The Reset Button

Life has been up and down and all over the place. As usual.

A couple of months ago my son began cycling again. Not talking about getting on a road bike but cycles that take him out of commission and render him housebound, sometimes bed bound, for days at a time.  Over the years I’ve shared a lot about this on my autism blog. Recently, we had a surprise event added to the mix when he woke up unable to swallow.  Things progressed rapidly from there. He (we) ended up in the ICU with a breathing tube because of an allergic reaction to an unknown.

The final outcome was a full recovery and the memory of a big scare. He recovered. I recovered. We all recovered. And just a few days later, my husband and I were off to Denver to visit our daughter and son in law. I was grateful for unintended timing.

I pushed that big beautiful reset button and there I was in the Rocky Mountains with people who occupy the space closest to my heart. Hiking, biking, relaxing, eating, connecting, reading, sleeping all with much less responsibility than my usual. I soaked it up like a dry sponge.

I returned to my life in Phoenix with my battery fully recharged. I was able to see a few things I was up in a panic about from a new settled down perspective. The trip was a definite reboot to my system enabling my thinking to slow way down. When thinking slows down, new wisdom has room to seep in.

I’ve recently been more aware of what my reset buttons are and their effects on me.  They are not all as dramatic as four days in Denver but they serve a similar purpose. A five minute meditation can be a powerful reset even when my thoughts don’t seem to want to quiet down. Five deep breaths can have a similar effect. I once had a client tell me those five breaths I start coaching with were the most powerful part of the conversation.

A yoga class, a walk, reading something inspirational, slowing down to enjoy my food, getting a good night’s sleep or a deep ten minute nap or rest, reading a good fiction book, playing with my puppy.  Reset buttons slow me down and draw me into the present moment.

I am finding lately that I need to restart my computer every few days. In its advanced years, it just can’t handle the amount of things I tend to leave open and running. After awhile, it nearly stalls completely. Those opens tabs are like the thoughts in my mind that keep repeating and repeating and going nowhere. They tend to stall the engines of well being.

When I hit the reset button, thoughts slow down. I slow down. When I rev back up again, life is a different color. And when life changes color, shift happens.