Monty sleeping next to Mardigan. 

A while back, I read an article about how owning cats can reduce stress. That there’s something soothing about seeing cats at rest or when you feel their purr on your chest, resonating with your heartbeat. Perhaps that natural frequency of the purring reverberates through your body, helping it to relax muscles usually constricted by the cortisol surge anxiety can often incite. Petting cats also slows breathing and heart rate, helping worry to dissipate.

Monty lives a tough life. 

What’s strange about humans as opposed to cats is that we create stress for ourselves, that we feel powerless or fear judgment or failure. I know I talk a good game sometimes that I have a growth mindset, trying to remind myself that failure yields wisdom (which it, of course, does), but the perfectionist in me emerges, worrying about letting people down. Or I fear that I will misplace trust, based on past hurts or trauma.

I need to slow down and just… BE. You know, like cats just… ARE. I need to find that coveted, absolute state of contentment.

Cuddle buddies. 

And it’s not like my family or friends or even colleagues stop caring about me when I do fail. I’m the one who cuts off, retracting into the tortoise shell of introversion.

Maybe it’s the gravitas of a larger mission, a life or professional calling, that makes me worry that I’ll fail at my life’s purpose? By all measures, I’ve been a very fortunate person, and I am grateful, don’t get me wrong. Yet it’s this hard-wired anxiety that surfaces when the stakes increase in my career. Especially when paired with so many changes over the past three months–a new job, leaving the farm, moving across country, being away from the people I’ve known all my life, setting up with a new doctor, adjusting to a new culture, having to earn people’s trust all over again from square one.

Montoya. 

Maybe I can learn from cats that sense of inner calm and trust, the one which I envy when I see them sleeping. Just exert radical acceptance in my life to accept the things I cannot change. Have the humility to admit my shortcomings and failures. Take that leap of faith that all things work together for good.

These writing exercises will help me get there.