Are you an introvert?  Do you know what an introvert is?  If you’d asked me many years ago I’d say yes I was (in an ashamed sort of way) and that it means I’m shy and can be anti-social and I prefer small groups and being alone and like to be a hermit at times.  I also would have had all sorts of other judgments about being an introvert that I may or may not have shared.  About how it’s bad (better to be an extrovert) and I need to make myself be around other people more, that it’s probably something defective in me that need to be fixed that makes me want to hide away, that I’m probably scared of other people and interacting with them and once I get over that fear I won’t be that way anymore.  Being an introvert was an internal failing and something I thought I’d be better without and that if I worked hard enough I could leave it behind.

Then, a few years ago, I read something that caused me to gasp, smile, do a happy dance, and relax all at the same time.  It changed the way I looked at being an introvert, and each time I’ve read it elsewhere it has spurred a deeper understanding of myself. 

Being an introvert doesn’t stem from not trying hard enough or being too shy or from some internal failing.  Being an introvert simply has to do with how our batteries get charged!  And everything else that characterizes an introvert kind of stems from that- the way we live our lives in order to have enough energy to do the things we need and want to do.

And, being a person who appreciates making things visual, I tried to figure out what that would LOOK like.

I've been doing a lot of fretting lately.  Flipping from feeling hopeless and helpless to overwhelming myself with things I need to figure out for, say, next summer.  I have a hard time with planning because I see the big picture, see where I'm going to end up, see what I'll need to do, and then I flip out and can't do anything.  It's really not very productive and I've probably missed out on tons of really awesome things because I get freaked out by where I'll be and what I'll be doing at the end. 

I've been taking nearly nightly epsom salt baths at night to help me relax this past week.  Attempt to relax at least.  Tonight in the bath I worked myself up really well thinking about our pond plans for next spring (we have ducks and they make big messes!) and what we're going to have to buy and what it's going to entail and what I'll have to figure out.  It wasn't pretty and I was definitely NOT relaxed. 

I tried to bring myself back to my body.  Just breathe.  Watch my belly go up and down.  Feel my feet.  That helped some.  I remembered that the pond is not something I can do anything about right now, especially with it being frozen.  And I realized that beneath the pond stuff I was actually freaking out about a bunch of other things in the future and not really knowing how to get there.  I asked myself what I COULD do, and this painting popped into my head.  I painted it this spring I think, but I don't have a place for it yet so it's just laying in a pile of paintings.  But it points to the key.  Just take the NEXT step and trust.  Don't worry about where the path is going, don't worry that I might not be able to make it there.  Step where I feel led and trust that the one guiding me knows what I need to do.  It has worked really well when I have done it in the past, but I forget sometimes.  Okay, a lot.  :)

An interesting thing about this painting is that I had a plan about how I wanted it to look.  The water further downstream was going to reasonably and realistically flow past the words and off the page.  But while I was painting that vision disappeared and I just put paint where it felt it should be.  And when I stepped back I was kind of disappointed because it looks as if the water is flowing up into the sky or something unrealistic like that.  And at first I was frustrated at myself and tried to figure out how to fix it.  And then I realized that that was part of the message too.  Just trusting and focusing on the next step has the potential of taking me far beyond my reasonable and realistic vision of where I am going.  And since that reasonable and realistic vision often freaks me out, it's very possible that the path I'm being led on would shake me deep into my roots if I knew where it ended up.  But maybe, just maybe, that's where I have the potential to be.  Where I am going to do what I came here to do.  And thankfully, I don't have to draw the map of how to get there.  I just have to take the next step and trust.

Is there any part of your life that would be helped by letting go of the big picture and just focusing on your next step?

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For anyone who may want this painting in their own space as a reminder to just take the next step and trust, I made a few products on Zazzle.  If there's a way you would like it to be with you that you don't see I'd be happy to make it for you!

Yay!  I just cut and pasted all of the posts from my old blog and moved them here!  All of the comments were lost unfortunately, but I'm so looking forward to moving forward in this new space!!

I mean EPIC.  Feels like my chest is swelling and my chin raised is raised.  Like I am right on the cusp of something completely Earth shattering.  Like life is about to never be the same again, or at least I am going to be so changed that I'll never be able to see it that way again.  Like I'm cloaked in courage with a cloud of fear swirling around while huge, seminal things are being shattered and destroyed.  Apprehension, Anticipation, fear in the pit of my stomach, driven to jump out of my skin and act heroically. Like I am about to burst from all of this pressure leading up to this huge thing and its intensity is more than I can bear.  Like my stomach is in knots almost to the point of being sick.  Like there is something huge caught in my throat both wanting to jump free and be swallowed and buried.  Like I desperately need to use my muscles in strong, forceful, desperate ways.  Like whatever is going on is so huge I can't just sit by and watch, I have to do something, have to take part. Like every bit of me that can be tested is being tested.  All I need is a ring or a sword or a wand or an arch nemesis.  Something to focus this feeling on, to explain its existence. 

 I have many friends who are going through epic things in their lives- huge family and marital challenges, cancer, death, moving cross country, babies coming too early.  On a larger scale there is the possibility of making war more widespread than it already is.  I'm sure I'm picking up on quite a bit of that.  But in my own personal life. . . I don't know.  I'm having some health challenges that have necessitated setting aside our homeschool groups for a few weeks at least.  Life has slowed down, and I have been challenged to see what is the MOST important in my life and make specific time for that.  Which has been a challenge.  Also learning to actually really and truly take care of myself. I'm slowly making progress with that one (which is a positive way of saying that I kinda suck at it.  But I'm not saying that. ;) )  I have realized, I can ALWAYS make myself busy and come up with more things to stress out about having to do even when I'm staying home and not going anywhere.  I only have the energy for a few things, though, so I have to really decide (UGH! I want to do it ALL!)  That laundry list of things I've always thought I need to do but didn't have the time because I wasn't home constantly.  Yeah, had to toss that after I noticed that I was making myself worse and was ADDING things to my days that were sucking up my energy but really didn't matter that much right here at this moment.  I have been learning to be slower, to reduce my time multi-tasking, to eliminate things that aren't either true necessities or bring us a crazy amount of joy.  (Most of those things on my list were not happiness-inducing.  They were there because I thought I needed to be doing them to be doing "enough".  Which is a whole other post on its own!)  Still, though, there's been this feeling inside of me calling me to step out beyond fear, to march forward bravely, to be heroic.  To stand on a mountain with my hands on my hips, taking a deep breath with the golden sun shining on me just so, butterflies trying to burst out of my stomach and about to leap off into the perilous unknown.  How on earth could my current life be epic?

So today is an important day.  Those of us who are old enough to remember it don't have to be told what 9/11 means.  It's a day that created a lot of terror, pain, incredibly deep sadness, anger, and hate, 12 years ago.  It's a day we "will not forget". 

But what does it mean to "not forget"?  Does it mean to always hold onto anger and hate? To bitterness and sadness?  Is that what we want when we remember?  Is it possible to remember without it?  Is it even possible to forgive that kind of act?  To find peace?  To find trust in the world again after it has been shattered by an unthinkable act?  Is the kind of world we want to have even possible if we all hold onto the feelings we felt that day?

And if it IS possible, then how?  How can we move beyond that terror and anger and wish for revenge?

For most of my young life, I was a book-aholic.  I was always trying to get finished with my assignments so I could read some more, had bookshelves and bookshelves full of books I'd read and couldn't bear to part with, was always immersing myself in some other life via the printed word. I had a nightlight next to my bed all the way through high school- not because I was afraid of the dark but because then I could read all night long without getting caught by my parents.  When I read I would become fully immersed in the book.  A soundtrack would run through my mind.  I would BE there.  And leaving would be like ripping myself out of a new home, one I may have felt more comfortable in than my own.  Looking back in the past, I always saw that I had been using books to escape.  To run away from my own reality into something else.  Now I'm wondering if there was something else at play, too.

When I became a mother, I gave up fiction.  I actually wrote about it here.  I believed that I got too grumpy, the ripping out was too painful, and I turned into a mother that I didn't want to be when I read fiction because of how deeply I got into it.  So I just quit, and instead I read non-fiction that I could easily put down when interrupted.

Today has felt really, really weird.  Maybe it's a consequence of only getting 2 hours of sleep on Sunday night and not really making up for it on the nights since, maybe it was the powerful storm that was coming tonight, maybe it is all of the social interactions I've had scheduled lately that have been out of my element, and the lack of alone time I need to balance it.  No matter what was behind it, I felt odd today in a way I haven't really felt before, or at least not in quite awhile.  I have some coping mechanisms for when I feel particularly "off" or like I'm suffocating or like I'm crawling out of my skin, but none of those seemed to fit today.  The song below kept running through my head, reminding me to keep breathing.  Sometimes that's the best thing to do.  Just keep breathing, attending to the breath in and out.  Let all of those outside things that I may or may not be able to do anything about fall away if just for a moment.  And connect with the cycle of in and out that keeps me alive, in this body, experiencing life in so many beautiful and painful and perplexing ways.  Sometimes the best thing to do when you feel like you're drowning in the intensity of the world is to just breathe and breathe and breathe until you feel like you have a handle on life again, even a teeny tiny one.  And so I wanted to share the song with you today, just in case you need the reminder too.  <3


"Keep Breathing"  Ingrid Michaelson