My Jumpy Mind
August 25, 2024
I want to write, but my mind is jumping around like a dragonfly hovering over a pond. I’m nervous about my screening colonoscopy on Tuesday, even though I’ve done this before. I’m not so nervous about the procedure or the results, it’s the prep for three days prior. It’s changing the way I eat, after finally finding a way to eat that helped my body be calm.
I’m familiar with these feelings, they visit me when things are out of rhythm, changing, or unknown. This week has been out of rhythm, changing, and unknown.
I’ve watched dragonflies above a pond making a (roughly) circular path, returning over and over to the same place, tracing the imaginary lines in the air and I wonder how the dragonfly feels as he traces this path over and over? When my mind runs around the same circle time after time, is it trying to find familiarity and calm? If so, it isn’t working.
Eventually, the dragonfly will settle. My mind seems less inclined. It feels a bit more like my young hummingbird friend who always appears to be on alert for intruders at his feeder. Yet eventually my mind will settle…though it might be Tuesday afternoon before it does.
I wonder what my winged friends do when they are anxious? From my observations, I know birds are more skittish on windy days. They take off quicker with any motion and it takes them much longer to settle when they land. Most, or maybe all, of my most intimate experiences with birds have come on calm days. It seems to be a windy day in my mind.
My red-shouldered hawk friends seem particularly skittish lately, even on calm mornings. There are two I see frequently, in different areas of the park. Neither one is happy with my presence.
With hawks and owls, I’ve noticed they will usually stay put if you don’t look straight at them, but as soon as they know they are being watched they take off. Little birds in the bushes however, don’t seem to change their behavior when you notice them.
Is my mind more like the little birds, flitting about regardless of whether I pay attention or not? Or is it more like the hawks, flying off when I pay attention? Mindfulness would say that my mind needs me to pay gentle, loving attention and acknowledge it’s struggle without trying to change it. Maybe neither metaphor fits.
Perhaps my mind is more like the crow, making a lot of noise and doing what it does regardless of whether I pay attention or not. Maybe my mind is most like the young child who wants you to sit with them, be in the space, but not ask them questions or point your attention directly at them.
I want this newsletter to be an oasis of calm and beauty, a respite from the troubles of the world. I imagine being the kind of person that can bring that calm to whatever situation arises - but so far I’m still a rather skittish human. Like my furry and feathered friends, I don’t always know when I am safe to stay or when I should run.
I want to always have something brilliant to write, but when my mind is busy running laps it’s hard to focus and be creative. Instead of writing, I’ve organized the back bedroom, cleaned the bathroom, and reorganized some shelves. Organizing and cleaning is probably a more useful activity than scrolling online, but it wasn’t on today’s agenda.
For now, I can only focus on trying to accept my imperfections. Accepting my anxious mind, accepting the best I can do today is good enough, accepting that being human means not being calm and collected all the time. For now, I go back to dreaming about fall migration and remembering the excitement as I see the first fall visitors. For now, spending a little time cleaning and organizing and knowing the calm will return again.
Challenges like this help me see where I have made progress on my goals of being loving to myself and taming anxiety and where I still have work to do. When all is well I often think I’ve made a bit more progress than I have. Challenges help me notice where I am and where I might still need more loving attention.
I’ll leave you today with this video of the sun glimmering on the water. Perhaps, even when my mind is blowing in the wind and full of waves it can still be beautiful.
May the week ahead be calm, inside and out, for all of us.
I get extra anxious whenever anything is out of my routine, and a colonoscopy prep spirals me out for weeks before it even happens (I've had at least 10 of these, but only 1 actual colonoscopy due to doctors making this a pre-surgical/procedure thing!). I'm sending you extra love right now, and praying all goes perfectly with both your prep and procedure, and with best possible results! xoxo
I’ve had an extra anxious week, as you know, but somehow I reached a point where I knew everything was going to be okay. One individual in our community sent out panicky emails suggesting we were about to loose everything and die in the process because of the wildfires. I suggested to several friends that he might benefit from an emotional enema, which might also calm other nerves he frayed.
It seems there is often an invisible turning point when the anxiety ebbs away and is replaced by calm assurance.