My Permission Stick

Every day, afresh

I have a complicated relationship with stillness. I’m not talking about in my body. It’s my mind that is noisy, bouncy and persistent. It often feels like a pin ball machine up there.¹

I am improving though. It is my consistent morning ritual that is saving me. It is one that I haven’t ever really shared or spoke about with anyone in depth. Something in me feels like I should share it here, in case others with noisy minds feel the urge to find the inner quiet. In case others, who may have, (like me) assumed they are forever flailing and failing at mindfulness, meditation, and contemplation, I will share.

Each day, upon waking, we have a choice of entry. To step into the day with contemplation or calculation. We can stretch gently into our being before we go out and do all the doing. We can tend to our inner hygiene before diving in the deep end of duty. Why do so many of us take on the role of task master with sleep still in our eyes?

I say all this and ask all this because for years my morning routine was coffee in one hand, emails open in the other. Sipping and skimming. Whose urgency will become my emergency? I let the world enter me rather than me enter the world.

I am no longer stuck in the spin cycle of my mind each morning.

I cycle the air into my lungs and mind, walking amongst the trees in the trails near my home. The emails stay in my inbox, unopened.

On these familiar paths, I started noticing Y shaped sticks. Of all sizes.

At first, I started calling them my YES sticks. Yes - a kind of affirmation and confirmation to whatever sweet thought was floating in my mind at the time of spotting it.

Now I look at them differently. I see them and name them my permission sticks. Permission sticks for peace. Shaped like the peace sign, they bring me peace inside. They affirm to me that I don’t need to ask anyone for a permission slip to peacefulness. I find it myself. Within myself.

These permission sticks are visual evidence to my mind that efficiency and sufficiency can wait for me. They’ll be there, hands out, insisting I grab them later in the day.

My morning walk amongst the oak, cedar and pine is my daily shedding. It is me loosening my grip on productivity. It is my circadian bath into introspection, even if only for a short while.

This kind of devotion never feels like duty.  

Overtime, what I witnessed is my mind molding into contemplation rather than computation. A time and place in my day where there are no measured tasks that need completion. When I go outside, I go inside.

When I wait before I step into the humdrum of noise in the outside world and sit instead with my inner world, I feel more capable peeking into the kaleidoscope of the day before me. I drop out to drop in. 

To stay in ordinariness can feel onerous to some. I’m here to say that with practice, the staying yields sustenance.

With practice, while walking in the woods, I found a place where I can give myself permission to meet my fully fledged feelings. The ones I used to run away from when I laced up and spent my mornings hitting the pavement. Now, there are no miles I track, no Fitbit talking back. There are no personal records I strive to break. Instead, I enter a sort of marathon of the mind. One that truly has no finish line, and the course is so pristine.

And the sweetest part of all is that bits of this practice follow me into my day. The peace I find beneath the tree tops tip toe behind me and help me face any problems that surface with a find of grace that I never used to have access to.

Father Richard Rohr (whom I affectionately refer to as my sobriety sponsor although he doesn’t know it) has this to say:

Our practice, whatever it is, must somehow include the problem. Contemplation is not the avoidance of the problem, but a daily merging with the problem, and finding some resolution. We quickly and humbly learn this lesson in contemplation: How we do anything is probably how we do everything. 

My walk in the woods isn’t me hiding from my day. It is me meeting my day. Slowly, peacefully, and inwardly.

This practice isn’t running from my problems. It is telling them, hold on. I know you are there, and this is how I will acknowledge you right now. By pressing pause. Not delete. Not escape.

Our problems, our responsibilities, our regrets, sorrows and angst will be with us when we sit on the cushion. They are there when we go for the morning walks. They have their own Savasana on the yoga mat. Because they understand this practice is for them, too.

When I see the permission sticks on my walks, I notice the bark that gently molts. And it offers me my own moments of molting. Where I get to strip my doubts, shed the worries and problems that plague my mind. For just a moment. I give myself permission to enter peace, in a place where no one is looking at me to keep the peace.

There is no expectation. There is just being.

Trees - they are always teaching me. May we all begin afresh, daily.

TELL US:

~Where and how do you devote time for you and you alone? How do you enter your days?

~Do you struggle with self-permission? Where can you allow yourself space to be with yourself, without the noise of obligations and ruminations?

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If you’re a new Subscriber to DARE TO BE DRY, hello! I’m so happy to have you here. I invite you to explore some of my earlier essays that connected with readers:

• My “hero post” explaining what my heart wants from this space and what it DARES TO BE

• Two of my most vulnerable essays letting you know I Was That Kind of Drinker and what I realized when I hit 1,000 days of sobriety

• Lately, I’m in a season of needing to be in nature. The pull is strong. I’m letting it pull me. It must have something to teach me. Here are two recent essays I wrote that stemmed from my time outdoors, wandering and wondering What if _____________? and Who Are Your Quiet Teachers?

BEFORE I GO:

Question: Do you like a challenge? I do! Would you like some accountability in regularly posting here on Substack? Me too. Check out the Sparkle on Substack Essay Club where you can find this cute badge:

All you have to do is commit to write (up to) 24 essays each by January 31st 2025. Here is my #14 of 24. Join

Claire Venus

and her fun vibe for some collective writing inspiration.

1. I may have just aged myself. Where have all the pin ball machines gone? Can they make a comeback, please. Skee Ball is still alive. Why did we retire the pin ball machine?