Tai-Chi

My skin tingled in the intense sunlight. I kept my eyes closed and listened to the rhythmic breaking of the waves. The wind whipped at my clothes and brought the illusion of coolness to the air, and I breathed. In and out, slow measured breaths as I listened to the ocean, seagulls, people, and wind.

Slowly, I concentrated my awareness on myself, trying to feel centered in the space directly around me. I slowly shifted my weight from one foot to another, bringing my arms up, pushing them down, and drawing them back up again.

Around the outside of my concentration thoughts of self-conscious apprehension skittered like spiders and were quickly dismissed. The motions flowed from one to another at a deliberately slow pace and I focused on drawing my stress into a ball and pushing it from my body with my hands and replacing it with breaths of fresh ocean air.

I probably looked like an awkward goober.

I had only watched a Tai-Chi video a couple of times and learned two to three motions. I enjoyed it, but I had no business pretending like I had any idea what I was doing. If an actual practitioner had seen me on the beach that day, they likely would have smacked me, and I would have deserved it.

 I looked into tai-chi because I was having stress-induced palpitations. Someone at work threatened to bash my head in with a bat and my general level of stress had been rising anyway.

I was told I needed to find a healthy way to deal with the stress. Tai-chi was my idea, I just sucked at my follow-through.

Still, it was an introduction to the concept of practicing intentional self-awareness. Nowadays the hot word is “mindfulness” but the concept was very similar. When I closed my eyes, I would try and focus on how I was feeling physically, emotionally, and mentally. I then attempted to identify where or why those feelings might exist, accept, and dismiss the negative, and find the positive.

The warm sun, crashing waves, cool breeze, and feeling of sand between my toes helped me feel calm. I never cared much about the chakra or moving energy in your body. For me, it was about shutting out the world, focusing on what brought peace and comfort, and letting the rest drain away.

Does it actually change much? Not really.

The world is still there and still rolling on when you open your eyes again. However, it was a few minutes of peace that I enjoyed. I could choose to inject my day with a few minutes of peace and enjoyment when I wanted to. That was huge.

On another front, the practice of recognizing how I was feeling has gone a long way in living with and treating the seizures and narcolepsy that I struggle with. Symptoms that I would have never noticed without increased self-awareness have shed light on self-care practices, triggers, warning signs, symptoms, and best practices for dealing with an array of issues.

I found out today that I have a stricter time limit than I wanted when it comes to moving. It has significantly increased my stress level and I have found myself reaching for that moment of peace and calm.

Life gets busy, crazy, and chaotic and builds up momentum like a locomotive. Sometimes, we can do things to gain some control over the chaos, sometimes we do our best just to hold on. My focus right now is holding on and believing that, no matter what, God will work out all things for my family’s good.

In the meantime, I steal a few moments to remember the feeling of the sun, the sand, and the breeze as I let the stress melt away and seeds of joy replace it.

Perhaps my daughter is right, perhaps a trip to the beach wouldn’t be a bad idea.