This past week has certainly been like no other that I have ever witnessed or experienced. The siege on our nation’s capitol building was shocking and saddening to witness and certainly foreign to those of us that live in the US.

After watching the news most of that evening I awoke the following morning feeling very ungrounded and weighed down.  I had an overwhelming visceral need to get outside and into the cold crisp New England air and get myself into the woods. I didn’t realize that this impulse was actually a deep call from within my being to right itself after having been thrown off kilter.

Hiking in the woods felt refreshing. Breathing and taking in the air and the wooded landscape seemed to wash away my worries and  draw me back into my rightful place – a place of presence or as Eckhart Tolle’ would say, “the now.”

I realized once I felt this shift that I had been absorbed, without knowing it, into a projection about the future.  My thoughts created a possible reality that was scary and anxiety provoking and when I connected to nature it felt like a natural antidote.  I felt I could breathe more easily as I walked along the rocky paths.

The birds, squirrels, deer and even my cats are always ever just present taking one moment at a time.  It’s so powerful for me to come upstairs after watching all the disruption on TV and look at my cat as peaceful as ever lying on the bed.  When I approach her and scratch her behind the ears I am aware of her purring loudly without a care in the world.  What an interesting paradox that such peace and such disruption can seem to exist simultaneously.   The  simplicity of taking in her stillness, peace and presence brought me face to face with my own utter lack of presence and in that moment I was aware.  It was as if that awareness could chip away at my anxious feelings pulling me back into myself.   Her presence had an immediate impact on me and receiving this felt like a gift.  

I notice that the more I am focused on being and presence the more and more I receive nudges from my world reminding me of my true center. We can’t completely shut out world events, nor should we, but noticing when have been impacted is the first step in shifting. The more I practice becoming present intentionally the more I notice when I have been thrown off and vice versa.  Receiving intuitive signals from the world help me to rebalance in a natural and automatic way making me able to open all of life with much greater ease and grace.