Your oasis of calm.
What's your oasis of calm?
If calm isn't the word, maybe stability, or peace, or ease.
Another question - where is your oasis of calm?
It can feel a bit like a mirage at times, or like someone snuck in while you weren't looking and brushed away the path. I used to feel calm, but I don't know how to get back to that place. I don't have time. I have a to-do list as long as my arm. Time is going too fast (time is absolutely going too fast for me - I'm looking for a time elf to magic it slow again for me. If I find one I'll lend it to you, if you like).
When you're in your oasis of calm, who do you get to be? What aspects of yourself can come out to play, that are not excited by to-do lists and surviving the week?
For me - I get to be curious, and I get to be inspired, and I get to be creative, I get to breathe, to daydream, to think, to rest.
Curiosity needs time and space in order to flower. Time to wonder, time to even be a bit bored (remember having time to be bored?). Curiosity and creativity go hand in hand, too - when you have time to be bored, to get curious, to turn over stones and to ask what if, that's when inspiration finds openings to stick its fingers in. And creative ideas come to life. And then you can make different choices, and rather than feeling a bit like you're on a hamster wheel, you might feel more like the captain of an expedition into the part of the map labelled 'here be dragons', in search of treasure (or whatever vision of a rich and varied life appeals to you).
So back to the path in to the oasis. If someone stole yours, one way to create a new one is through creative activity. If you're doing something with your hands, you're automatically in the present. If you're doing something for the doing, not for the end result, you're more likely to be curious. Open to inspiration, insight, new ways of thinking about old problems, open to becoming so absorbed by what you're doing that you're not thinking at all.
And that is deeply restful and deeply needed, in this bonkers world that's getting louder and louder to try and capture your attention. In your oasis of calm, you can rest your attention for a while.
Even writing that sentence made me take a breath.
So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find your oasis of calm, guard the path, and go hang out there for a minute or an hour (it all counts), rest your attention, and see if there are parts of you who haven't gotten much of a say lately who might feel kinda relieved.
And if you'd like a bit of structure to your oasis time, perhaps you'd like to come to this week's art group (the week I’m writing this - if you’re here after the fact, hello! Maybe we’re doing something different) - we're going to be doing something super low stakes and doodling patterns, which sounds like not much but can be the pathway to an oasis of nourishment. Calm. Quiet. Curiosity. Aliveness. Connection. Insight and ideas. All the things that our busy busy world makes hard to find sometimes. I'd love to see you there.