Today, I got my shit ROCKED by the ocean. It was rough; I could hear the waves crashing mercilessly as I walked up to the beach, but I went in anyway. I thought, “I’m a strong swimmer, I know what to do.” I am. And I did.

I swam to the bottom, then once I felt it pass, I swam up for air. This worked on the way in to get past the break, but on my way back out of the water, I couldn’t escape a series of huge waves breaking on top of me.

One tumbled me around so bad, I used up all of my breath-holding ability waiting for it to finish tumbling me around before I could find “up.” There wasn’t enough time to catch my breath before the next one came and I had to go under and do it again. 

That was scary. Seeing a giant wave heading my way, knowing I didn’t have my breath under me enough to comfortably weather it. That set my panic script into motion. Suddenly, I was fighting for my life in a big, scary ocean. Strong swimmer or not, I was at the mercy of my best efforts and whatever the water was going to do.

After a minute or so, (I have no idea how long it was) desperately swimming toward the shore, breathing while I could, and weathering the waves, it was finally shallow enough to stand up and walk. I trudged through the current trying to pull me back. My nose burned and my chest heaved.

I sat on my towel, spitting and blowing salt water out of my nose.

My panic gradually wound down. My breathing returned to normal. The breakfast I thought might reemerge settled back down in my stomach.

My mind turned back on, trying to catch up to the body that just had this suddenly life-threatening experience.

I asked myself, “What was this teaching me?”

That I shouldn’t have gone in in the first place? Yes.

That I could trust myself to survive? Yes.

That sometimes, life sends you waves that are simply too big and all the thinking and intellectualizing and trying to wrap your mind around it doesn’t change anything?

Yes. 

An experience like that brings you right to the most basic level of life. My brain has a big ego, but all the meaning-making and mental puzzling in the world won’t save me from the too-big waves. You just have to get through it, catch your breath, and keep going.

Last weekend, I just felt…blah.

As a professional representative of “living your best life,” I get stuck thinking I should be able to engineer mine well enough to avoid dull moments. Like I’m just not working hard enough at it.

Nice try, but no. Empty space can be like a slip’n’slide for our fears and insecurities. We have one unsettling thought and then here comes a parade of eager, wet children tumbling down after it. “You don’t know what you’re doing!” “You can’t call yourself a healer!” And, “Are you even helping anyone?”

It seems absurd looking back. But from inside, it feels like an itchy sweater that’s sewn into my skin. No amount of scratching brings relief. 

These “moments” can last any amount of time. Minutes, hours, days, even years. 

I did spend years being hopelessly depressed. Maybe that’s why they can feel so intense. Or maybe that’s just how emotions work; they’re designed to seem like multidimensional portals we’re doomed to swirl around in forever. 

Anyway, I started writing a poem in the midst of this blah day. And on this blah day, the poem seemed pretty blah, too. Maybe it had one or two good lines, but it needed too much work. Actually, all of my poetry is bad. Why do I bother writing anyway? (WHERE ARE ALL THESE WET CHILDREN’S PARENTS?!)

The next day seemed to be going the way of the blah day before it. Then, suddenly, (well, after an hour of meditating, because I remembered for the 957th time to be patient with myself) the poem didn’t seem so bad and actually, the lines that needed work were coming together. And the things I liked about it were actually worth saying. The storm was passing. I watched myself weather it. It wasn’t earth-shattering, but it was pretty cool. So here’s the poem. It’s called, “The Space Between the Sparkle.”

Today 

never had to be the best day.

Not all days can be, after all.

Some are just the glue,

a mix of simple ingredients 

holding us together.

A day to lay the bricks.

A day to tend the fields.

A day to water.

A day to rest.

The minutes crawl.

The hours drift.

There are no breakthroughs,

no explosions

and no photographs taken.

The kind of day we crave when we’re too busy.

The kind of day we hate when we feel alone.

We seem to be moving backward

toward things we left behind.

We can’t see the bigger plan 

so we start to question everything.

Don’t be fooled by your perception.

The unremarkable is just as holy

as the fireworks display.

It’s the foundation,

the boring, solid backdrop

for surprise to be seen again.

The ocean reflects every inch of sky,

the blue, the clouds, the Sun.

Don’t lose hope in the space between the sparkle.

Every drop makes up the one.

I am a recovering overachiever. I no longer want to value myself based on how much I’ve done. I want to feel good as often as I can, not because I’m “productive” enough. I want to enjoy my life! I want others to be able to enjoy their lives! And I want to live in a world of people enjoying themselves. Not one where we’re all grinding ourselves down to fit some status quo.

I see people (myself, my clients, my friends, people out in the world) who are exhausted and unfulfilled. Trying our hardest 24/7 and rarely landing. Rarely permitting ourselves to just be. I think this happens for a lot of reasons. We live in a world where being “busy” is not only the default, but is praised. So there’s external pressure. But also, we keep ourselves busy because, we LITERALLY don’t know what else to do. We are INCAPABLE of relaxing. If we even dare take time away, when we get there, we sit down to “relax,” twiddle our thumbs for five seconds, and then start making plans or pick up our phones. We’re crawling in our skin and reach for ANYTHING to alleviate the discomfort of just inhabiting the present moment, as it is.

Even typing that, my stomach turns. There’s an automatic aversion to SPACE, NOTHINGNESS, SILENCE.

And yet, we CRAVE it. We’re exhausted. We live in a perpetual state of stress. Even the activity we most prefer to “unwind,” (watching TV), activates our body’s stress response. But the idea of just closing our eyes and breathing, not taking in any stimuli to give our brains and bodies a chance to decompress, terrifies us. We say we want rest, we desperately need it, and yet, we make a full-time job of avoiding it. WHAT IS THAT?!

Here’s a glimpse of it in action. What I’m noticing in myself lately, is a tendency to pile on. I tell myself I’m going to make breakfast. I find myself making breakfast while washing a couple dishes and listening to a podcast, and oh, I wanted to sweep the rabbit cage, so I’ll do that while the eggs are cooking. And when I walk over to their cage, I notice a plant that needs to be watered, so I put the broom down and go get the watering can. I need to fill it. And oh, my filtered water pitcher is empty, so I put the watering can down and start filling the pitcher. Now I’m back in the kitchen so I peek at the eggs I remember I’m cooking. 

WOW. Chaos. Exhausting chaos. Jumping from one thing to another without finishing anything. Letting my mind ramble and bounce. Picking one thing up, then setting it down to pick up another. Why? Why not just do a task? Start it, stay on it, and complete it.

Peering under the hood, I think my inner overachiever is calling the shots. Everywhere I turn, something needs my attention. Facing so many somethings, I want to get the most done as efficiently and quickly and simultaneously as possible. The more I cram into each moment, the more time I will have later. Right?

But wait, remember my tangent about how we never actually arrive at this imagined future where we relax and focus on what we want? THAT is the problem with the overachiever program. 

Letting our overachievers run amok presupposes that at some point, we will earn the ability to underachieve. All that hard work and multitasking will finally pay off. Any one else feel like they’re still waiting for that big pay day? There’s a problem with relying on this system to manage our work ethic and life satisfaction. The input and the output aren’t balanced. We’re constantly outputting and running on empty.

So I challenge you to create more balance. See if you can find moments to rest, whether it’s a whole weekend away or two minutes in the middle of the day. Instead of treating them like another space to fill, try letting it be empty space. Try balancing doing with not doing, instead of balancing doing one thing with doing another. Maybe you’ll land in being an achiever. Because for me, being an overachiever feels more like being a never-enjoyer. I’d like that to change.

I often find myself 

bouncing from track to track,

never letting the train take me.

Hovering over the controls, 

unsure which knob to turn.

The choice I don’t realize I’m making 

is to stay above ground.

To avoid digging in 

and getting my hands dirty.

I want to be covered in mud.

But not here. And not like this.

Someday.

For now, I’ll keep carrying this shovel, 

in search of just the right spot,

wondering what it would feel like

to move Earth.

To give birth

to raw pursuit.

Who would I be on the other side?

What has to die

for Life to find its way through me?

There’s freedom in joining the tide.

You can rest your head

cuz your Soul 

is rooted.

Control is fruitless,

It steals your Juice-ness.

So close your eyes and take a bite. 

We’re here 

to be 

ALIVE.

Even writing this, I found myself caught between possibilities. Trying to imagine which word would land with an imaginary reader. Just up in my own head with ghosts. Truth is, I have NO IDEA. And no amount of grinding my gears will make me know. There are times when careful planning and minding the details are essential. But many more times, I’m driving myself crazy, pouring out energy, wrestling with the 2%, thinking it’s going to make or break the other 98. The pursuit of perfection leaves us burnt out and discouraged. Sometimes, we need a break. Sometimes, we need to let time offer perspective. Sometimes, we need to just decide it’s done and move on. But it’s easy to flail around in the frustration loop. It seems like complete satisfaction is just one forceful brain-rack out of reach. That’s exactly when it’s time to put it down, stand up, and be done. Maybe for now. Maybe for ever. I feel it right now as I type. I’m tired. My brain hurts. But the mystical Perfect Blog Post is just one sentence away! Nah.