Eyes on the Path

If there must be thoughts–and there always are–be thoughtful, I tell myself.  Rather than “winding yourself up,” just stay present. Mindful. Keep yourself confined to the day you have. You live nowhere else.

I often find myself mucking about on low energy days. Going nowhere. They’re a bit of a slippery slope, if I wander too long in the past or focus only on the other side of the hill.

It is easy to slide into a whine, something I once did–a lot. Some days, I wore my labels of disease as armor, and other days, I hid them inside me.

One time, I committed myself and a significant amount of money to a weight-reducing program that labeled me as a “victim of circumstances.” (Read chronic illness.)

Once I knew my label, all I had to do was eat certain foods to lose weight.

I know, right?

My “circumstances” were that I was a comfort food eater–in a league all my own when it came to binge eating. I did nothing about neither until I peeled off my labels.

Neither hiding from nor whining about chronic illness gave me anything except nothing, the only gift available.

Which is not to say there are not moments of frustration. There are. Now, I muck through the mud of my emotions. After all, “no mud, no lotus” (Thich Nhat Hanh).

On days like today I teeter on the edge of the slough of despond. It is its own kind of balance, this teetering. To slide into the slough is to embrace the abyss and know no bottom.

To step into the energy that is my day is to meet the unknown, and why not?  After all, if one step is a mistake, maybe the next won’t be or will. There are more steps to this day than I will take.

With curiosity, there is never a backstep or a look down the road only eyes on the path beneath my feet. Sometimes, it’s really muddy.

Aim for Even posts offer equanimity a dose at a time. No day or dose is ever the same, even if the aim is. You may read about the origins of Aim for Even here or on this site’s About page.