Tuesday, September 22, 2009

What Calms You??















I took this picture over the weekend.  The weather was so beautiful with windows to the fall. All I had to do was walk across the street from our house and it was like I went to another world.  

Whether it is the ocean or a lake, water has always had a calming effect on me.  I love to just sit and look out at the endless blue and listen to waves hitting against the shore.  Even the little sound of water rippling against the rocks takes me out of my funk.  

That is what I needed yesterday.  I woke up with a headache, feeling crummy and spent most of my day inside on the couch waiting for the pain to subside and the cloudy feeling go away.  It was so nice outside I was mad to be missing it.  It makes me anxious.  It reminds me of when I had cancer.  All the days and nights spent on the couch in pain, crying, alone.  Somehow it takes me right back to that bad place.  I don't know how that happens.  Its there without warning.  And having a headache certainly is no comparison to my cancer sickness thankfully.  I guess it is like those associated reactions I blogged about a few weeks ago.  

The most important thing for me when I feel like that is figuring out how to get myself to a better place.  Maybe not while I am in pain but certainly when it subsides.  So that is what I did.  Although I had missed most of the day by the time my head quit pounding I looked out the window took a deep breath of the fresh air and put on my sneaks.  It was a short walk down the the reservoir.  As I listened to my feet crunching on the stones that carried me to the shoreline I could feel a sense of calm I hadn't felt all day.  There was a slight breeze and I could hear the waves gently lapping against shore.  I stood there for a good 20 minutes and almost forgot where I was.  The sounds of cars whooshing by on the road were gone for a few moments.  I wished I could stay there forever.  To have a sense of calm such as that to carry me through difficult days.  It's no wonder I always return to the water in times of stress.  I just wish I could feel that way in my own head sometimes on my own...

What calms you?  How do you handle stress?  What do you do when you need to get away from the voices in your head?

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