147. When you're in your head, return to your body.

I was deep in a valley and needed a way out.

We need to keep trusting and keep pushing when we’re in the valleys because the peaks will soon arrive.

I was sitting in the passenger seat of the car as I wrote this sentence down in my notes app. C said it to help me feel better. I felt like I was in a valley and all I could do was look up to see the sky above me with no idea how to get up to a peak. In reality, nothing had gone wrong and there was no problem that needed tending to, it was just my mind.

C and I decided to spend the day doing our favourite things: going to thrift stores, buying a sourdough baguette in the town bakery and buying fresh ham, cheese and butter to eat a sandwich in the middle of a field somewhere. In our relationship, I’m the one that’s never quiet. I’m always talking and it’s usually me thinking out loud, sharing thoughts and feelings seeing if any of the spoken topics sparks a special magic between us that leads us down a deep rabbit hole of connection; specifically when we’re in the car together. However, today I was quiet. I didn’t say anything and I kept all my thoughts to myself. I was in my head and just letting everything float through me without clinging on to any specific thought. “You’re in your head a lot today” forced me down from my floating cloud and brought me back into the car’s passenger seat. Did he really just say that? He’s noticed I’m different today? Of course he’s noticed, he’s spent every day with you for the past eight years. He put his hand on my leg as he said it, allowing me to return to my cloud but letting me know that he saw that I wasn’t acting like my cheerful energetic self. And I held his hand and thanked him silently for letting me be.

While these floating thoughts came to me, some of them stuck with me so I wrote them down in my notes app.

We think everything is permanent and that it will always be as it is today and it’s not true. 

When I’m at the bottom of a valley and life feels as heavy as the mountains around me, I think that I’m ruined. That life is now this heavy dark feeling. That I’ll never write again, I’ll never dance around the kitchen again while C cooks. That I’ll never see the sun make the trees and grass look greener in the garden. My luck has finally ended and all the good stuff I was allowed to have in this life has run out. I’m getting better at remembering that life comes in ebbs and flows and that nothing is static or permanent, no matter what our brains try to convince us of.

By ten p.m. I was caramelising onions in a pan, chopping tomatoes and grating cheese for our homemade tacos. I was smiling, singing and bending over laughing as I usually do. What happened to the valley? How did I get to the peak? I don’t know. That’s the thing, when you allow things to happen and don’t hold onto anything, you allow energy to flow, for things to move and as a result, your mood and your day to change.

After dinner I read one of

Ava

’s posts and one idea really stuck with me. It felt like she’d given me the key to unlock something deep inside of me just as my day in the valley was ending.

I tend to feel most creative when I’m in a physical, receptive state, paying attention to sights and sensations when I’m in a new country, running my fingers over tree bark while hiking, draping my leg over someone I love. Analyzing is all well and good, but the type of writing I do generally comes from a more emotional place, and I find that it’s very hard for me to decide what to write when I’m just sitting there fretting with no inspiration. —

bookbear express

As soon as I read that paragraph, I knew why I’d been feeling so stuck. It was because I was in my head, as C said. I think a lot up there, actually, I think at the speed of light, but nothing comes from it. Those thoughts take me deeper and deeper into myself, sometimes leaving me lost and wounded. But they seldom lead me to an action. Today, the sun came out and I’m on the highest of the peaks. I’m feeling the sun kiss my skin, the grass tickle my bare feet, my long hair moves in the wind against my back. I hear the wind move the tree tops, I hear the birds sing as I see them fly across the garden. My eyes feel drowned by the green colours everywhere, brighter than ever. I’m in my body, I’m connected to my five senses and I’m interpreting the world based on the stimuli I’m being handed. But when I’m floating on a cloud, all I see around me are more white clouds. It feels sterile and empty so my mind fills in the gaps with thought after thought. When I’m rooted in my body and down on Earth, every tiny thing I look at tells me a story and all I need to do is listen.

C has made a playlist on his Spotify called “I think Em likes these ones” because he knows how much I hate listening to Drake and all of that kind of music, so whenever I tap my foot, try to sing along or dance to a song, he adds it to his playlist knowing that whenever he plays those songs, I’ll throw my anchor into the water and stay next to him, grounded, rooted, listening and feeling. One of the songs that played, he sang to me:

And he was right, no matter what, we’ll be fine. We always have been and we always will be because life isn’t suddenly going to break and stop working. When we hit a valley, we think life itself has broken in two and that we’re doomed for all eternity, but before we realise, we’re already on our way up. Sometimes it takes longer than others.

This morning I woke up to a sunny day, a burst of energy and an hour's worth of cuddles in bed reminiscing over when we first met at the age of nineteen. We laughed about the weird but fun things we did together, over how we used to wear skinny jeans and have zero fashion sense, how we had very very little money and still went on crazy adventures… Life has always been full of valleys and peaks but I’m blessed to have someone that sings “you ain’t gotta worry sugar, we’ll be fine” to me from the top of a mountain.

STUFF I WANT TO SHARE ↓

1. Ava’s essay I mention is a gem, give it a read here: how to stay in your body by

   bookbear express

2. I really love

   Lloyd Kahn
   ’s newsletter and books (this is my boyfriend’s influence). His newsletter brings me such joy, he’s such an inspiring person full of wisdom and experience. Read his piece on building your own house in the middle of the current housing crisis here: Small Homes by
   Live From California with Lloyd Kahn

3. I really enjoyed this piece by

   Cody Cook-Parrott
   about paywalls on Substack, what they allow, what they take away, the pressure and the release they bring… Read it here: The blessing and the curse of the paywall by
   Monday Monday

4. Last week I wrote about my own identity crisis and the day before mine went live

   Sara Morín
   shared her own identity crisis. Maybe we all have one in reality? Read it here: ¿Y yo quién soy? by
   reburujina

5. I’ve been making porridge wrong my whole life and you probably have too. I don’t know about you but the recipes

   ROCKY
   writes about make my mouth water without having tasted them. Read it here: How to make traditional oats by
   WARKITCHEN