Sometimes the world appears to conspire against us. We are humming along when a series of unconnected and unfortunate incidents strike in such a way and at such a time as to knock us from equilibrium and potentially send us sprawling.

You know how it is – winter decides not to end, something annoying happens at work, the cat…oh lord don’t get me started about the cat, the car has a costly problem, etc. etc.

These things on there own are usually very manageable and sometimes even altogether they can be conquered and moved past with barely a glance backward. But other times, when we are living as knife-edge people, its enough to tip you over.

When this happens a spiral often occurs that must be like free falling from an airplane and realizing your chute is not going to open in time. You can see the ground rushing up to meet you but you just don’t think you can do anything and so you resign yourself to the fate of crashing.

Thankfully you are not, in reality, free falling from a plane and you do have options in these moments. One of those options is to stop. Stopping is not rising…but importantly it is not falling either. It is a conscious (and often difficult) effort to place yourself into emotional suspended animation. In this time you have the opportunity to take stock of things – it is an opportunity to remind yourself that despite the load you are carrying there are good things happening in you, to you and around you…this is an effort at hope. Not manufacturing hope but discovering it…mining it and putting it on display in a way that dispels the weight…it makes it manageable until it has been carried.

We all do different things in this moment – some of us sing, some simply exist and observe, some of us write blog posts…all of these are efforts at re-engaging an engine that has stalled somewhere deep inside of us…that engine that keeps us looking up and moving forward.

I remind myself very intentionally that I am loved. In a myriad and variety of ways I am loved and loved deeply. I remind myself that I am capable of carrying the load and that there are people who actually want me to ask them for help so I don’t have to do it alone. With my eyes open I begin also to see that there is beauty in the world if I take the time to look for it and beauty suggests a deeper and more enduring hope is happening in ways I cannot understand but can participate in.

Through these thoughts and efforts the sun begins to peek through the clouds and I can begin my descent to earth knowing that I don’t need the chute anymore because I can fly.