Pulling on Threads

Before I went to Slovenia, I wasn't sleeping very well.

Not because I was worried about travelling.

Not because I was worried about flying.

I was worried about yoga.

More specifically, I was worried about all the things that needed doing before I left.

I still had my normal workload. Classes to teach, emails to answer, people to look after.

But I was also trying to record classes for while I was away, edit videos, upload them, write blogs in advance, schedule newsletters, organise social media and generally leave everything in a state that suggested I was a competent professional.

A few nights before I left, I found myself awake at 3am thinking about a blog post.

Not writing it.

Just thinking about it.

Because in my mind the blog post wasn't really a blog post.

It was a thread.

And if I didn't deal with that thread before I went away, something might start to unravel.

The blog wouldn't go out.

The newsletter would be delayed.

People wouldn't know what was happening.

Attendance would drop.

Nobody would come to yoga.

The business would collapse.

Donald and I would end up living in a shed.

It's extraordinary how quickly the mind can travel from "I haven't finished this week's blog" to "homelessness."

The thing about overwhelm is that it rarely arrives all at once.

It begins with a thread.

One unfinished task.

One email.

One conversation.

One thing that still needs doing.

And then we start imagining what might happen if we don't do it.

Not what will happen.

What might happen.

The imagination is incredibly creative when it comes to disaster.

Before long we're not carrying today's jobs.

We're carrying every possible consequence of not doing those jobs.

It's exhausting.

At one point I caught myself adding something to a to-do list that was already on another to-do list.

I had become a middle manager of my own anxiety.

The ridiculous thing is that I teach equanimity.

I spend quite a lot of time encouraging people to stay present, work with what is actually happening and avoid being dragged around by imagined futures.

Yet there I was, mentally preparing for the collapse of my yoga empire because I hadn't uploaded a video.

And then I went to Slovenia.

I sat outside cafés.

I cycled around lakes.

I swam in rivers, lakes and seas.

I explored caves and little coastal towns.

I hiked up a mountain (well a bit up a mountain).

I ate ice cream.

I forgot what day it was.

And do you know what happened while I was away?

Nothing.

The blogs still went out (albeit a day late because I drafted but forgot to schedule)

The recordings played.

The world continued spinning on its axis.

Nobody demanded to know why I hadn't answered an email within fourteen minutes.

The yoga business survived my absence.

Donald and I are not living in a shed.

Perhaps that's the real lesson.

Equanimity isn't never getting overwhelmed.

It's noticing when you've started pulling on threads.

It's recognising when you've wandered away from reality and into a story.

It's remembering that most things are far more robust than we imagine.

A blog can be late.

An email can wait.

A job can remain unfinished.

The world keeps turning.

And if there's one thing I've brought back from Slovenia, it's the reminder that sometimes the most important thing on the to-do list is the thing we never put there:

Leave.