In December I was given some news that caused immediate anxiety because I knew that this would affect me for at least the first few months of 2022. It didn’t help that the news was delivered during a bleak winter pandemic (yep, still a “pandemic” two years later).
After allowing myself to react and let out the first emotions, I decided to prescribe myself a trip to the beach. I did this because I knew the beach could be a way to reset and allow myself to enter 2022 with a solid mind and strong foundation. The beach would be my medication.
I booked the trip for the first week of January and from the moment I arrived, I knew that I had made the right decision. The condo my friend and I booked looked out over an inland bay. This bay was packed full of birds: pairs of large brown pelicans, snowy egrets with wispy overcoats, scarecrow-like double-crested cormorants with their wings raised to the sun, ospreys with giant talons gripping shiny fish, and squeaky piping plovers arguing over their muddy fiefdoms. Every day, with coffee in hand, we would watch the tide roll in and out, exposing the rich muck beneath and the endless buffet for these birds. This view was rich with routine, rich with life – and that was calming.
My friend had to work the first full day, so I packed up and walked to the beach across the street by myself. As I sat in my chair, I felt some anxiety naturally rise as thoughts turned to the new year, but I focused on the sounds and sights of the salty waves and miraculously, my heartrate felt as if it was syncing with the rhythm of the ocean. The spikes of anxiety got smaller and smaller until they erased. The soft breeze off the water calmed my nerves. The ocean was healing me.
As the trip came to an end later in the week, not only did I feel that I had worked out some of the initial trauma, I also felt strength that I could face the new year. I had found a magical elixir in the rooted mangroves, the cotton candy sunsets, the salt, the sand, and by being surrounded by the core elements of life on Earth in their purest form. When I feel anxiety rise again, I know I can guide myself back to these images (and one day the destination!) again and I would be OK.
Things That Spark 