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The Grand Canyon State | ©️ 2019 Alicia Kae Miller
It has been intensely hot and humid for longer than usual, so every time the skies darken, as they did earlier, my desire for the crash, boom, bang of intense thunder, and lightning rises.
As I sat down to pen this month's Perspective, I had a solid plan for this reflection, but as the much-needed rain began to fall, I lost sight of my path of assumption. Once the pitter-pat picked up, I stopped and gave myself exactly sixty minutes of tech-free quiet time.
Outside of sleep, when was the last time that you sat silently with yourself for longer than five minutes?
Like the end of an incredible Texas thunderstorm, we introduce quietude when we forgo the theory of what we should be doing by allowing ourselves self-empathy through seeing, hearing, and understanding where we emotionally are.
Slipping into Zen mode, I thought about the good, bad, and ugly of solopreneurism and how an intentionally quiet July allowed me to be present and actively participate in life by reading print copies of the newspaper, getting lost in a good old-fashioned bookstore, and meeting with someone not to talk shop but rather catch up to catch up.
As my dear friend and I dove into the conversational deep end during said in-person coffee catch up, we reflected on how the journey of life is full of peaks and valleys. On that note, how often have you thought that a situation you were in would go a certain way, and what manifested was something you never envisioned for yourself?
Still, unbeknownst to you then, the course change is what you were looking for when you withheld judgment and lived in the moment.
Until we meet again, let empathy be your guide as you scale physical and metaphorical mountains. ❤️
Yours in Solidarity, -akm
August 2023