GENTLE THREADS

It may seem disjointed, unusual, confusing, to choose to pause one career in pursuit of another way to live, but there's a thread that gently and caringly draws each decision together. One pivot opening into the next, experiencing an internal world I hadn't noticed before, new emotions I was feeling and beginning to respond to.

"I don't know what to do", I would say. "It's ok", she would answer, "each time you try something, you get closer to what IT is".

To not be afraid to give that one next step a go, to have an experience, learn from it, reflect, understand myself with that little more clarity, and try again. To do that without judging, shaming or criticising. No easy way forward.

So here I write, as a qualified experienced Speech and Language Therapist, pausing practice to pursue a new direction. Also a qualified Hill and Moorland Leader, with the same amount of love for hills and landscapes, and desire to share them with others as I've always had. Time is my current elusive character, how I use it, value it, need it. One day I know walking as a collective will find a way back. The experience of becoming and sharing spaces as an outdoors instructor gave me skills to share the hills safely with my family, friends, community, and to plan routes and activities in a way that pulled my previous experience together. Language, communication, relationships, expressing the joy of learning at any age through adventure.

Yet, it's the feeling I get when my breathing becomes steady, untethered, there's ease. And with that my heart rate slows, it's rhythm less urgent, a steadiness to it's beating. At these times I begin to notice what's in my thoughts, what's moving through my mind. Sometimes thoughts begin with pace, in the quiet activity I can hear them loudly. Now I also know it's another moment to choose my response. Agency. Here I have choice, sometimes I catch the moment, sometimes I don't and the thoughts run unabandoned. It's in the steadying of my breath, my heart rate, that I begin to feel I can consider my options.

For me that ability to discover bodily steadiness comes in nature. Early on I found it in hills, landscapes, walking trails, and I still do turn to my boots. In recent years I have found it in growing. A stable sense in my body and my mind has come through action, movement in relationship to nature. It can be found in sitting immersed in it, yet also rediscovered in my partnering with it. However we find that quiet confidence, whatever activity feels most comfortable to us as individuals is a personal action. There's also burning embers of deep joy in there, playfulness, expressivness, why not follow those too?

There's always more than one way to find solutions, problem solving can be a creative act, one without absolutes, finding beauty and interest in difference, and joy in shared knowledge. For me, hands in the soil, in the earth, and I can at this point lift my head and say, "I know what it is I wish to do".