When those crazy bad things happen, our lives sometimes seem to stop for a while. And they need to, most of the time, so we can process whatever happened, allowing the mind to put it in the perspective of our lives, and help us understand what is means to us. But we’re still living, still having experiences, and some of them are good things. In the context of a recent negative experience, though, those good things, little or small, seem so out of place. After all, this big bad thing just happened; how can we find the space for good?

But these experiences are just there, for our taking, for our evaluating, and for our incorporation into our lives. The bad experiences don’t make the good ones any less, and the good ones don’t make the bad ones any better. If we can honor that duality – that good and bad will occur simultaneously, and inexplicably – we won’t lessen the impact of the bad, but can move forward with both good and bad, big and small, happy and unhappy all at the same time. Respecting the breadth of our experiences, we can at least see middle, even when we can’t quite live in that space at the time.

Most of us overschedule ourselves, or at least try to. It may be that you find you’re always going from one scheduled activity to another, or that you just don’t have time to “be” because little things keep coming up. Either way, you feel too obligated, too pressured to slow down. But are you really? Do you actually need to be doing all of those things? Is it really your own need that has you doing all that, or is it something else, something external?

It’s not that there is any one right answer, but something we have to figure out for ourselves.

Pregnancy is one of those times that really forces you to re-evaluate these things, as your body, your baby, needs more from you than you might have had time to give, previously. If only we can remember those things we learned once the kid is older!

As yoga encourages us to study ourselves, these times provide excellent opportunity to examine our role in bringing about the drama.  Do we need the whirlwind as big as it is?  Do we need the compression as tight as it is?  To what can we say “no, you know what; this really *can* wait.  the consequences are ok to deal with”?  And to what do we say “this really does need attention, right now, regardless of these other things that are going on”?

This has come up in my life, as the culmination of the details of a layoff, my puppy’s surgery, and the decision on a major teacher training.   Never mind the complete mess I’ve left behind in the kitchen for my husband, never mind the grocery shopping undone.  Nor all the tasks I have at work and in my business after work.  It makes for quite a whirlwind.

But when I ask myself, in the moment, what is really important?  What can’t wait?  The answers become rather clear.  That doesn’t mean that there isn’t still a messy whirlwind of life compression to deal with.  But you only have the crucial, vital stuff left.  And that becomes easier.  Not easy.  Never easy.  Just easier.