Finding Ease
Last night I was messaging back and forth with a friend on Facebook. We were talking about how crazy things had become, he was planning to try a Costco run this morning. I told him that I had tried on Friday and couldn’t get within two blocks of the place, the roads were clogged with cars. I decided there wasn’t anything I needed that badly. He mentioned that perhaps looting and rioting were only a short period away. I felt my initial reaction to those words, “Surely not,” I thought but then my own doubt started to creep in remembering the empty store shelves from the store I had made it to on Friday. Could he be right? I could hear those sayings that you hear when people contemplate times of crisis. “Desperate people do desperate things,” is what floated into my mind.
I went to bed right after that conversation, so it was no surprise when I awoke during the night in a total state of anxiety, feeling the electric uneasiness most clearly in my stomach. My stomach has always been my personal weathervane, signaling if a storm was approaching. Taking a deep breath, I knew I could prevent this storm, I have studied Shamanism for over a dozen years now, when I find this much dis-ease in my body I know I need to go back to basics and pay attention to the energy. Some people call it praying, others meditation, there are many words to label it but at the end of the day I went to the fact that I am spirit and spirit is me, we all are. Together we also have a collective consciousness, a collective energy and right now that energy is filled with anxiety and fear. I felt it, my gut was on fire with it. I made a request of spirit, cut me off from that collective energy, protect me from the collective consciousness of fear and anxiety. Fill me with the energy of joy, abundance and peace. Holding these intentions, the dis-ease slowly left my body.
We are all powerful humans, we all of our ways of finding ease, this was just my way, you have your way. Choose it, choose your way but find your inner ease. When you interact with others bring your inner ease, show them that it is possible to be calm in the middle of this storm.
Even if you don’t believe in a higher power, a power greater than each of us individually there is still something that can be done to find your own inner ease.
I am a list maker so here are some lists of things that might bring you to some inner ease.
For yourself
– Start a meditation practice, if you don’t have one already.
– Try yoga, there are lots of videos online to support this, clear your Living-room and go for it.
– Worried about running out of food, look in your cupboards, if they are anything like mine, they are perhaps filled with things you have bought and not used over the years, use them now, try a new recipe
– Do a cleanse.
– Clean out cupboards, drawers, closets…Marie Kondo the hell out of it! Remember what stays needs to bring joy! Surround yourself with things that bring you joy. Not new stuff that you buy to try and find joy but the things that you have around that bring you joy, make those things front and center in your space.
– Think about it, what else would you put on this list? Feel free to leave a comment below so your idea is shared with others.
For others:
– Make a call, talk to friends, family, people you haven’t spoken to in decades, find their number and call them, ask how they are.
– Use social media for good, post your joy, make your joy contagious, let joy be the contagion that spreads!
– Offer to help your neighbors if you are healthy and they can’t get out.
– If there are people in your neighborhood who live alone, offer them company, even if you sit on their front porch and talk to them through a window, make connection.
– Write, start a blog, put yourself out there, be willing to connect with people, show them who you are, you are the only unique version of you that we have, show us!
– Think about it, add to this list, what can we do for others that may help them find peace?
Don’t get me wrong here, this pandemic is devastating and I extend my condolences to anyone who has lost or may lose a loved one to it but this pandemic is also an opportunity, it is a wake-up call to all of us, a wake-up call to decide how we want to live, what is really important to us, remind us that we are all in this together and we need each other. As Brené Brown reminds us, we are hard-wired for connection. Let’s take this opportunity to reconnect to what is important.
Love, care & health to all!
Renee