Cultivating Spaciousness in a (too) Busy Life

It’s the first full day of Spring! Our garlic is bursting from otherwise barren soil, and with it excitement for the season and year ahead.

This past year has been busy. Too busy! I finished my Master’s in Mental Health Counseling and started formally working as a therapist while maintaining my coaching and teaching practices, and taking an unexpectedly bigger role in the business I joined when I married my husband Hany.

I’ve struggled to practice what I preach to my clients and students, the discipline of carving out time for daily practice. But instead I’ve excavated space in momentary pauses throughout the day.

A drive to the office along the backroads, which takes a few minutes longer but gives me time to breath deep and bask in the beauty of our sweet slice of the country.

A savored cup of tea, which I enjoy most while very hot and on good days drink first thing in the morning while doing nothing else except feeling my body and mind awaken.

A few minutes of stretching or asana or qi gong, ideally outdoors facing the sun, if that’s all the time I can muster.

Do I long for the spacious days when I could dedicate an hour - at least! - to practice each day? I sure do.

But as Spring bursts open and the days fill up further, as time for tending to the garden and the land superimpose onto my schedule, I savor these brief moments of joy and blocks of formal practice that much more.