Today I skied. This was a big freaking deal for me because although I was an avid skier since age five, I gave up skiing when I was pregnant with my oldest child and never picked it up again. This was a ten year break from something that I loved.
As I whooshed down the hill solo, assessing my body to make sure I wasn’t about to break a hip, (I was ten years older and had birthed four children since my last ski experience), it hit me…
All of the stress that I had been feeling, especially from the previous week was gone. In fact I felt good. I felt alive. I felt ache and pain free.
As the cold air hit my cheeks I felt as though my troubles were an eternity away.
You see, although I share most of my life on here, or on my videos, there are some areas of my life that are sacred. Especially the lives of my children. Although I may share this particularly stressful situation with you one day, at the moment it isn’t my story to tell. But for context, I must say, I have been under extreme stress during the past week.
For the first time in one week, or 168 hours, my stress was one hundred percent gone. I felt free, like someone had cut this cord I was tethered to.
“Why,” I thought to myself as I carved through the snow, “can I not let go of this stress away from a ski hill. Why can’t I take a break from worry in real life?”
As I went up the chairlift, looking down at a winding creek below, it hit me, I had been carrying around intense stress and worry, thinking that if I took a break for even a minute the world would come crashing down, shattering around me.
That somehow because I was deep in the trenches of anxiety and dread I was fixing my problem. If I put down the worry for one minute, everything would fall apart.
But here I was, zipping down a ski hill, like I was 25 again, not a worry in sight, and the world was still in tact. It was still turning.
I haven’t been doing anyone any good allowing myself to be so immersed in my stress that I am in physical pain, can barely tidy up, or prepare a meal at home. I am sabotaging my healthy eating, and I am an emotional wreck.
This particular stressful period of parenthood won’t be my last. In fact far from it. I have four kids who haven’t even hit their teenage years. So I need to figure out a better system.
First step, loose the guilt about taking breaks from problem solving and worrying. Allow myself to feel joy during each storm.
Remind myself that letting go doesn’t mean I care any less.
Letting go of the worry is allowing my head to go above water for a breath of air before the next wave.