Slower, Wealthier, Happier

Good morning, beautiful ☀️✨ Happy Monday!

I have been thinking about how yummy it is to notice yourself. Not judge yourself. Not analyze every little thing you do. Not look for something that needs to be fixed. I mean simply having enough space inside yourself to notice you. I had moment after moment of that during my two weeks in Los Angeles. Something would happen, I would respond, and somewhere in the middle of it I would think, Ohhhhh. Look at me. I’m different. And goodness, there is something incredibly beautiful about being able to witness your own growth while it is happening.

One of my favorite moments happened while I was running errands with my mom. Now, normally when I am in Los Angeles, I don’t want to drive. I don’t want to be all over the city. I don’t want the traffic, the movement, the everything that comes with LA. LOL. But this particular day we had gone to her doctor’s appointment, stopped at the store, went to get her car washed and handled whatever else she needed to handle. We had been driving around for well over an hour, and I hadn’t thought anything of it. On our way home, less than a mile from the house, there was a man in a truck in front of us moving VERY slowly. Apparently someone was selling something on the corner and he was trying to see what they had. And I’m sitting behind him like, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo, just waiting. No irritation. No urgency. Nothing.

Baby, my mama reached ALL THE WAY over from the passenger seat and leaned on my horn. 😂😂😂 I burst out laughing. She looked at me and said, “What are you laughing about?” And I said, “This is a Lexapro commercial.” Because until she hit that horn, my brain had not even calculated that I was supposed to be irritated. And THAT was the moment. Not because waiting patiently behind a slow driver is some huge accomplishment, but because I knew myself well enough to understand what had just happened. I knew what that moment would have felt like in my body before. I knew how much energy my nervous system used to spend anticipating, reacting, managing and trying to get back to okay. And suddenly I was sitting there realizing… I was already okay.

That happened over and over again while I was away. And then life decided to give me one final exam. LOL. My flight home was delayed for hours, so instead of arriving home around 5:00, I didn’t get home until nighttime. I walked into my house, took off my shoes like I always do, and while talking to my husband on the phone started noticing things that didn’t make sense. Why are those lights on? Why are my patio doors WIDE OPEN? Meanwhile, my husband immediately understood the potential seriousness of the situation and said, “Get out of the house. Now. Hang up and call 911.” And do you know what my first response was? “But I don’t have any shoes on.” 😂 Eventually there were police cars everywhere, officers checking the house, and the whole thing felt like I had somehow wandered into an episode of SWAT. Thankfully, I was safe. But what stayed with me afterward was that even in a situation that required me to take real action, I could take the action without my mind creating ten additional emergencies around it.

I think that’s one of the things I understand differently about caring for my mental health now. Peace doesn’t mean you stop recognizing when something requires your attention. Calm doesn’t mean you ignore danger, difficulty or discomfort. It means everything doesn’t have to become an emergency inside of you before you can respond to what is actually happening. Therapy has helped me. Medication has helped me. Learning myself has helped me. Creating a life that supports me has helped me. And now that my nervous system isn’t constantly screaming over everything else, I have room to hear myself. I can notice what I’m feeling. I can recognize what needs my attention. I can respond. And sometimes I can even laugh while I’m doing it.

Maybe that’s something worth paying attention to in your own life. We spend so much time looking toward the person we’re trying to become that we can completely miss the evidence that she’s already arriving. Notice the thing that doesn’t irritate you anymore. Notice the boundary that comes easier. Notice when you recover faster. Notice when your mind doesn’t immediately go to the worst possible outcome. Notice when you choose differently without having to fight yourself first. Notice yourself. Because growth isn’t always a huge breakthrough with flashing lights announcing that you’ve changed. Sometimes it’s your mama reaching across you to blow the horn and you realizing you hadn’t even thought about blowing it yourself. LOL. And sometimes the celebration is simply being able to say, Ohhhhh. Look at me. I love that for us.

Your most magical self,
Treshelle