Peaceful Feeling

My work day started at 6:30 a.m. and I finished up around 6:00 tonight. The last several days were so stressful but something happened yesterday. I’m not sure what it was but I could feel the stress rising, blood pumping, pressure building and it was pouring down rain. I got up from my desk and stared out the window. I could feel the chill from outside as I moved closer to the glass and I saw my breath fog the window. I stood there transfixed for the longest time and my consciousness shifted and suddenly the stress drained away. It’s just a job, it’s just work, the deadlines will be met or not and the day will go on and I’ll still be breathing. I relaxed into my day and even today knowing I had at least 12 hours of work to do, I was still peaceful. I don’t know how and I don’t know why but I liked that feeling. I was at peace when chaos swirled. For the first time in a while I didn’t get caught up in it. I’m grateful for the shift and the peace—the rain, the cold and all of the work I need to do. I’m grateful my house is a mess right now because I love the little people who made the mess.
When I drove home tonight, it was cold out and suddenly I smelled it—wood smoke. Nothing sends me over the edge quicker than the smell of woodsmoke…except maybe the smell of cut grass on a warm spring day. It’s the memories these scents induce in the span of a heart beat. Good memories of times past and they harbor hopeful feelings in the present somehow. I think I finally found serenity…the real thing and not some fleeting illusion of it. I think I found it or it found me when I stopped resisting what was before me, accepted and just did what I needed to do to respond to life. I’ve been fighting my life for so long and that act has just left me feeling drained and overwhelmed. So, I’m not fighting any more, I don’t like to fight. I like peace and serenity. In this space—my center, I am calm and peaceful, the house could burn down and I will not be moved. I will stay in the space for as long as I can hold it. I used to be this way but the last few years were just harder than hard—big life lessons, big painful lessons one right on the heels of another but now that’s done, now I’m strong again and I’m ready to face life on my terms. I say my terms but you have to understand what that means. I am not demanding that life give me what my ego wants. Instead, I’m seeing what I’ve created for myself and accepting the results of my toils and labors. I couldn’t know what I didn’t know all those times before now when I made decisions that weren’t the best. Hind-sight is always 20/20. So, I think somewhere I stopped beating myself up, stopped trying to be perfect and I stopped engaging in the drama.

Again, I don’t know how it happened exactly but it happened and this feeling is amazing. It feels warm, safe—like I’m so protected. The world is harsh and some people harsher but here I am anyway in this wonderful space of comfort I’ve created from within my own mind, from within my soul it seems. Maybe I’ve finally healed all the way and I’m ready to journey again, accept those things I was refusing to learn and now I can move on to more lessons in time. The lessons never end, that I also accept. I need to keep it short for tonight. I want to just sit here in the calm and peacefulness and enjoy how it feels so I never forget. I’ve not known this much peace in a very long time and I intend to treasure this very moment right now. May your Higher Power bring you peace and serenity tonight and every night. Blessings!