Your Daily Brush: Pursuing Calm by Pursuing Dust Bunnies
Inner peace isn’t always about stillness. Sometimes, it’s found in actions such vacuuming the floor, washing dishes and other ways of creating order in one small corner of your life.
Dear Friends,
Do you ever feel overwhelmed by all the troubling news on TV, websites, and newsflashes that come through uninvited on your phone?
It is easy to let these things intrude into our sense of calm and affect our feelings of wellbeing.
Here is one way to draw healthy boundaries: by shifting focus to doing something tangible and, in so doing, controlling what we can.
For one of my former professors, it was washing dishes. They said it was the most tangible thing in their day of endless tasks… The dishes had a finite beginning and end and it certainly was a lot faster than writing a paper for publication, or even grading student papers.
For me, along with doing dishes, it is vacuuming the floor. There is something soothing about cleaning and watching the dust bunnies disappear. (For non-U.S. readers, please rest assured, no animals are harmed! "Dust bunny" is a slang term for clumps of dust that form when regular cleaning gets delayed.)
As I often say to people in my meditation classes, you don't have to go to a monastery to experience the peace and calm of meditation. Just chop vegetables. Or just wash dishes. Or maybe fold some laundry.
Regardless of the simple task, the main thing is that you embrace it with a sense of peace and calm. Don't rush to get it over with so you can move on to another task.
Immerse yourself fully into the present moment. And allow your body to shift gears, especially if you are in nonstop hyperdrive mode, like so many people who juggle work and family responsibilities.
Use this time to breathe easily and expansively. Notice the colors and textures of the laundry you are folding. Notice the water and soap suds as you wash dishes. Enjoy the thrill of suctioning balls of dust or sweeping them into a dustpan! Notice the colors and textures of the vegetables you are chopping.
What else can you think of in your daily life that you can do for five or ten minutes, or maybe even longer, to help you connect with a sense of accomplishment and a sense of calm?
Rx: The next time you feel a sense of overwhelm about world events, turn inward for a few minutes and seek to create order in some small corner of your life. This is one way you can plant and water the seeds of peace; and this is mental hygiene.
To your health!
