Stop. Go. STOP. GOOOOO!
Here lies the rhythm of our lives. Cycling through moments of rest and moments of activity. We move through this pattern daily, as our bodies are attuned to waking and resting hours. However, inevitably there are periods in our life where it is necessary to sustain these modes for longer amounts of time. Periods of pause, where we can rest, heal, observe, be still. Periods of movement, where we can create, fulfill, and deeply experience. Both are important. Both facilitate growth. Both are beautiful.
Prior to this global pandemic, I, like many of you primarily existed in a state of constant activity. Go – Go- Go! Pandemonium. Rushing from one thing to the next, out of sync with my internal rhythm. Certain that this way of operating was “right,” confirmed by positive feedback from the world around me. Because…we do this, right? We praise those who overextend themselves…the workaholics, the perfectionists, and have been led to believe that being this way is an achievement! That this way of being will support our success and somehow lead to happiness. This belief is easy to ingest in our culture – the “I do it ALL” attitude. All the while, rest has become associated with laziness and has even become a luxury. With our constant connectivity there no longer remain boundaries in our communication – work, home, social life, they have all melded into one thing. We expect instant replies from our social networks and our professional networks. Long gone are the days of doing things on “our own time” and here have arrived the days of stressing about returning calls and staying up late to reply to emails. We squeeze our time like we squeeze juice from a lemon. One. More. Drop. From work to play back to work again, the last decade has been characterized by periods of intense action…and it shows. People are more stressed, anxious, and depressed than they have ever been before.
You see, action in and of itself is not a bad thing. We need to DO things and to create things and to have motion in our lives. Indeed activity is beautiful and provides rich experiences for us. However, like all things in life there must be balance. The flipside to action is inaction…stopping. While this year has been a difficult one as the world wages war against a deadly virus, it has had the unintended byproduct of allowing us to reconnect to this part of ourselves. Reclaiming our natural rhythm once again. As we have been forced to slow down, it has provided space for us feel how important this is for our wellbeing. A remembrance that dwells deep within our genetic code that rest is good. That moments of reflection are important. That learning how to simply be is just as important as is learning how to be in motion.
This is an opportunity you see, to reconnect to a part of ourselves that has somehow been lost in the shuffle of technological advances. To return to a simpler time when humans had to rely on the cues from nature to help them organize their days and lives. To make our way inward, back towards ourselves…back towards our natural rhythm. To remember that constant motion is not what we were designed for, that we are meant to Stop. and Go.
So here today I invite you to make space for yourself to follow your own rhythm. To breathe and remember that stopping is ok. To know that going is ok. And to know that our ideal balance lies in between, as we gently swing from one state to the other, not rushing or forcing either, but simply listening and following.
Wishing you balanced rhythms and beautiful reconnection to self.
With love,
💕✨Alix