My mind could not focus, my shoulders were tight and my head was beating like a drum. There I was in Penang, Malaysia and I was not enjoying a single second of it. The skies were sapphire blue, the sun was shining brightly, and a nice breeze shuffled its way through Love Lane where my hostel was located.
The problem had been plaguing me for the last few days, maybe even longer then that but though I wracked my brain I could not find a solution. Why did everything seem out of whack?
The pressure of keeping my photos interesting, the need to keep my blog engaging, the knowledge that I needed money to do everything I wanted…all weighed heavily on me.
Here I was, almost 30, with no job and no real prospects to speak of. Instead of taking my hard earned savings and using it to search for a job in the struggling world economy I was spending it on what most people would consider a frivolous vacation.
Hour after hour my mind raced around a track stuck on these thoughts and unable to appreciate the splendor of all that surrounded me. I was wrapped in a cocoon so tight it felt like there was a vise squeezing the life from me.
Then it struck me like a brick to the head. I was standing in the middle of my dorm room after a decent nap wondering how to stop my head from spinning when I realized I already knew the answer.
Do you know what I did? It is such a simple thing that most of us barely notice when we do it. In fact our body usually takes care of it by itself.
I took a deep breath and let it out, and with it a load of stress that had been perched precariously on my shoulders.
It is amazing how focusing on something we take for granted and taking a moment to appreciate it can help us to realize its true value (yes there is a double lesson here).
After a few more breaths I proceeded to do something else I had neglected for weeks. With a stiff grunt I began to do some simple stretches.
With each breath and pop of long neglected muscles my stress began to drop away. My concerns and worries were still there but they had lost their constricting grip on my mind.
The endless spirals of fruitless thought ended and began to work itself into a more logic line of reasoning.
It had only taken ten minutes and things had come back into focus, at least enough to realize that this was something I needed to do more often.
As I sit here writing at an Oceanside café in Penang enjoying a soda I can feel the stress mounting my shoulders again. I know there is no way to stop it from coming but I also know a way to help it go away. It is such a simple thing to do, take ten minutes to breath and stretch, yet for some reason I rarely ever do it.
My real challenge will be to keep it up until it becomes habit.
Update: I’ve done the breathing and stretching for a couple of days now and it really has helped a lot.
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