Birthday Reading, Relaxation, Transitional Inch Worms & Other Random Stuff

Birthday Tarot Reading
 
My birthday always feels like my own personal New Year's Day holiday - a day for me to think about the outgoing year, the upcoming year, my hopes/dream/wishes and design/dream/plan a pathway through it all.  I decided to get a reading with Margaret Ruth for my birthday (again) to assist in this processing. MR assisted me with a traditional tarot card reading, asking my guides/angels/committee about what I needed to do for what comes next in my life. And the answer was, RELAX. Chill. Enjoy. Be happy. How awesome of an answer is that?! Seems this answer is also something I've been exploring for awhile (see here and here) and I like getting reinforcement from my spiritual helpers.

MR mentioned that my guides said I was blocking their answers. That feels true to me - I have a tendency to resist relaxation. However, I have found that when I try to force myself to do stuff, my body will resist me by getting sick or exhausted. I when I try to force myself to relax when there's real work to be done, my body will resist me by going into anxiety overload. When I do what is needful (i.e. don't resist doing things when things really do need doing, don't resist resting when resting is needed) and keep breathing through it all, my life works and I don't get sick all the time. (Ever so not-surprisingly, the guides also mentioned that if I would keep with the relax motto my health would improve.) So, there you have it: The Plan for the Year - Relax. Which leads me to my next topic . . .

Relaxation

I am not particularly skilled at relaxing. As I mentioned above, I have this habit of worrying my way through rest so that my "resting" time isn't actually restful. I've been learning for the past year various ways to actually engage the relaxation response and turn off my brain when I'm relaxing. Sometimes, if thoughts keep interrupting my rest, I just have to get up and do whatever is bugging me, and then I can relax. Other time, I have to just accept the worrying as a part of my brain without clicking into that frantic-worry-space in my head. I've also realized that I have to make space for relaxing - mark that I am moving from "productive" space to "creative" space, if you will.  Which leads me to my next topic . . .


Inch Worms 

So the transitional inch worm is a little wind-up toy I got at the Discovery Gateway store. Whenever I've feeling like I'm stuck in a place and need some help inching out of it, I wind it up. She then scoots along the table merrily, helping me release my attachment to the task that is done already, and onto whatever needs attention next. Havi inspired this idea.

Random Stuff

• Looking for a particular book discussed on 3 Quarks Daily I found a new book to be published by OSC, Pathfinder. At first glance, it looks like the kind of book I like to read by Mr. Card - realistic people with magical abilities attempting to make their way through a charged moral universe. What a nice little bit of accidental findings.

• Going on a gentle, ride-around-the-park-twice, bike ride with the kids was sweet and wonderful. The best part was just doing it instead of putting it off, putting it off, then it starts raining and not doing it.

Now I am going to just do the thing that keeps popping in my head.