My word of the year group met last night, despite the thundersnow storm, and we did a meditative exercise — we asked our hearts a question. First, we needed to find a question. Do you really want the answer to this question? our gentle leader asked. As instructed, each of us tried to clarify our own question. And then we closed our eyes and lowered our questions down to our hearts, and let them go.

We sat in silence, meditating as we wished, for 15 minutes. At first my mind was jumping all around, trying to get the wording just right on my question. But the right wording never quite materialized, so I dropped down a plea: What do I value? What matters to me, heart? Then I tried to follow the instructions and let the question go. Goodbye question. Off you go.

I began breathing in for a count of four, retaining breath for a count of four, breathing out for a count of four, holding at the bottom of the breath for a count of four — box breath, I’ve heard this called; I’ve been practicing it off and on for over a decade. This breathing pattern helps my body to relax, which helps my mind to relax. I’ve even tried it in the middle of the night for insomnia. And it does seem to stall a spiralling of 3AM thoughts — or any version of busy-mind thoughts, relentlessly turning around and around, scrabbling for answers in the walls of the mind. Breath is powerful.

After some minutes in box breath, I saw in my mind’s eye the library where I’ve been working regularly for a few months, the desk behind which I sit. A memory from the day unfolded, and I saw a child standing at the desk. I heard our conversation. Tears flowed down my cheeks through closed eyelids. That was all. Outside my friend’s house, a neighbour with a snowblower was clearing the sidewalk; I felt comfortable and relaxed, warm, calm. When the timer chimed, I took off my glasses and wiped my face, and we wrote in our journals for a little while.

Do you trust your heart? Do I trust mine? When something unexpected invites an emotional response, do I pay attention to the cues? Does my response say more about how I’ve been socialized, my unconscious biases, my hangups and desires than about some pure and true core of self singing? I am sentimental about things that do not make me proud. For example, I habitually prefer to see myself in the role of “helper.” Is this why the library image moved me? Or was it something else — or that, but also something else?

I do like to help people. I especially like solving small problems. That’s not what this image showed me, however. I wasn’t solving a small problem, I was listening to a little story. Brief window. Glimpse. Delight and joy animating a child’s face.

I like considering that there is a “wise watcher” within me, paying attention, ever-present, not judging, not criticizing, just watching. I think this wise watcher’s calm presence supercedes my interior critic, if given the chance. With practice, I hear her voice more clearly than the clamouring cruel critic who also takes an observer’s role (the voice I connect to shame, to roiling stomach, closed-up throat). Maybe this wise watcher is connected to my heart. I would like to imagine that. The wise watcher is the calm presence in the room of the self. I would like to imagine that everyone has a wise watcher within themselves. Everyone has a quiet place of respite that belongs only to them.

In writing this out, I sense what matters to me — that I nurture the capacity to embody the wise watcher, to be a calm presence in the room. Not directing, not manipulating, not telling, not wanting, just requesting permission to be present, and to be with.

Work that invites me closer to this possibility? My heart overflows with thanks.

xo, Carrie