Looking up into the night, my eyes start tracing over the stars painted in the sky. As my eyes adjust to the dark, I'm able to notice so much more than I did at first glance. I'm able to see the faint flicker of a star in some far off place that just wanted to make an appearance, so I knew it was there. My breath slows as I start connecting the stars to my thoughts. Oh, how simple that moment is, and in that moment nothing else matters. My thoughts organized and addressed to each star in the sky so my mind is free. I need moments like these more often.

You see, sometimes life seems a little too overwhelming. Like when my glass isn't half empty, my glass is ready to overflow in the form of tears. In those moments I find myself wanting to feel grounded, connected to something. I think the universe has a funny way of hitting me over the head sometimes and knocking me down. Then I realize it's so that I will be still. To take in the beauty of nature around me, and realize how small my problems are.

My favorite getaway is a small park near my house. There's just something about the way the path turns, the sound the breeze makes when it kisses the trees, and the way the creek trickles so elegantly. When the treetops overlap, they create the most unique kaleidoscope I've ever seen. I have walked that path so many times that I wonder what the trees know about me.

Sometimes it's the beach that understands me. The way the air smells the way a warm blanket wrapped around my shoulders feels. The sound of the water dancing across the sand, reminding me that my worries can wash away too. The way the waves come in, but the tide goes out like the water knows when I need natures own metaphors.

When panic sets in the body can choose three things: fight, flight or freeze. I used to think freezing was not an acceptable course of action, but it's come to save me from my panic attacks. I freeze not in the sense of numbing myself, but in a way that I let the universe take my breath away before resetting it. The moon has a way of changing my anxiety from a wolf howling at it, to a bunny in the garden.

I wonder what kind of world we'd live in if everyone just took even 5 minutes out of their day to just freeze.