Finding Center

~By Eden Robins~

"None but ourselves can free our mind."
~~Redemption Song, Bob Marley and the Wailers~~

Living.

Sometimes it's smooth and calm like a peaceful lake while other times it's turbulent and difficult to navigate like a storm in the middle of the ocean. This is the yin and yang I talk about so often. It's just a part of life.

Yet there are moments when things become too much, too difficult, or too frightening. In times like that, I feel overwhelmed and anxious about various aspects of my life. Am I making the right decisions? Am I headed in the right direction? Am I living the kind of life I want to live? Am I being the person I want to be? Am I making too many mistakes? Am I too little, too late? Am I not enough? Are other people not enough? Am I asking too much or too little of others? How will I get everything done? What if I don't get everything done?

And on...and on... and on...

My fear, self doubt and emotional turmoil during these high stress times can sometimes leave me frozen and unsure of which way to go. And if I let myself get caught up in it, if I let myself wallow in that fear, depression, pressure or anger I do not function well in my life. In response, I may procrastinate getting things done because I don't want to think about it, or just immerse myself in and become incapacitated by the overwhelming stress that sometimes weighs me down.

These responses do not work well for me. Sometimes those actions make things worse. Other times they just keep life in a holding pattern, circling over and over again until some event or person brings things to a head. And more often not, the end result would have worked out better if I had just taken a moment to deal with what was going on in my life.

Things would have worked out better if I had dealt with what was going on inside me.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against finding a temporary sanctuary away from the chaos life can sometimes bring. I've written about this and am still a proponent of finding peace, or finding a place of asylum when one needs it. Just for a while, until you're ready to cope with life and its roller coaster ride. That's a method that has aided me in my life since I was a teenager.

What I'm talking about here are those times when it's necessary to face the storm inside you. Those moments when, if you don't face that storm, you just may crack. And if you crack, if you have that meltdown that's been building up, it won't be good for you, or for those in your immediate area.

This time of year is often melt-down time for people. The upcoming holidays bring moments of family togetherness that can be both wonderful and try the sanity of an angel. Making dinners, having parties, going to parties and dinners, buying, giving and even getting gifts can be highly stressful and easily fan the flames of the implosion pending inside a person.

I'm slowly learning to recognize these out of control moments and am beginning to understand that if I let these times swing me to one extreme or another it can be disastrous. I'm also learning ways to deal with those extreme highs and lows of living. Recently I stumbled onto a coping tool that is so simple, yet so effective for me that I wonder how or why I never saw it before.

Last month, I was experiencing "a bit" of emotional overload. There were way too many stressful events going on in my life and I was left precariously hanging on to the edge of that cliff that overlooks a complete plunge into meltdown. My emotions, like a pendulum, were swinging back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and I couldn't seem to find what I call my "place of center". Something happened then—why then and there I don't know. I just know that I'm incredibly thankful that it did.

Suddenly I became still. I stopped swinging back and forth. I sat down in my grandmother's wing chair, closed my eyes and took a breath. Then I took another and another and another, slowly inhaling and exhaling. Breathing exercises calm me somewhat and is a tool I've used in the past. Yet this time it wasn't my breathing that was the defining moment or the shift that led me to my discovery. I discovered my peace a different way. I stopped swinging, became very, very still and found my center by doing one simple thing.

I asked myself some basic questions.

Am I physically okay right now?

Yes.

How do I feel inside right this very minute?

Fine.

Do I feel like I'm going to die in the next few seconds?

No.

Is my life threatened in some way?

No.

And then I accepted the fact that regardless of what was happening in my life, regardless of the roller coaster ride and overwhelming emotions I was experiencing, I was okay.

I, me, Eden was okay.

I know, I know. You're probably thinking, "Well, what's the good of that? I can still be in emotionally upheaval and not be dying or in physical pain". But there's something about asking myself those basic questions. Something about getting in touch with me, the real me, made a difference. By asking and answering those simple questions, I reconnected with myself and I was able to gain some perspective on my situation. I was able to separate from the stress, anxiety, depression and fear I was experiencing and understand a basic idea.

I am okay, and I am going to be okay.

This knowledge helped me calm down, but it also did something else. It helped me find my center; a point where I could understand that my current dilemmas were not the end of the world, or the end of me. And this provided me a great sense of relief and hope. Hope for what? Hope because I knew that no matter how my current situations worked out, I was still me, I was still okay, and would continue to be okay.

And that is how I found my center.

© Copyright Eden Robins