{via etsy by bomobob}

Right now I’m taking Rachel’s excellent Ease Hunting course, where we’re focusing on finding ease, space and sanctuary in our everyday. So lately I’ve been paying more attention to how I move throughout my days and how I naturally seek and find ease.

One thing I’ve realized: Ease definitely doesn’t come naturally to me. As a highly sensitive person, I’m easily overwhelmed by my environment.

I’m bothered by bright lights, big crowds and loud noises. I’m easily startled. I’m extra sensitive to scary or violent movies or images, so if I see something, I just can’t shake it off. (Even my favorite shows “Castle” and “Elementary” can sometimes be too much.)

While ease isn’t automatically accessible to me, I’ve also noticed that there are still many ways I find space and sanctuary.

For instance, I:

• listen to classical music.
• find moments of gratitude (this project has been helping). And remind myself how lucky I am to be doing what I love — and doing it from my home office (or really anywhere in the world).
• write on my parent’s patio.
• write in OmmWriter, a program with a very soothing environment.
• use Freedom, a program that blocks the Internet for a specified time. (Something else I’ve learned, over the years: Unfortunately, I get distracted very easily!)
• wear headphones while I write, even if I’m not listening to any music. Something about the headphones covering my ears helps to drown out the noise and focus inward.
• wind down before bed by reading something soothing (which I don’t do nearly enough).
• laugh.
• spot when I’ve reached my limit and seek quiet asap. Even closing my ears with my fingers, and taking a few deep breaths helps a lot. (Hopefully, this doesn’t sound as odd as I think it does.)
• marvel at anything and everything in sight: sunshine, trees, art, a book; and remember all the work and magic that went into creating and building all these things.

There are many, many ways we can find ease in our everyday. We likely have ease in our lives already. And that means we can build on these moments.

Sometimes, some days, ease is tougher to find. So we need to look a little harder. And that’s OK. It’s there, just waiting to be uncovered.

What does ease mean to you? How do you find ease in your everyday?

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    Last reviewed: 8 Feb 2013