long before the pandemic, though compatible with our current lifestyle, i began to slowdown. let me clarify, if i’m being honest, i thought about slowing down long before i was able: in skill, in scheduling, in psyche.

the week before social distancing measures began to be enforced, i left my clinical practice, undecided if i should head right home to the soothing mechanism of eye contact with my daughter or straight to the emergency room. i’d had a prolonged tingle and numbness throughout my left side, then moving into chest pains.

i chose to drive home and hug my little heart in a five-year-old’s body.

a week later, i was informed that while life was stressful, my body was likely having these symptoms resembling a stroke because of the inability of my body to metabolize the level of folate that i was taking to offset the exhaustion and sluggishness that had settled in. my doctor explained, all that folate had nothing to bind to.

a good night’s sleep, which – ironically arose when i realized i didn’t have to leave the house for sometime – more privilege than burden for an introvert like myself – combined with a healthy dose of magnesium, and my entire body began to thaw out.

enough was enough, i began to realize.

each day, i started off, unalarmed and waking to the natural timing of my body. my commute dissolved, my to do list outside of top priorities: career and family, disappeared.

it was then, as it is now (even after a year when i was overwhelmed by the amount of need for mental health care needs – not surprised, just overwhelmed in asking: how much may i give of myself? it is then, that i have decided upon what i had considered for some time. i was conditioned rather than intuitively craving the busy bee life.

no longer do i wish to fill in the weekends with plans that i will not want to keep.

one event per weekend, no more than two weekends a month will suffice.

my daily rituals have dwindled to what i could count on one hand.

and all i still care about – career and family. though, my career, as you can see – has many dynamic sides including care for and inspiration from kind hearted nature, art, and humans.

however, if i am being honest – while i care about it all, i have improved my ability to believe for myself and convey to others – the essence of life, it is simply being: a slow flow of showing up for what matters most, the rest is learned behavior, distraction, excess.