Tiny Revolutions №45: Waiting to Exhale

breathe anyway 🌬

Nov 07, 2020

Hi, I’m Sara, and this is Tiny Revolutions, a weekly dispatch of personal writing and links about the art of becoming who you are. Reply anytime, I love to hear from you.

Last week I paced, I fidgeted, I drank too much coffee and watched with dispassion as storefronts near my house got boarded up in advance of the election. I did my best to stay focused on what I could control; I chatted with friends and applied heavy self-compassion when I found myself reaching for the refresh button one too many times (which was a lot).

Tuesday felt like the monster event that 2020 was leading up to. One last juggernaut hanging over our heads with the threat of additional instability, upheaval, and general psychological trauma on top of everything that’s already happened. All we knew after the year it’s been was that we had no idea what would come next.

As of writing this, we’re still waiting on results for the election, but I’m feeling reassured that in general, it seems like the fabric of society remains intact. Is it too early for me to make that call? Maybe. Am I jinxing it by saying so? I hope not.

Regardless of what happens next, I think we’ve all earned ourselves a weekend. This newsletter is coming to you early because I’m shutting down my devices as of 6:30 a.m. tomorrow morning for a two-day meditation retreat. No talking, no trying, no theorizing, speculating, hypothesizing, conjecturing, or otherwise making shit up, just sitting and taking a good, long look at what is.

Hold it down for me, will you?

In the meantime, here are some things I thought were worth sharing this week.

Insight Timer - #1 Free Meditation App for Sleep, Relax & More

If you want to do some meditating of your own, my favorite app for it is Insight Timer, which is free. I mostly use it for the timer, but there are tons of great guided meditations to choose from, and they’ve recently begun adding live yoga classes as well. If you’re on there, add me as a friend; you can find me by searching my name.

I ask my students all the time, “Don’t you get tired of people asking, ‘What do you want to be?’” I get why the question is asked. But why can’t people take you as you are right now? What’s wrong with what you are? Why can’t you be what you are? And so I say, “I don’t have to be something. I don’t have to explain what I want to be. I am. And being who I am, I can own myself.”

Loved this interview with 77-year-old poet Nikki Giovanni.

May I recommend 10 pure hours of the sound of the wind in the autumn woods?

“In giving vent to my deep-seated pain and sadness, I was learning to accept them as a part of me. In accepting, I was healing; and, in sharing my story with my readers, I was emerging from my isolation and seeking solidarity.”

I’ve definitely found that writing about my life and sharing it with others has helped me move through some rough patches. Here’s a helpful read on How to heal through life writing. It’s geared at people who have suffered trauma, but the advice applies to everyone.

I always appreciate this kind of reminder.