Are you sure I can't sprint?

There's that classic quote from Lao Tzu "The Journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step."  I'm at a point where I want to up the pace and maybe try to go at this journey at more of a sprint.  For the most part I tend to keep things at a reasonable pace but when I have a lot of things on my plate, I find myself overwhelmed by it all. I find a way to break things down into small steps, line up the to-do list, the "mental queue" that hangs over my head like I'm a Sim. I can bring order to the chaos but sometimes the chaos can get draining.

The root of my frustration is that frankly I feel like I'm still in my "pre-30-saturn-return-mental-board-meeting-of-the-soul(grief edition)" and that's been off and on for several months. I have a solid direction, new habits and goals lined up. I have awesome projects on the horizon. All that good stuff, but it's still a lot of change.

Meanwhile being a UU who practices Lent, as part of Lent I started taking a course on dailyom.com entitled "How to Communicate like a Buddhist."  The first week of the course focuses on being honest with oneself, acknowledging when we exaggerate or gossip, monitoring our negativity, all that good stuff. The course consists of a weekly audio lecture and then worksheets for everyday with morning meditations and stuff to look out for.

So the good news is, I am simultaneously finding all these patches of stress and anxiety in myself but also finding ways to sooth that out.

There was a quote that floated in my facebook feed the other day that said "anxiety is when you try to solve all the problems at once." That super resonated with me because that was my week. The moments when I panic the most are when I try to process my entire list of things before I've ben made my coffee. Really, I should know by now to not try to think to hard before coffee. =)

So I guess the lesson for myself this week is that yes the journey is composed of the small steps. It's about taking things a step at a time and focusing on the present moment. If you try to run too fast toward what you think is down the path, you'll soon have to stop and catch your breath anyway so it's better to keep at a steady pace. (Especially if the metaphorical runner is me. I don't run much).