In her new book, Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change, Pema Chodron writes about an author who talks about “humans as transitional beings—beings who are neither fully caught nor fully free…” Pema says, “I find it helpful to think of myself this way. I’m in the process of evolving. I’m neither doomed nor completely free, but I’m creating my future with every word, every action, every thought. I find myself in a very dynamic situation with unimaginable potential. I have all the support I need to simply relax and be with the transitional, in-process quality of my life. ”

Yesterday was my first day off without big projects to finish or open houses to plan. I felt like a combination of a giddy six-year old that was skipping first grade and an old retired lady who was scared of a boring, meaningless existence.

I have an intensely restless spirit, and whenever things calm down, I get terrified. Calm and peace are ideas that I love in theory, but in reality and in practice, they scare me. There’s something very exciting about running frantically from one activity to the next, which is probably why I’ve done it for so long.

Stress and busyness can be a huge distraction from dealing with our fears and the mystery and uncertainty of life. It’s scary to think about the impermanence of things. But I also believe there’s an unimaginable freedom that comes from facing it head on.

Even with my restlessness and the small internal war that was happening inside me, yesterday was an awesome day, and I hope to continue to ask myself the question, “Are you doing this because you love it and because it makes you feel more alive, or are you doing this to run from something that scares you?”

And I hope that once my life is centered around the things I love the most, rather than avoiding what I’m afraid of, maybe that’s where I’ll find the freedom I’m searching for.

I think there’s freedom to be found in accepting the human conundrum of being caught somewhere between complete freedom and complete stuck-ness! And it’s amazing to think about how we create our own futures with every moment we live, every belief we manifest, and every connection we make.