A Wrench

Dear Friends,

Last weekend my son and I went in search of snow for one of his school assignments.

As both of us love a good road trip, we excitedly hopped in the car bright and early Sunday morning to head toward West Virginia where we knew snow had fallen…it was a lovely drive for about 2 hours, and then a wrench was thrown in our plans.

After about 2 hours, my car started having issues.  Now, let’s be honest, I can’t say I was super surprised, this particular issue has been headed down the pipeline for a little while now, so I knew it was coming.  Even so, it reared its ugly head so much so that we weren’t quite sure we were going to make it home…we gave ourselves a 23% chance as we turned around and headed toward home, and I think, in hindsight and with very little mechanical skill, that was a pretty accurate assessment.

Growing up, I only ever had ridiculously old cars and a perpetual premium membership with AAA, so car trouble isn’t particularly unfamiliar territory to me, but it doesn’t matter how much experience one has, car trouble is stressful….and made for a pretty stress-filled trip home.

Despite said stress, as I drove, I worked to breathe deeply, to regulate my nervous system, to find calm in the midst of anxiety…and, you know, to stay in the right lane.

My friends, breathing deeply and regulating my nervous system didn’t fix my car, it didn’t solve my issues, and it didn’t get me home without breaking down.  And yet, while breathing deeply didn’t do any of those things, it did, in fact, make that stressful trip home a little easier.  

Our movement practices won’t make the hard things in life go away, they won’t solve our problems…but our movement practices will give us a few more tools in our toolbelt when life is inevitably harder and more anxiety-filled than we expected it to be.

I hope you have a stress-less week, my friends…and if you don’t, I hope you can breathe a little deeper into whatever stress you might encounter.

Love
Krista