At my job, we have team meetings once a week. At these meetings, we pick “value”
cards from a deck and each week, discuss what that word means in our current
life—work or personal. There is a whole
stack of these cards with different words on them . . . creativity, peace,
justice, power, love, anger, etc. The
idea is to creates conversation and allows us to get us to know one another
better. We had pulled cards months ago
and I got “Tranquility.” We never went
over them and then this week, we did. When it was my turn to talk about what my card means to me, I simply said:
“This is funny because I have absolutely no tranquility in
any part of my life right now.”
A little blunt perhaps but I had nothing else to say. When you don’t have tranquility, all you can
do is reflect on the fact that you don’t.
Oh yah, you know that thing . . .well I don’t have it.
I know the value of peace and tranquility, especially of the
mind, because I have experienced it. I
can recognize that my current lack of tranquility is temporary and I have had
it, and will again. The major benefit of
tranquility is that it gives me full perspective. Problems don’t seem that big, issues seem
like they will resolve themselves. I get
a full understanding of “there is only so much I can do” and I know that worry,
over thinking, and analyzing does absolutely nothing to improve my emotional and physical state.
It is cliche, but honestly, I experience the most pure feeling
of tranquility during yoga. I get a revelation that I have limits, and most of
the things I worry about in the other hours of the day is worthless. Life is basically good and beautiful—putting energy
into other ideas is a waste.
Don’t worry, I feel tranquility in other places too—and
sober, believe it or not. I recently was
sitting in Brooklyn Bridge park with my boyfriend. We were sitting on a bench, near the pier,
looking out at the water. It was so much
warmer than it had been over the last few days, and there wasn’t a cloud in the
sky. In that moment, I felt truly relaxed. I felt safe.
I felt at peace—tranquil.
I do not know what qualifies as a true anxiety attack but I
believe I have had two of them. Very
minor, but I had them. Both within a few
days of each other. This was about two
years ago. One attack came while
watching a movie with my parents. At the
end of the movie, I felt extremely tense in my jaw. It felt as if my neck and jaw muscles were
tightening so much, I might not be able to relax them . . . EVER. So, my mom gave me a heating pad to wrap
around my neck and my dad gave me scotch (this should give you a good picture
of what my parents are like).
The second attack was at Barnes and Noble—probably one of
the most serene stores out there but yes, I was able to have a breakdown there
as well. This time, I felt like I
couldn’t focus. No matter what I was
saying, doing, looking at, it was as if my thoughts were somewhere else and my
body was just doing it's own thing. I felt
like my legs might give out; that they wouldn’t hold me up anymore and I would just
collapse on the floor in front of the “now on Blu Ray” section.
It was a very odd time.
And it showed me that there are always going to be things fighting
against that tranquil feeling but I have to work that much harder to maintain as many moments of this tranquility as I can. After this team meeting and saying out loud how NOT tranquil I was feeling, I made an effort to work towards it.
At the end of the meeting, we all gave our cards back
and picked new ones. Clearly the
universe is telling me something.
Peace.
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