Eddy Out, Eddy In
It is valuable to take the time to breathe and get to know ourselves well enough to know how we relax and find peace. We need to realize that finding rest is an important practice, and it is the key to our personal and relational health
By Chad Vankoughnett, Representative
There are few things I enjoy doing more than canoeing in white water. There is nothing better than the spray of the water and the rush of the wind as you find the perfect line through the rapids.
I’ve been canoeing for years, and one of the first (and most important) things I learned when I started white-water canoeing was how to find places to rest. Canoeing through white water is chaotic, exhausting, and disorienting, and it is easy to lose track of where you intended to go. That makes finding places to rest and reorient important.
There is an interesting feature to moving water called an eddy. When water travels around a rock in the middle of the river, it creates an area of calm right behind the rock. In fact, the water behind the rock actually moves upriver, against the flow. That means that you can tuck yourself in behind the rock (eddy out), and the current will keep you in place so you can take a deep breath, reset, and get reoriented before you head back out onto the water (eddy in).
These days, with the uncertainty and challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us find ourselves feeling like we’re stuck in a kind of holding pattern. Life in these times is a lot like white-water canoeing, filled with chaos and challenges. It is exhausting, and it is easy to get disoriented and lose sight of the path we originally intended to take when things are suddenly out of our control. It is important to find opportunities to rest, relax, and refocus, even in the midst of the anxiety that accompanies this pandemic.
Whatever it is that we do to relax and find restoration, we need to be intentional about it. Just like eddying out, we need to make it happen. Maybe it means playing video games or watching a few episodes on Netflix. Maybe it’s doing an at-home workout, some spring cleaning, taking the dogs for a walk, Skyping a far-away friend, picking up an old hobby, or just spending quality time with the kids.
Doing the things that we know refresh us can take discipline. Having the opportunity to learn to better care for ourselves and each other in these difficult times is perhaps a silver lining amid calls for self-isolating and social distancing. Caring for our physical, emotional, and mental health now will help prepare us make that launch back into the current of our lives.
It is valuable to take the time to breathe and get to know ourselves well enough to know how we relax and find peace. We need to realize that finding rest is an important practice, and it is the key to our personal and relational health.
Often, the challenge for all of us is to find a place to eddy out—to escape the chaos of the lives we lead and find rest and personal restoration. Especially in these times, we need to be compassionate to ourselves, so we can eddy back in and help others find peace amid the waves and currents around us.