I’m an impatient person by nature.

I hate waiting. I struggle with slowness. I get really frustrated when I feel stuck or stagnant.

Activity is my preferred state. I want to be flowing + moving + creating.

So when I felt stuck this morning, I felt annoyed.

But I took a moment to tune into that feeling of stuckness anyway.

I felt it in my throat and noticed it that looked + felt like a swamp: stagnant water.

Not exactly appealing + inviting, but as I sat with it, I began to notice how alive it felt.

And how that aliveness was buzzing with energy -- a different kind of movement + flow.

Which makes sense.

Because things have room to come alive in stillness + stagnant spaces.

When the energy is always rushing, there’s little room + space for seedlings to take root, for nourishment to be absorbed, for an ecosystem to emerge.

I saw that the stagnant water, which initially made me feel constricted + trapped, is actually a source of deep + magical fertility -- and a condition that makes aliveness possible.

It reminded me that stillness, stuckness, and stagnation aren’t necessarily a problem.

Maybe they’re simply invitations to slow down + allow aliveness to happen another way.

Maybe the energy doesn’t always need to flow.

Maybe we don’t always need to be on the move.

Maybe it’s perfectly normal + okay for our energy to pool + stagnate for a bit -- to just exist as it is.

And maybe -- like I experienced today -- the feelings + experiences we find most frustrating are actually showing up to help us come alive in a deeper way.

What might it look like to step toward them to find out?