As I write this, it has been a long night of rain and thunderstorms. Our little rescue dog woke up at 4 AM shaking with fear with the thunder; sleep would have to wait. I am looking out from our kitchen table over the pastures seeing the green of spring and waiting for things to dry a bit to take our horses out. I am waiting this morning, just as today is a day of waiting in the Christian calendar for Easter tomorrow.

Every year I find the period of Holy Week hard. I am not sure why, but it always feels like a week that is tumultuous internally as I wrestle with myself, wrestle with the things I wish I could change about myself or whatever is happening and often feel deeply attacked spiritually. It’s a week of sacred work, but all on the inside so no one knows except me. Sometimes I can feel like a butterfly ready to emerge. Perhaps that is part of the Easter cycle, of the seasonal cycle, of being human.

Are you also in a period of waiting?

Maybe you are waiting for something to happen with a job or housing.
Maybe you are waiting to see if something your child is going through is a developmental phase or something more.

Maybe you are waiting and trying to envision new ways of holding outer routines, outer responses to family dynamics.

Maybe you are waiting on forming or implementing large changes in yourself and your family, whether on a physical level such as forming healthier habits for you and your family, or changing something internally about yourself.

I see you.

I think the things that are healthiest for ourselves is also healthiest for our families and supports and nourishes all the members of our household no matter what our struggles. If we get enough sleep, eat healthy whole foods, get sunshine and physical movement, cut down screen time (or, in the case of children, cut the screens out), connect with and love one another, find a way to nurture ourselves physically; then most things seem to go better or at least we are in a position to respond to things better.

Learning to calm ourselves is a large task as many of us feel anxious, depressed, or possibly even angry about things in our lives or with people in our lives. Finding connections and boundaries to support ourselves is wholly human and fundamental.

So, in this period of waiting before Easter, I am wishing you love, support, healthy habits, connection.

Many blessings on this day of waiting,

Carrie