The Time Is Now (Yes, Right Now)

“Even if I knew tomorrow that the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.”—Martin Luther

When I graduated college, I experienced an extreme amount of anxiety, which eventually developed into pretty debilitating OCD. I struggled to get through the day most days, and I felt as though my life and body were hijacked by all of these external events, that it was my job to control and worry. I didn’t take care of anything—my physical body, my mind, my work, my family, my house, nothing. I put off everything. EVERYTHING.

At night, I would lie in my bed and pray. My prayers had strings attached. I would say, “Please God, if you would just resolve/end/make better this [insert situation here], then I promise I won’t worry about anything ever again. If you will just take care of this one [external person/circumstance/event], I won’t ask for or worry about anything else ever again.”

Only that never worked—there was always, always, always something else.

I was asleep. I was living in a dream where external events, real and mostly made up, dictated my wellbeing. I was paralyzed by them. I couldn’t put one foot in front of the other until things were “all better” and taken care of.

I say this because some of you may be feeling this way right now. You maybe be subconsciously or consciously thinking and believing that until the pandemic is over, and things are back to normal, and all better, that you aren’t really, TRULY going to live your life. That everything is being suspended in a thick brain fog, or on hold until this passes. I know that feeling so well and so deeply. I thankfully also know the pure freedom that lies on the other side of that thinking.

Yes, I know things right now aren’t how most of us want them to be. But that’s not a reason to give up. This is an invitation to come back to the world of the living and back to what it means to have true health and vitality in EVERY SINGLE PART of your life. To not simply try to survive with this cloud hanging over you, chronically in fight or flight. There is a whole world out here waiting for you to come back and share the gift of being you. Don’t put it off another day: Show up for your life and plant that tree!