The old rules no longer apply…

My heart rate is dropping. This may seem inconsequential, but stay with me here for a minute. For as long as I can remember, my resting heart rate was well into the 90's. And while it was worrisome to others, it was- in my mind- just the way my body worked.

A couple weeks ago I was at a routine check up and my heart rate was 78: essentially meditative for me.

Oddly I never put the pieces together.
I never connected survival and the sympathetic nervous system.

Ironic, I know, because I teach it nearly every day.

The sympathetic nervous system- as opposed to the rest and digest parasympathetic response-
…increases heart rate
…reduces quality of sleep
…lowers body temperature
…decreases digestion
…skyrockets anxiousness

Basically, it keeps your body prepared for battle.

And for decades, warrior-up was my perpetual instinct. Except for the times “mask-up” became the secondary response.

Both of which hijacked memories and multiple stretches of my life.

Except…

recently I’ve found myself navigating overgrown trails that feel all together foreign, yet there’s something vaguely familiar about them- a comfort like I’m once again 15 eating a 1am grilled cheese and fries at Denny’s.

And in this time since I’ve laid down my sword, I never stopped to recognize or acknowledge that I’m really fucking hungry.

Through all these years of warrioring and masking and protecting and surviving…

I found order and peace in routine.
Schedules.
Time-blocking and checklisting my way through chaos.

Life lived predictably.

Even though I’m always eager to try new restaurants, explore off-beat cities, and embark on unfamiliar adventures-

I can’t deny my involuntary response to emotional discomfort and vulnerability…

rearranging and predicting exactly what’s ahead until I believe “oh I’ve seen this before, I know what to do.”

And then realizing… the fuck you do.

Admitting that this is subtle,
this is a tremor very different than anything I’ve seen before.

I find myself instinctively zipping myself up in self-protection rather than trusting the “genuine delight, right there in the circumstances we don’t expect and sure as heck can’t predict.”

Maybe I’m trying to recreate the overgrown path that makes seeing right in front of me- let alone beyond the bend impossible

But then the words reverberate…

“Today isn’t a dress rehearsal for the life or love or wealth or world you envision…”

The next path, peak, or journey all require reframing what I thought I knew- how I’ve previously responded.

The same holds true for the courage necessary to envision possibility…

a space where I find myself realizing that knee-jerk responses don’t apply…
a space where I have to detour around automatic impulse.

A space that’s neither familiar nor comfortable.

So sometimes this means spending a little time taking a breath, looking around, and figuring out why I’m here…

and sometimes, if luck is in the cards, it means there might be an extra pair of hands willing to help clear the brush to make navigating the path a little less terrifying.

Because when the old rules no longer apply, the old limitations don’t either.