? Time to “do nothing”. Time to absorb or reflect or simply be with the silence. Time to reenergize.

When I worked as a massage therapist, I would meet so many different people, all with the same stories. They were tired, hurting, overworked or exhausted. But they all felt guilty for taking time for themselves. I can’t pretend to know their personal lives or what their circumstances were. But one thing I knew for sure and would continuously tell them was this:

“Imagine you have a jug of water. And it is your job to take that jug and fill the cups of those around you. And you happily do your job. But at some point, you will need to stop for a moment and refill your jug. A person with an empty jug has nothing left to give.”

And yet here I am, feeling empty at times or exhausted. And those feelings reflect on my interactions with Justin or Zeb. I would chide myself or feel guilty. And because of those feelings I would never feel as if I could “treat” myself to anything – even if that treat were simply taking care of myself. As if it would ultimately be selfish of me to take more than I’m giving.

But I’ve come to the realization I’m giving little because I have so little to give. I’m not taking care of my jug and therefore their cups are going empty.

The past few weeks (since about this time) I have been realizing that I simply can’t neglect myself. I can’t fall apart for the sake of someone else. I can’t ignore my fatigue, my back pain, my knee pain, my stress. I can’t make myself into some lame martyr, dying for my cause, thus leaving them with nothing or no one.

These past couple weeks have felt so miraculous. I’ve been attending this wonderful Expressive Yoga class and have felt my back and neck and hips and knees releasing pain. I have been taking this (nasty) cod liver oil and within hours feel a sustaining energy. I’ve been breathing. Deep, full breaths where shallow ones once took over.

But mostly I’ve been making time for creativity and for silence. I know my creativity is fed through writing and photography. Whether it’s through specific writing exercises or a scavenger hunt; whether it’s by myself or with others; whether it’s shared or not; they are simply things I must do for me. They are ways I can find and focus on beauty in my life. They are things that sustain me or lift a dark mood or at least help me express it.

And the silence is so profound in its simplicity. Whether I’m unplugging from the Internet for a weekend or only turning my radio off while I drive, I always always always walk away from silence feeling free, better able to create and more joyful.

Ironically, this post is neither profoundly (or well-) written nor does it have a photograph to accompany it. But it feels good regardless, this slow meandering through only slightly related thoughts. I have many more of those thoughts but I won’t promise to share them, since I usually break those promises, don’t I?

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