Corinne Vance enjoying some down time in a Puerto Vallarta, Mexico spa. Photo credit: DELTA BOHEMIAN
By Corinne Vance
Take a second to breath: Close your eyes, clear your mind and take one of those deep breaths that hisses through the nostrils and fills the belly. Now hold it!
Enjoy, be thankful for, and recognize this moment when your mind doesn’t have to take notice about anything except for the oxygen spreading through your body giving cells life. Then, very slowly, release.
From every minute to the next I spend my days with a frenzied and frantic mind—Planning, scheduling and making a mental ‘to do’ list. Conservations hurried and enjoyable experiences cut short for the purpose of making it to the next ‘obligation’ on time.
Corinne Vance face painting at Coahoma County High School. Photo credit: Troy Catchings
During my day-to-day life, the awareness of my body and the way I am treating it, along with taking the time to enjoy the moment I am in, get pushed to the bottom of the sacred ‘to do’ list, forgotten. Until I take that deep breath, then none of those worries matter anymore, and I am an empty mind of ecstasy.
That deep breath gets all the credit for my sanity. It is the very reason my anxiety stays at bay and I put making time to “laugh and smile” at the top of my list.
Busy has become the new lazy, making demanding and hectic schedules the norm. ‘Busy’ is a black hole tempting and pulling at us with all its might. He is greedy and wants you all to himself, refusing to share you with any of the people who were once worthy of your ‘precious’ time—pre-black hole. ‘I am busy. I don’t have time for you and I don’t have time for myself.’ Well, it’s about time we make time!
Being busy is overrated, but that does not change the fact that it is a tough thing to avoid. With the world spinning in a thousand different directions all around, it is difficult to not get caught in the swift current.
Corinne Vance on a Mississippi River sandbar. Photo credit: DELTA BOHEMIAN
When the ‘to do’ list is lengthy, it is hard to justify putting everything on the back burner to make time to do nothing, but it is the best move one can make.
The busier I get, the more I try to accomplish everything on my own leading to my stress level spiking, panic attacks ready to ambush and the contents in my fridge disappearing at record speed.
Truth is, no matter how hard I try or how many of hours of sleep I don’t get, I cannot do it all on my own. There comes a point when I have to give my stress up to the Lord, give my body a rest and take that deep breath. Sanity is sacred; a ‘to do’ list is not.
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