Let Go and Breathe

My ski instructor looked at me with a puzzled expression. "Why do you have such a look of consternation on your face?"

"I am overwhelmed with trying to process everything you've told me today, and everything other skiers have told me in the past, and there are just so many words, and they get jumbled in my brain, and all I want to do is ski. It would help me so much if I could just WATCH you ski instead of listening to you talk about it."

"Why didn't you say that in the first place?" He adjusted his goggles, and took off down the hill. I tightened my grip on my poles, and followed him. As we traversed back and forth down the hill, my face broke out into a huge smile. I was skiing! My skiing improved dramatically from that point. So did my mood. 

I've always been a kinesthetic learner. Tell me; I may not understand.  Show me; there's a good chance I'll get it. One of my shortcomings is over-thinking things. The more I think, the more my mental state gets tied in knots. 

Today, while skiing, it's like my brain could NOT multitask while my body was skiing. I needed to let go all of the verbage and just do it; let go, and breathe. In a sense, this whole downhill skiing experience was a metaphor for my life. 

As I went shush-shush-shushing down the hill (the sound my mind thinks when I'm trying to think without words), as long as I was feeling the sensation of my shins pressed against my boots, and my eyes kept ahead of me on the slope, I got lost in the moment, and felt complete bliss. But if I started reminding myself of each of the physical tasks I was trying to incorporate simultaneously, I would go cartwheeling down the hill. The less I analyze things, the closer I get to Zen moments; in skiing, and in life.

Sometimes the hardest thing I have to remember is to let go and breathe.