Since coming back from Utah I have been very stressed. I'm not sure why. I think it's a combination of a lot of things. The fact that I really wanted my elimination diet to make me feel like a new woman, or at least better, and it didn't. My house that needs my full time attention and me having no desire to give it even 5 minutes worth. My kids and their individual challenges. The Hot, Hot weather that seems like it is never going to end. Just little stuff that seems to have bloomed into a big thing in my mind. I have been wound way too tight and everything has been seeming like more than I can handle. I have felt like I am tied up in knots or tangled up like the phone cord use to get when we use to have a phone with a cord. I've been tempted to hang upside down and spin like I use to do to untangle the phone cord, but I wasn't quite sure how to do it.
Today as I was driving back from dropping the youngest son off at school I was telling myself all the reasons why I should go walking when I got home. You know - it will make me feel better (even though it doesn't), it is cooler now than it will be later, it's good for me, it will give me time to think, it will be one less thing to feel guilty about today... As I was pondering all these thoughts I had the impression that I should walk backwards today, not literally backwards but counter clockwise rather than clockwise. I have some walking routes mapped out in my neighborhood for when I go walking. I have one that is a mile and one that is two miles and some others in between, but no matter which walk I take I always start out going the same direction - North. Going the other direction just seems unnatural to me. However this morning, after I got out of the van and threw the newspaper at the door, I headed off going the other way - South. As I walked I started picturing the playground at the elementary school where I use to work. I could see the kids sitting in the swings twisting them up into a tight knot. Now this was against the rules and normally I would have stopped them, but in my mind I let them twist and twist and twist until those chains were so tight they couldn't go another inch and then the kids lifted their feet and instantaneously began to rapidly unwind. As I walked "backwards" I could actually feel the same thing happening to me. The further I walked the more relaxed and unknotted I began to feel. I imagined a long, long twisted and bumpy rope slowly unwinding and becoming smooth. No more kinks or knots or tension. Just a long, straight rope.
I can't say that all my problems just up and disappeared, but I will say that I feel a lot less uptight about them. Sometimes it's good to just pick up my feet (one at a time) and unwind.
1 comment:
I wish I could take one of your walks with you. I am finally up to taking one now (to enjoy the weather before it starts raining every day) but now I have too many children to push in my double stroller. If I were with you, I could hear all your interesting stories and you could push one of my kids in a stroller. Good luck with your diet and getting unwound.
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