Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Discernment

What's the bold action for this moment? By bold, I don't necessarily mean flamboyant or loud. I mean taking the most direct road to where I want to be--and doing it without obsessing over it or second-guessing myself.

Here's the moment in question: I'm suddenly depressed (since Friday morning), mysteriously losing too much hair, and have also lost a surprising amount of weight (7 lbs in a week and a half.) I expected to lose some weight because I was teaching writing at a fitness spa, Rancho La Puerta, for a week of that time. So I ate healthy and worked out a lot. But I didn't expect to lose that much.

At first I thought I was just having back-to-the-desk letdown. But that doesn't cause weight loss.

What I've done so far: checked with my hairdresser yesterday morning and found that she too noted some missing hairs, called my doctor, went in and got a thyroid blood test in the afternoon, am now waiting to hear from test in a couple of days. So far so good, on the boldness front.

Now it's Wednesday morning and my impulse is to lie down on the floor and close my eyes.

Is that the boldly effective move? Will it help? Or is it better to keep working?

Sometimes making the bold move isn't the hard part. Instead the trick is to figure out what that move is.

Buddhism teaches sticking to right thought, right speech, right action, etc. I'd like to have a sort of pocket calculator that tells in any given moment what the right move (or lack of move) is. But I haven't yet seen one in any of the gadget catalogs.