A few days ago, the universe gave me an incredible gift and it moved me to create this first blog post. I was feeling kind of down. I have both depression and anxiety so my moods often swing back and forth between the two, but that’s a story for another day. Anyway, I was feeling down because I took this amazing and beautiful class recently and as the class was ending, I felt like I should have gotten more accomplished. I was shoulding on myself as an old therapist would say. I was in my head, working myself up into what Kris Carr calls a lather. I had a story playing in my head that I wasn’t good enough and I’m a failure because I didn’t get everything in this class accomplished in two weeks, even though almost all of the material was new information to me and my peers were women well established in their businesses. I needed to get away from the environment I was in and get a different perspective.
I decided to go for a walk with my husband and our youngest. He’ll be three this July. We live near a nature preserve and will often go for walks there when the weather is nice. I let my husband lead the way as I walked across a babbling creek and listened to the song of the forest as dried leaves from the previous autumn crunched beneath my feet as I walked. I didn’t know the path we were taking. Honestly, I get lost once I stray from the main trail, but my husband is a mountain man at heart, so I was in good hands. The trail changed from gravel to a well worn dirt path that was obviously less traveled. Like I said, I was in my head. I was comparing myself to others who have been on this journey longer and have more experience than me. I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings. This is where we saw the miracle.
“Look! Over there,” my husband said in a hushed whisper. He scooped up our toddler and pointed to a nearby log. There, nestled against the log in the safety of the forest were two tiny fawns. They must have been born that morning or the night before because they still seemed wet from birth. Before I could blink, they were both up and approaching us on wobbly legs.
I got down to eye level. I’m not sure what made me do it, but I felt like I needed to.
The first little fawn came right up to me. I didn’t pet him, even though I really wanted to, and I could tell he wanted me to as well. We just stared at each other with curiosity. It was such a beautiful experience and I almost missed it because I was so caught up in my lather. But, I didn’t and this brought me back down to Earth and back into my body.
We left the fawns alone, we assumed the mother was closeby, and continued our nature walk. What a beautiful, amazing gift. If we hadn’t taken that one less traveled path, we never would have seen the two fawns. If I hadn’t taken that class led by that incredible teacher, I never would have felt confident enough to share my story about anorexia with the world. This experience felt like the universe telling me to be gentle with myself during new beginnings. Just like the fawns, I’m still wobbly when it comes to my business because I’m just starting out. But, it felt like the universe was telling me I’m definitely on the right path. It’s ok that I’m not on the same level as the women who have been doing this for decades. I will get there on my time. What I have to offer is valuable and can help others. I just need to break it down into small steps. One step at a time. One green smoothie at a time.
