Year of the Horse: What to Prioritize
By Alyssa, The Sunroom Collective
1. Let go of urgency, focus on patience and peace.
On a trip to Mexico a few years ago, I came across 3 wild horses slowly wandering open land- no urgency, no noise, just patience and peace. When we think of the horse, we usually first think of speed or fast movement, forgetting horses can also be gentle, patient, and incredibly present.
2. Pressure: give yourself grace, prioritize progress over perfection. The world’s tendency to put so much pressure on urgency and “perfection” can make us feel like we always need to be optimizing the most productivity out of every single moment, or that if we don’t hurry we’ll be left behind. We focus so much on how much we can get done at once, multitasking, how we can get to “the destination” the quickest, and criticizing ourselves for not being perfect- that we completely pull ourselves out of the present moment, the now. Then we blink and it’s all gone.
3. Presence: Be here now. We forget to stop and smell the flowers, to feel the suns’ warmth on our skin, to take in the shape of that weird looking cloud in the sky.. when we are only focusing on the destination, we miss out on the significance of the journey. And yes, the journey can sometimes be messy, painful, exhausting, and feel never-ending.. but it can also be beautiful- in how much we grew along the way, the souls we shared the experience with, the lessons we came to learn, the wisdom we came to know.. these experiences are what shape who we truly are. And at some point in time, you may even find yourself looking back, missing the journey- regretting not being more immersed in it.
So, my advice for you is to slow down, reject urgency, and give yourself grace. Even if it’s just for a day- be here now, before you miss it. Don’t move entirely out of obligation, or because you feel like “you have to.” Move out of love, passion, and let your inner fire carry you. It’s okay to slow down and take a breath. As the famous saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day. And if you’re new here, welcome to the Sunroom Collective.
