My crystal and gemstone turtle collection.
They were freshly charged during the full moon.
I must be a slow learner regarding my path on this journey in this lifetime. My spirit guides and power animals are probably sick and tired of trying to get this lesson across.
I have different power animals for different lessons. Sometimes, they all try to get the same lesson through my thick head. Like this one.
Turtle is my primary or constant power animal. In my “letting go of worrying” lesson, Hawk and Wolf recently tried. I understood what they were saying, but being able to let go of my constant worrying is something else.
A few years ago, I learned about giving your worries to God or the universe. I’ve posted that at bedtime when my worries flood my mind, I would tie a balloon string to each of them and watch them float away.
While this has helped a lot over the last ten years, I now find myself back to giving away each of my worries a few times a day. I thought I had this; it turns out I don’t. I was a bundle of anxiety that was getting out of control again.
It took a visit with Turtle on Thursday afternoon while I was meditating to learn another piece of this lesson. I always thought I had Turtle as a spirit animal because I was always fast and on the go. This was true, or so I thought.
What I learned the other day wasn’t about how physically fast I was but how fast my thoughts and worries were. Hmmm? 🤔
Turtle is always gentle and friendly with me. He may not look like a creature giving you the warm fuzzies, but his personality does. Then this happened.
Turtle sternly told me I was NOT living in the now, even though I thought I did sometimes. Not at all. I must say to you, I was surprised by his frankness; Hawk must be rubbing off on him.
I asked him why in a defensive way. It’s what I do when I know I will be proved wrong. He was more than ready to do so. My ears were wide open for this lesson.
He started by saying I’ve come a long way in this life experience, but I still didn’t have the not worrying thing down yet, by any stretch of the imagination. OK, now what?
He said in a now gentle voice, “By giving away your worries one by one, you aren’t able to live in the now.” It started to make sense at that point. Listing off my worries numerous times of the day was the opposite of living in the now.
He continued by telling me my worries are about past and future things that I fear. We all do that, don’t we, even if we don’t talk about it?
To live in the now, I need to give whatever worry I have at that very moment. For example, in the waiting room of a doctor’s office, I can give away my concern about the appointment and the outcome, not all week or month like I was doing.
This made perfect sense to me now. A lightbulb went off in my head; Turtle was correct on all levels! I’ve been able to convert to this more straightforward than I imagined. Here is what is working for me.
I can wish myself and my family to be safe and get a good night’s sleep at bedtime. Period. Nothing else. I can disregard any other thoughts by saying to myself, no!
This is true during the daytime as well. When worrying thoughts enter my head, I focus on what I am doing at that very moment, like yesterday when I was washing the livingroom windows and window treatments.
These two stared at me most of the time I was cleaning. 😂
I focused on how clean the windows were and how fresh and clean the curtains smelled. While prepping and cooking dinner last night, I focused on the knifework, smell, and taste. I didn’t let any negative thoughts take up any head space.
If you are a worrier like me, this may be something for you, or everyone, to take a hard look at. It takes a lot of training, but I am slowly getting it. I am saying no often, but it’s getting easier.
I know I may not be ready for another lesson until I learn this one. I feel less anxious and calmer by practicing this new way of thinking. I can do this, especially for my health’s sake.
Of course, you can plan, make reservations, and have an agenda or goals for yourself in the future; you just aren’t worrying about it all week or month. This is a massive thing for me; whenever I added something to my planner, I started worrying about it.
I hope this is something for you worriers to think about and try. It is truly working for me. I know that another part of my spiritual journey is to teach people what I learn and share it with them.
Thank you, my sweet Turtle friend! 💚