Each of these is a short practice, no more than 15 minutes, based on the idea that multiple sensory inputs can get in each others’ way. I want to share a few strategies that work for me, help me find a bit of perspective, slow me down enough that I can reconnect with my inner life, that part of me whose cries for attention are too often drowned out by the squeaky wheel. Now, as I feel the urge to get on that hamster wheel again, I ask myself what I can do to gently press that pause button before the forces of the universe that call for sanity, balance and safety do it for me. The universe had pushed the pause button. What followed was surgery, hospitalization, new chunks of metal holding bits of my broken bones together and long, painful physical therapy. Then I broke my leg while bicycling slowly through my neighborhood. A work situation went sour, closing off an avenue of professional satisfaction. My computer crashed beyond repair, swallowing masses of work, irretrievably.
Faster and faster I go….until….Ī few years ago, in the midst of one of what I have come to call my “hamster wheel” phases, the universe intervened. Phone calls require time and information, cars break down, health crises arise, the blaring news cycle claims my attention with warnings of social collapse, environmental disaster and political shenanigans.
Sometimes life is like that, challenges arise unexpectedly, interrupting the usually already fast pace of life with new demands. So I move forward, unable to slow down, just to avoid getting pitched off by the inevitable thrust of centrifugal force. The wheel is coming at me, faster and faster, requiring me to move at the pace it has set. I get on my little hamster wheel, running faster and faster, that squeaky wheel reminding me that if I really want to get something-anything-done, I need to keep running faster and faster.īut when the wheel starts turning very quickly, there’s no way to get off safely. Sometimes I feel like a hamster–whiskers twitching (metaphorically), I explore relentlessly, in an almost manic state, seeking after something and then immediately racing after something else.
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