Hello hi.

Last week I had a migraine, and I took a 2.5 hour nap (which usually helps a lot) but after being awake again for half an hour, the migraine was back. So you know what I did? I turned the lights off in my family room, and lay myself flat on the ground. I was wearing a hoodie and some pyjama bottoms, and I took it upon myself to have an intimate concert for the audience of me, myself, and I. I turned on my favourite playlist (linking my Spotify here), and just sang to my heart’s content.

May I say that a) for some reason I sing better lying down, and b) it made me think about how amazing it is to just be still. Standing works, but sitting on the floor or lying on the floor, the effect is exponentially better.

I grew up in a family that pushed me to do a lot. Instead of giving me the chance to use my free time to do things that were “detrimental to my wellbeing” (i.e. being a regular child that does bad things at times), I’d have one activity or other scheduled. Be it karate, or swimming, or music, if I wasn’t at school or doing school work, I was busy. This started at quite an early age (probably age 9 or 10), and so by the time I graduated high school when I was 16, it had encoded into my very DNA. I needed my schedule to be packed in order to feel any remote form of productivity. I had adapted to thrive in the midst of busyness. It was kind of crazy how in grade 12 (my final year of high school) my parents decided to pull me from all activities bar music to “help me focus on my grades and prep for university”. I’d been in my peak academic form in grade 11, when I’d still done all of my activities. Being busy allowed me to compartmentalise my academics, and focus on something that wasn’t school when I was stressed. Personally, I think having an array of hobbies was veritably beneficial to my psyche, but no one listened to me, the 16 year old, when I told them I didn’t think it wise to cut me down to one activity. Up until then, I’d routinely had four, sometimes five, extracurriculars a week. You would’ve thought my parents were prepping me to get a full ride at an Ivy. When they said one activity, they truly meant it. I thought music would still include all music commitments, however, I was severely mistaken. I went from doing both orchestral music practice and individual lessons every week to only one private lesson a week.

I got my bittersweet vindication though in the form of some of the WORST academic stress of my life. I left high school no longer able to study effectively, and a master of procrastination. Before grade 12, I didn’t have TIME to procrastinate, and therefore worked smarter at all times. Going from having maybe 10 hours of free time a week to 8 hours free most DAYS, I felt like the floor had been pulled from me and I entered a place where there was too much time. Though my final year grades were still good (enough), they weren’t AS good as the year before. I literally didn’t know how to function, and I still don’t know how to function optimally when I have too much free time. A little glimmer of stress at all times? Chef’s kiss for me.

That being said, grade 12 taught me that even in the deepest pits of boredom, sometimes life can still overwhelm you, and you just can’t breathe properly. You get a migraine, you have an argument with somebody you care about, you simply need a break from everything happening around you (or to you). My way of combating these feelings is to take a nap (nothing can trouble you when you’re asleep), but there isn’t always the chance/ time to take one long enough for it to make a difference. And I refuse to waste a nap. It’s in those moments that I’ve started to sit on the floor. The sitting usually progresses into lying; it gives you time to focus on nothing but your breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Feeling the floor beneath you, feeling secure in the fact that for those moments, you don’t have to worry about holding yourself up. Don’t have to worry about falling any further.

Optimal results occur when done in solitude. There isn’t that anxiety of someone potentially walking in on you; wondering what you’re doing. An interruption will almost always be accompanied by an “are you okay?” in a time where you don’t want to speak about anything. When did people stop leaving others to rest? Was that even a thing that happened? I understand there being an innate curiosity; a natural concern for someone’s wellbeing, but sometimes leave people alone. Of course, it’s good to check their surroundings and make sure they aren’t in immediate danger. If they’re not, then come back and check on them later. If there’s something truly wrong (a danger to one’s health that isn’t visible), then it’s good to check back in, but those five minutes where you left (a healthy and overwhelmed) them alone can really make a difference.

As a frequent floor lay-er, I find there is such a peace that comes with it. It gives me the space to pray if I need to, not necessarily one of those reverential prayers either, but it’s nice to have a conversation with the only friend that can hear me at that moment. Sometimes I pray in my head, others out loud. It depends on whether or not I want to speak to myself out loud or not. Though I hold many conversations with myself, sometimes you’re just not in the mood to be overwhelmed out loud. Let me suffer in silence like a mysterious girl.

August was all about rest for me. Rest before I really get on my zoom in September and start being busy again. I will be thriving (at least, I hypothesise that I will be) but with that comes more chances of overwhelm, particularly in the beginning when I’m trying to acclimate to it again. There is a directly proportional increase in the amount of commitments and amount of time spent laying on the floor. If anyone is reading this and they feel overwhelmed in their life, I challenge you to sit on the floor in the dark and simply breathe. It’ll most likely give you the urge to lay on the floor, and, if the floor is clean, I implore you to give into that urge. Therapy also helps, but that stupefyingly inaccessible tool is another cause of overwhelm that I have no desire to go into right now. So, we’ll stick with laying on the floor for now.

Let me know how it goes. We all deserve to find our pockets of solitary rest in this society that never wants us to stop moving in the name of “progressing the community”. Breathe. Feel your breath, then do it again, and one last time.

That’s all.