Vertigo

As I’ve aged, I’ve gotten dizzier. It seems inadvisable to stand or turn around too quickly. Sometimes these bouts of dizziness culminate into a dramatic episode of vertigo where I cannot navigate my home, much less the world outside my front door. There is nothing to do but take my medication and lay down in a darkened room. I listen to audio books or music or silence. I rest. Eventually, it will pass.

Over the years I have come to realize that certain things can lead to these dysfunctional days that I cannot control like barometric weather changes, but some triggers are not part of the outer universe, but more a part of my own universe: being over-tired physically, stressed, not eating regularly, not getting enough sleep, not getting enough exercise can shift me off my internal axis. I lose my center when I stop taking care of me. Schedules, commitments, stresses become the focus of my days and can literally inhibit my ability to find a steady horizon to orient my direction. When my body has had enough of my foolishness, it shuts me down and forces its needs to the top of my to do list.

There in the dark, I realize all the pressing commitments are actually not that pressing. I let them go. Some tasks will wait patiently for me to stop spinning. Other tasks were never necessary at all. Finding the center can be about determining the necessary from the unnecessary, the life giving from the life taking, the renewing from the draining. Our center can call us to clear our calendars and lighten our load before we lose our way. 

~Lisa Kiel