It took an ambush by a seemingly out of control virus to show me I was just that: out…of…control. OK, I’ll admit that sounds a little (or a lot) dramatic and egocentric. But, to be honest (and when I turn to writing, it’s with the intention to be wide open and completely honest), when I look back with space and time between me and how I was operating pre pandemic (never thought I’d type that one), that is exactly how it feels…dramatic and sad…and somehow empty. From the objective observer, I’d guess that 2019 would look like a pretty great year for me, but I’m already crying as I sit with my computer typing these words and reflecting on that time. In the span of that year, I watched my little brother (whom I’ve called “my little preshie” for the past almost 38 years) run a countywide campaign to become a family court judge with integrity and grace. I was fortunate enough to take meaningful trips that allowed me to spend one on one time with family members I don’t often get to myself. Completely out of the blue, I was presented with the opportunity to appear on local TV shows, both to offer my professional take on current topics…and to be my quirky, silly self while discussing lighter topics. For a girl (OK, woman) who used to dream of having her own talk show, in some ways, it felt like everything was coming together. I was watching friends and family flourish. My psychology practice was beyond what I thought my maximum capacity would ever be. I felt like I was helping even more people by teaching my yoga and meditation classes. Everything was coming together…while I was silently falling apart.

As all of this was going on, I just kept moving…faster and faster. When presented with time to sit and rest, I chose to move and do. You’d like to see me weekly and like early appointments? How about Friday at 7:00 AM?  Why lie down and read when there is laundry to be folded? The thing is, I know looking back that I did not feel like there was a choice in this movement, this “going.” Now, before you wonder if I was manic, I’ll stop you right there. There was no mania present. I was deeply tired…almost all of the time. It was like the “going” was accompanied by a “knowing,” where I knew I needed to rest, but I just couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t stop. Of course, there were many signs that I needed to. In August, I woke up very early due to cramps and accidentally took 800 mg of Advil PM instead of regular Advil. I didn’t realize it until about two hours later when I was driving 30 minutes to a 6:15 a.m. yoga class and realized that my body, which usually feels light and quick, felt heavy and slow. Still, I pushed through. I went to yoga, went home, got ready, went to the office, and saw nine people with no break and then did an online Akashic records reading. Not surprisingly, in that reading, it was confirmed that I knew what I needed to do and just needed (unfilled) space to do it. In November, I spent a wonderful Sunday with my husband, brother, sister-in-law, and two beautiful nephews whom I adore. I had practiced power yoga in the morning and intended to take a yin class that night…but I missed class after waking up draped over the bed, feet on the floor, shoes and coat still on, and a basket of clean laundry next to me. Just a few days later, I got up at 3:30 a.m. and went to my office, came home, curled into a ball on my bed and sobbed, telling my husband I didn’t know if I could go to Costa Rica (we were to leave for the airport in about 15 minutes)…there was so much to do and I was so tired. Thankfully, I got up and went (that was a good “going”). In December, I embarked on a 300 hour advanced yoga teacher training with an Ayurveda Immersion. As I sat in the workshop and wrote about what I wanted to take with me, I cried as I realized how controlled and rigid my thoughts about eating had become, how I was just not nourishing myself. So, I made a few changes to how I was eating…and kept going. The day after Christmas, my little preshie was sworn in as a judge in the Court of Common Pleas, and I left the celebratory luncheon early, because I had to get to my office. Oh yeah—I forgot the part where I got pulled over twice for speeding…by the same officer! He was very kind and almost apologetic both times. I rolled the dice on take two and confessed to him that he had pulled me over just a month or so prior and that I already had a date with the magistrate. He let me go with a warning that time, and I told him the universe had been sending me multiple messages that I needed to slow down. Those words actually came out of my mouth…and apparently vanished into the ether. Well, I did slow down my driving, but I still…kept…going…yes, there was a nagging knowing that I needed to stop…but I still…kept…going.

In early January, I was in a car accident leaving my office late one Thursday night. I don’t clearly remember what happened, other than worrying about my precious cargo, my elderly dog, who has been my faithful companion for the past 17 years, the constant witness to who I am and how I live, and also being grateful that the impact was on the driver’s side of my car while she sat in her bag in the passenger’s seat. Besides significant damage to my car, everyone and everything was fine…but I became almost obsessed with the insurance company’s ruling that I was at fault. Did I miss something? Did I not stop long enough? What if this really was my fault, and I could have hurt someone? While everyone, including my sweet, old girl, was fine, I couldn’t shake the thought that I did something awful. The outcome almost didn’t matter. I can’t say I replayed the accident, because I don’t remember it…but I tortured myself with what if’s…and also wondered if things would’ve been better had things been worse. If you’ve ever been truly depressed, you know what I mean

The accident occurred between weeks one and two of my Reiki Master training. Yes…another certification…another thing to do…another way to help. While I cried during group shares, I jumped on the table the first chance I got…and, one by one, the women around me retreated to the bathroom, needing breaks from working on me, while I just felt lighter and lighter…finally allowing myself, my soul to rest on that table…well, maybe for 30 minutes or so. Again, I just…kept…going. I scheduled between 35 and 40 people per week, practiced yoga and meditation everyday, taught meditation once per month, and packed my weekends with everything I couldn’t fit in through the week. I scheduled more trainings toward my 300 hr certification. I smiled and laughed on camera and shared myself in every way that I could…well…almost.

I didn’t share that that hollow feeling that comes with depression had started creeping back in…the crying that I hated and worked so hard to conceal as a child had come back. I tried to hide it when the slightest (probably unintended) slight landed like a gut punch. I retreated into myself until I wasn’t sure how much of myself was left. Part of me wanted somebody, anybody to recognize what was happening. I would hint to people that I wasn’t quite OK…and then deny it when questioned further. I think I was shocked and confused. I was shocked that after years, decades even of being OK, that my most worthy opponent, depression, could make its way back. Not to me…not to the psychologist…the yogi…the meditator…the girl (OK, woman) with the unbridled laugh and smiling eyes. It was confusing, because the smiles were real. The belly laughs were real. The hugs and kisses were real and warm. The pleasure and gratitude and excitement and love…they were all real too. It was like if I admitted that anything was wrong, all of the things that were right would be erased. So…I just…kept…going.

And then the world came to a screeching halt as covid-19 dominated the news, first abroad and then at home. On Friday, March 13th (how appropriate), I did the last live, in person show on the local channel with which I was now affiliated. We joked and also talked seriously about what might be to come. On Saturday, March 14th, I started to cry before teaching my morning yoga class, where we had to limit class size (and send people away) and not offer hands on assists. By Sunday, March 15th, the studio where I teach was closed indefinitely, and I was figuring out the best way to offer psychotherapy through a global pandemic. Just a few days later, I decided to move to all online sessions in order to be as safe as possible. While it seemed like the world was gripped by fear, I started to feel…oh my goddess…relief.

Now, don’t get me wrong…there was a lot of fear…my parents were still in Florida and unsure of the best course of action in terms of sheltering there or making their way back to Pennsylvania. My husband’s business took a huge hit, and when it will be back to where it was is still largely uncertain. The insurance companies were making things up as they went along…just like everyone else. Workdays were long and grueling. I was both witness to and participant in the strangest time I’d encountered…and I couldn’t hug, or even see for a while, pretty much anyone but my husband. I was watching the death toll rise, feeling the anxiety rise, witnessing people report hopelessness like never before. At times, it felt like the most bizarre Groundhog Day experience imaginable. Time somehow dragged on and flew by. What started as just two weeks went to 5 weeks…and beyond. I felt exhausted…and relieved that the universe had doubled down on my stubborn going and given me the space, the time for the wise knowing to grow.

I need to take a moment (or more) to acknowledge my privilege in all of this. Despite some added time and administrative tasks, I was able to not miss a beat in terms of my work as a psychologist. Even though I was seeing people virtually, I still went to my office everyday…so I alternated between my beautiful home and my beautiful second home, my office. While we are down to about half our typical income, my husband and I are financially pretty secure. We had everything we needed, including toilet paper. Most importantly, my family and friends stayed safe and healthy. Without that last one, I can truly say the rest just does not mean anything to me.

As I continued to work through my privileged quarantine existence, I observed patients’ old patterns coming back. Issues they hadn’t experienced in years resurfaced with a vengeance. It was like the pandemic and quarantine experience held up a mirror to our lives…but it was a funhouse mirror, with everything distorted. I should mention that I wasn’t immune to this. As I watched patterns reemerge for others, I noticed that when not occupied by work, I was thinking about food and my weight in ways that I hadn’t since I was a teenager. I was analyzing text messages and conversations with others, terrified and, sometimes, convinced that I had said the wrong thing. When given so much time and space, my mind was filling in blanks with stories about how awful I was and how people were just being kind to me because they pitied me. Yes, I know how ridiculous that sounds…I can see it now. That’s the other thing this gift of time and space in my privileged quarantine existence has provided…time and space to nourish the knowing as the going was forced to shelter in place.

Even with spending 11 or 12 hours at my office some days, I had much more time at home. As the going slowed down and the knowing grew, I started to do the previously unthinkable…I started to cook…regularly. To me, and I think to many others, my mother is the ultimate mother. With our last name being Stewart, the comparisons to another, famous Stewart are inevitable, and I must say, I doubt Martha has much on Karen. She is an excellent cook and baker and inimitable hostess. Somehow, I convinced myself that I have inherited only very limited parts of that from my mother…that I can make things look pretty, make people feel comfortable, but I just can’t cook. With restaurants closed and time to explore how my kitchen works versus how it looks, I decided to test my hypothesis that I couldn’t cook. My Instagram feed expanded beyond friends, yoga, travel, and meditation to include vegetarian and vegan recipes, and I saved recipes that looked good (and simple) between appointments, early in the morning, late at night. I ordered spices and waited in line at the grocery store to gather materials to start to gather data to test my hypothesis. A few weeks later, the verdict was in… not only could I cook, but I could cook things my husband and I could eat…and like! And, I could make it beautiful! And…oh my goddess…I enjoyed it!

Yes, it really was that exciting for me. As I sat with patients and stared through a screen, hoping to exude some semblance of the warmth they reportedly feel in my office, and we collaboratively worked with and through what was happening (or, in many cases, not happening) for them and in the world around us, something was happening for me too. As I, for maybe the first time in my life, worked on truly nourishing my body, and the going slowed down and the knowing grew, I started to see more clearly the ways I had abandoned myself. Going has become my default…and, unfortunately, it is easily justified! Who doesn’t want to make more money, help more people, do more things? Yes, this is easily justified, but it is not natural. It is not me. It is a conditioned response to the world around me. It is a symptom of me losing myself, my core as I got caught up in the whirlwind of a life that I had half created and half let happen. And, this didn’t just happen in 2019…I don’t know when it started exactly, but the knowing tells me it’s been a long process and part of me knew it was happening all along.

It was the knowing that guided me first to my yoga asana practice and then my meditation practice…The knowing was whispering to me to slow down and feel into the space these practices provide. It nudged me to simultaneously dive deeper into the teachings and openly, and quite honestly, anxiously, share my meditation practice through livestreams as we remained quarantined at home. On Sunday evenings, I headed back to my office, to the meditation room I renovated with the intention to use for in person classes…that was now my personal (semi) hot yoga studio, meditation space…and meditation broadcast studio. I set up my computer and phone on blocks, a pouf, and a bench and hoped that my words would reach across space and time, wrapped in care and calm, and land wherever they were needed. I closed my eyes and felt the infinite knowing. Each time I opened my eyes, there was another insight, another pattern I saw.

These patterns I saw in myself were all connected to the going and the knowing…and the connection between the two. The knowing is spacious and timeless and wise and restful and always enough. The going is frantic and fraught and somehow both wild and restricted. It is uncomfortable and unhealthy to say the least. The going approaches time as an enemy, a commodity of which I’ll never have enough. I realize that in the out of control going, I never felt like I had enough time. By going…and going…and going, I lost myself in the delusion that I could control time, have time, make time by filling it. The thing is, we never really have time, and we cannot make it. We simply either make the choice to take it or allow it to be taken from us and the people and things we truly love, the pointers to the knowing. If we don’t take time to slow down and eventually stop (at least for a while), the knowing cannot be felt; it cannot grow. Time at rest is the oxygen of the knowing, and I was suffocating it by constantly going. I don’t know how long this change of pace will be forced upon me, but I know now that I have a choice. I always did. The choice is actually quite simple: choose the going or choose the knowing.