START OVER, EVEN IN THE SMALLEST WAY

Slow Rhythms, Prose:

While you weather the reality of a world that moves at an ever-accelerating pulse, may you know that any softer cadence you find,
even if it is only a single exhale, is not a wasted effort.

Perhaps every breath will not leave you feeling as if it is building up to something, but in those moments when you have become an enduring guest in your own mind, tirelessly and critically searching for all the ways you haven't been "keeping up," may that breath that escapes you be a reminder of the possibility of a gentle release, and what a gift it is to return to it again, and again, and again.

May the slower tempos find you in the pauses, the gaps, the quieter corners of existence, like a river meandering along its path across the vast plain, come and be here on the ground.

Starting Over in Small Ways

Here's to slower rhythms. Here's to moving through this new space slowly. Starting over doesn’t have to start all at once. You are allowed to start over in in seemingly small ways, too. A new day may not feel like very much, especially in situations where your routine looks a lot like it did yesterday and the day before. However, there are ways where the sunlight flickers through the morning window slightly differently than it did yesterday.

Even if it’s not easy to see this, or instantly grasp it as a "life lesson" to carry with you for the day, small opportunities to embrace newness are all around you. This is true even in intangible ways.

Noticing Small Shifts

Pay attention today if you happen to think of something that you hadn’t thought of in a while. Notice how the next conversation you have might change — even just a difference in a word or two — from how a similar conversation went the day before. Notice how, even though so many things feel the same, there are these small shifts, small examples of something new.

In the moment, they may not seem like much, and even years from now, you're not going to remember all of these little shifts. But this is what will remain true: you will have lived a life where there were small changes happening around you.

Of course, the larger changes will receive their much-needed attention. And, at the same time, in the in-betweens, there were opportunities to notice what might be a little bit different than it was before.

And perhaps, in creating space to notice the small things that are slightly different or new, you can create more room for awareness—noticing where there might be room to begin again, to start over, even in the smallest way.

More in this week's series called "Living Out Your Story Each Day", only with a subscription in the Storyteller App.

More tomorrow…
Sincerely,
Morgan Harper Nichols
@thestorytellerco
@morganharpernichols