Like the ocean, I don’t ever feel like sitting still. Sitting and slowing down to me means defeat, failure and allowing what is inside me to bubble up and become exposed to the bright sunlight.
Sure, nap time is one of my greatest treasures and bubble baths are one of my happy places. I do rest. But if I’m being honest, I usually find something to do before the actual resting, so I don’t have to think. Books, games on my phone, social media (aka looking at the lives of others instead of inward at my own), playing music… are things I use to distract myself from actually having to sit down and look inward.
I remember going to California two summers ago and looking out at the Pacific Ocean. Everything about it captivated me and ushered away from my breath. Like my first site of the Atlantic, it took my breath away and muted all other noise inside my head. The sound of the waves and the feeling of smallness took over and I was left sitting down, staring out and just resting. I left Cali writing the following post on my Instagram:
I’m a runner, I’m a leg shaker, I’m a laugh/sneeze with your whole body not just your face person. I’m a dancer, I’m a dreamer of flying. I don’t stop moving. Even in our wedding video my left leg can be found dancing throughout the whole ceremony. I can’t sit still for very long. Being by the Pacific Ocean two weeks ago was so different. I was forced to sit. To watch the movement, instead of being the mover. To enjoy the show, instead of worry about the performance. I was forced to be. …Awestruck by grace and how truly, this life isn’t about moving all the time… Sometimes, it’s about staying still. If only for one moment. One rare and tiny moment. Sometimes, that’s all it takes to remind us that there are rests in music scores too and that’s what makes a beautiful composition.
After watching the waves and walking along the shore, my husband and I turned and followed a man-made ditch in the sand leading us to a cave, where we went inside to see what we could find. It didn’t take us very long to show us that it was filled with things the ocean had carried when the tide had been high. When the tide drew back, what it had been carrying was left on the cave’s floor making it almost immovable or too gross to wade through.
I think in a way that’s what I’m afraid of if I sit down, put the book back on the shelf and turn the music off. The tide will draw back and leave everything exposed. All the trash, skeletons and debris I’ve been carrying with me will just fall out of me and I won’t be able to explain or defend the pieces of junk I’ve held so dearly for so long.
However, the ocean is supposed to be a sanctuary and home to a multitude of creatures. While an ocean doesn’t create life by itself, it provides the environment for life to flourish in it. Holding on to junk and debris completely negates this. A lot of trash suffocates and strangles the life found deep below and on top of its surfaces. In short, the trash we carry can kill any chance of life and beauty inside us. Just like the ocean.
That is why we need to sit down every once in awhile. As my mom would say, “We all need times to just sit and breathe.” I haven’t mastered the breathing only, thinking none thing but I’m working on it. I’m working on getting the junk out and leaving it on the beach.
But we can’t just lay it there, I think we need to face it, eventually. We need to come to the point where our hair is a mess, our makeup is no more, our headaches are beginning to form and look straight into the mirror and deal.
Laying stuff down on the beach doesn’t mean we don’t mourn the loss, discern what is truth or wrestle with the letting go of it all. It would be too easy if there wasn’t fighting involved. This is our hearts and life we’re talking about. These are the things, even though we were never meant to, we have been carrying our whole life. They’re almost our security blankets and closest friends. Well, maybe not friends, but you know what I mean.
So how do we let them, even one at a time or maybe all at once, let them go?
We call the junk, junk. We see how it chokes and ruins the life in us. We recognize it’s not as friendly as it seems. We come to a place where we recognize that WE aren’t the one’s who are junk, it is. It’s degrading our beauty and self-worth. That’s the battle. The battle is in our very being.
We fight. We rest in and cling to what is true. Repeating it over and over again in our minds. We speak it over our lives, loudly. Silencing any falsehood that creeps in.
We wrestle. When we wrestle, we get a new name. Just ask Jacob (later Israel) in the Bible. God’s not scared of our wrestling, he’s not scared of anything.
We can’t give up. We can’t just sit down, sleep in and let the world take us for a ride. We fight for our minds, the very battlefield that feeds our soul.
Don’t be afraid of sitting down, my dear friend. Don’t be afraid to sit in complete silence. Don’t be afraid to deal with the things that scream at you when you turn the world off. Turn it off. It’s going to be scary as Hell, but do it anyway. You got this.
Be afraid of what happens if you block it out forever. You could go your whole life without meeting the real you. Fight for that. Fight for your purpose in this world, we need you. We need the real you.
