Nestle, don't wrestle.

So, I think a lot. Now these thoughts aren't necessarily brilliant or even coherent, but they're there nonetheless, spinning about and making a ruckus at times. For someone with such a liberal arts, anti-math/logic type brain, I tend to analyze and re-analyze things. It's hard to turn off.

Most of the time, this thinking is good for the type of work I do. Other times it is tiresome and I wish I could venture into that foreign place that my guy friends call "the nothing box". You know, the place you go where your thoughts stop and you just zone out for awhile? Yeah, I've never experienced it either, but it sure sounds nice.

Awhile ago, I was talking with a good friend about my thought processes, and she said, "Well, you certainly know how to wrestle. Maybe it's time you nestle." I blinked a few times, "Do what now?" My genius friend went on to explain that I wrestle with problems, curiosities, and the like, going over them again and again hoping to make sense of them. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it just gives me a headache. "That's when you nestle," she said. "Quit wrestling with yourself."

Huh. She had a great point, a point that reminded me of some other advice given to me by a fellow counselor. He told me, "Brittany, you can't be in the problem and the solution at the same time. Stop thinking so much."

Now the first part of that advice was useful, whereas the second half seemed as absurd as telling me, "stop listening to music" or "hey, you know that breathing thing you do? Cut it out". That absurdity aside, the advice was quite good. I needed to let go of the swirling thoughts, step away from the stress and nestle...

...Which is how I found myself spending this weekend alternating laying in the sun and playing in the rain. When life amped up again this afternoon, I got swept up in the wrestling, and had to remind myself, "Hey! Go nestle." So after finishing my latest wrestling match, I threw on my running shoes and ran in the peaceful quiet of my dark neighborhood. I ran past deer, saw the 5 stars that are visible in the city sky, and let my thoughts slow down. And guess what happened after that? I actually found some clarity. Yay!

Balancing wrestling and nestling is an art that I'm still working on, but it is oh-so necessary. I'm very thankful for all the ways God gives us to nestle - prayer, fellowship, meditation, nature, reading - and hope to strike that balance between work and rest.

"Nestle, don't wrestle." Hmm... maybe I should get that stitched on a pillow. Or tattooed somewhere. Or put on a t-shirt? Bumper sticker? Oh, dangit. I'm doing it again. I think I'm going to go nestle in that great unconscious gift known as sleep. Buenas noches.

No one can get inner peace by pouncing on it. ~Harry Emerson