Yesterday was one of those days. One part chaos, one part overwhelm, and before I knew it, frustration gave way to deep sadness. My tarot reading reflected a sense of heaviness before my day even began. I reached for a deck I haven’t worked with in quite some time, one I usually reserve for the autumn season, yet yesterday morning she seemed to call to me. After sitting with the reading for a few minutes, its message became clearer yet I still had a hard time embracing it. She’s an honest deck, one that doesn’t soften the truth, and perhaps I wasn’t quite prepared for what she had to say.

In any case, I moved through the day as usual — morning coffee, quiet ritual, and then the arduous process of setting up my sound equipment to record another mini sound journey for social media. Well… let’s just say things unraveled from there.

After hours of troubleshooting, I think I’ve identified at least part of the problem. I may need a higher quality condenser microphone, along with a much better understanding of audio mixing. The microphone I purchased, after much research and deliberation, is at best mid-range. My sound therapy mentor recommended a far more expensive model, one I probably should have waited and saved for. I finally got everything connected correctly, hit record, cautiously optimistic, and when I played the finished recording back… it sounded awful.

When I record, I have to wear headphones because no sound comes through the speakers directly during the recording process. Through the headphones, everything sounds one way. But once I export the recording as an MP3, it’s a completely different story — louder, filled with static in the background, and completely unlistenable. That the sound itself was louder, however, meant the microphone wasn’t necessarily the problem. More likely, it’s my lack of knowledge around audio mixing.

Ugh. I had convinced myself this would be easy because I’d produced a podcast years ago. Then I remembered something I’d conveniently forgotten — editing those episodes was painstaking work. This is more difficult than producing a podcast by far with my singing bowls strewn all over my tiny space floor and barely enough room to walk without knocking one over!

By late afternoon, I decided to call it quits. Every one of my 18 singing bowls, both crystal and Tibetan, had found its way onto the floor. I tiptoed carefully through my tiny space, mindful not to knock one over. A couple of months ago, I accidentally chipped one of my clear crystal bowls after clipping it as I stood up from the couch! Ouch, the whole set was a major investment.

Instead, I surrendered. I snuck into bed and took a long afternoon nap, something highly uncharacteristic for me. My body had been talking all day. I had simply been too distracted to listen. It wasn’t asking me to solve another damn problem. It was asking for rest.

I’m trying, with great difficulty, to slow down every day. To listen to my body. To trust my intuition. To spend less and less time on social media and to loosen the grip of pressure and expectation that the world seems to demand. It’s a daily practice. Some days it feels nearly impossible.

When I turn inward, I realize that I’m still deeply fatigued. Even small amounts of stress pull me back into the nervous system dysregulation that has shaped so much of my life. How can I invite others into rest if I haven’t fully embraced it myself? There’s no way around that truth. I must first tend to myself.

Yet I still can’t seem to escape the feeling of living inside a pressure cooker. The world is simply too loud. Notifications. Expectations. Constant urgency. Even my new neighbor’s child (one of three), whose daily tantrums spill through the walls, has become another reminder of how desperately I long for quiet.

I can’t escape the world around me. But I can control how I choose to connect with it. I’m still learning new ways to pause, be still, listen deeply, and be at peace with not accomplishing everything I think I should. For years, it’s felt like I’ve carried the weight of the world on my shoulders. These days, I’m seeking something radically different — more quiet, less noise, and the simple practice of being.

It’s a daily commitment, one I fall short of with some frequency. Perhaps that’s the practice.

May your day hold a little less noise, a little more joy, and moments of harmony that remind you to listen inward.

Photo by Kinga Howard on Unsplash