Stopping the Dance of Stress

Shoulders Rise in the Dance of Tension

My shoulders have become an extension of my ear lobes. Far too often recently, I feel them rise, rise, rise in a dance of tension as if they are hands reaching toward the gold hoops in my ears.

This is not the dance I imagine for myself. It lacks the fluid, graceful movements I prefer as I move through life. My imagined dance does not involve clenching, tightening, shoulders rising to where they don’t belong. My imagined dance has me light of foot, floating like mist through an English cottage garden.

Conflict with what I envision and the reality of what I feel as my shoulders tighten begin the ascent to my ears wakes me. I stop the dance of stress and breathe. I speak to myself in a gentle voice. I continue to breathe and lower those shoulders until they return to their proper place. I breathe again into the space and begin my preferred dance.

Grief and Loss Have Weight and Substance

Carrying the Weight of Grief

Grief has weight. Like the lead apron at the dentist’s office before getting x-rays or exercise weights for your arms and legs, grief is heavy. When you are grieving, even the slightest movement is difficult. You can move forward with only the tiniest of steps because each of those steps feels like trudging through muck.

The weight is a message: Stop. You cannot move forward into any meaningful life until you recognize that this weight, this grief, requires an extended pause in your life. You must sit with the weight of grief. You must be with that weight and experience and process it completely, fully, so that when you’re ready, you can to return to life. It will be a different life, but you will not carry the weight of feelings unfelt, tears not shed, and love and loss not mourned.

Your life will have more depth, meaning, intention, and purpose because you felt and experienced the weight of grief, thus lightening the load of loss and life.

Tuesday Settles In

Tuesday, April 9, 2019

Tuesday Settles In

Like a Soft Cotton Shirt

Tuesday’s soft cotton shirt settles in as I begin the day. Monday’s frantic welcome and return to responsibilities, lists of things to do, and obligations to meet have settled down. Today, a steady, less-frantic rhythm of being combined with doing greets me as I contemplate the day.

Tuesday is much less concerned with weekend endings and workweek beginnings. It’s a day of now, of awareness of what awaits, yet anticipation for the remaining week. Tuesday lacks the pace of Monday—whether that pace was sluggish and resistant or pumped up with enthusiasm and can-do motivation.

Tuesday continues steps on the map I charted on Monday. Those steps are clear, concise, and measured, yet also as comfortable as my well-worn cotton clothing. Tuesday’s easy entrance into the balance of the week settles me, yet still leaves me open to possibility with open eyes and heart and mind.