April 15th, 2020

I am currently sitting in the heart of week five of quarantine. These past weeks have felt like a time warp and have been filled with much rest, reflection, and growth. 

The past ten years of my life have been filled with hyperactivity and an urge to produce and do more. It began in my escape to Nashville where I adopted the austere concern for constant spiritual and personal development. I was a baby, 18 and disjoined from "the world" and the womb of my family and community. I was gently held by my spiritual director as I learned the tenets of self-sacrifice, self-control, and a growing obsession with perfection and fear of myself. I look back in awe at my eighteen year old self because she passionately and quite naively dove into a religious life while my peers from high school were living the life of binge drinking and the social concern of being a freshman in college. My route wasn't necessarily better, it was just different. 

Those three years were filled with learning. I became a student of self-progress. I was constantly analyzing my motivations, my impulses, my thoughts, and my desires. I wanted to be perfect. I wanted to reach the highest rung of the spiritual ladder. That time made me realize that I have infinite potential living within me and it is my duty as a human to unlock those gifts and use them serve and grow. 

When my time in Nashville ended, I took those tenets of self-mastery with me. I worked for constant growth and betterment. I blasted through college by taking 21 credits at a time. I worked up to three jobs. I hit the ground running with my new skills and desire for growth. However, I had forgotten the other lesson that I had learned in the convent: the importance of rest, embracement, and retreat. 

This need for perfection and growth morphed into a restlessness and a fear of self. I over-worked myself and feared my faults. I found it hard to sit and meditate. I felt the impulse to be constantly producing and competing. I had lost the ability to rest and contemplate. I had forgotten the greatest gift that was given to me in Nashville: a love of myself. 

Fast forward ten years and I have been forced to rest. I have been placed in a state of retreat. These past five weeks have been the spiritual exercise that I have needed to reset and remember that my joy and contentment is not in my productivity, but in living in the moment of now. I've laid aside my to-do lists and welcoming the unknown in the present moment. I am learning to rest again and in that rest I am learning to love Brianna even when she not restlessly producing and chasing mastery.