1. Truth: I am trying really hard to not feel overwhelmed. I came back to my CSU work yesterday after a long few weeks of vacation. Part of getting myself organized, ready for the start of the semester, was putting all the things I’ve scheduled for the next sixteen weeks on my Google calender.  When I saw it in “black and white” like that, I was surprised by how much I had committed to: teaching yoga, a training class with Ringo, Feast with Rachel Cole, various Open Heart project opportunities, a ZenPen ecourse, weekly meetings with interns, yoga classes, blog posts, working on a book, etc. At that moment, I had a choice: freak out or accept it. For now, I’m accepting it, trying not to freak out.

2. Truth: It isn’t helping that I haven’t seen the sun for two days straight. Today isn’t looking good either, gray and cold. It’s hard to imagine how I didn’t completely lose my mind growing up in the Pacific Northwest, were we’d go for weeks or even months with no blue sky, where it felt like for nine months out of every year, the sky had a ceiling and it was resting right on the top of my head, a weight that felt like it would crush me.

This morning’s couching, image by Eric

3. Truth: I’m better than I was, but my dogs still trigger such anxiety, panic in me. Sam’s mouth is itchy again, and even though we know how to help him now, to see his back leg scratch at the air and his head shake pulls me right back to the time when we didn’t know, when we thought we might lose him — my body remembers. And then Ringo snorted something irritating up his nose, was gagging and rubbing his face in the snow, and even though it only lasted for maybe five minutes, I was right back in those moments with Dexter, when sneezing and such was a sign of something that was killing him. For a long time, I lived in that panic almost every waking moment, whereas now it’s an echo in my body, a memory embodied. It comes in waves and surges, but eventually dissolves, and that’s at least better.

One wish: That even if the sun doesn’t come out, and even if we have a lot to do and things arise that trigger us, we can remember that underneath it all is a calm, an ease, a wisdom that is available to us at any time, all the time. May we easily find that space, that ease, that calm.

1. Truth: The light this morning was dreamy. It was the first time I got to go on the morning walk in over a week. It was 27 degrees, almost a heatwave compared to the cold we’ve been having. The sky was so beautiful in places it almost made me cry with gratitude.

2. Truth: I can’t do everything. I know that must seem obvious to so many, but I still struggle with it. I try to figure out how to do it all, convinced that there’s some formula, that I’ll crack the code if I just keep working at it. And then something happens like the dryer stops working or I forget to buy puppy cookies at the feed store or I notice how badly the bathtub needs recaulked and I feel like I want to lie down and never get up.

3. Truth: The earlier in the day I can take a shower, the better. If I don’t, I do this thing where I schlep around the house in my purple fleece bathrobe doing “just this one more thing” and even though it might seem like I am getting a lot accomplished, really I’m stuck. It doesn’t feel good.

One Wish: On the days that feel hard, when we feel stuck or that there’s too much to do or when something as simple as the light of the morning sky makes us feel like crying, may we be gentle with ourselves.