Meandering Through Big Bear

{Half way through the drive via Instagram}

Happy Monday! How was your weekend? I hope it was a rejuvenating one. This past weekend, I totally checked out and used it to decompress a little. After my week ended, I found it very difficult maintaining a measure of serenity. Many factors played into making this a very mentally and emotionally draining week, which ultimately induced stress. Granted, in itself stress is not bad. It can gear us up to meet challenge. In life-threatening situations, stress has enabled people to perform feats they would never have believed they were capable of. On many occasions, I’ve had certain assignments when stress generated a surge of adrenaline that enabled me to carry out the task on time and efficiently (Kudos to  me…gotta do it, cause no one else will.) The downside to stress however, is when it becomes an unrelenting feeling where the mind/body fail to relax – that’s when I know it’s time to take action to remedy the situation before it becomes overwhelming. You see, unharnessed stress is the number one threat to our health and well-being if left unchecked. I’ve never been one to allow myself to get to a breaking point before I do something. “A wise person is one who sees the calamity and runs from it…” So to avoid getting to that state, the hubby and I took a nice long drive in the opposite direction of crazy gridlock traffic, to a place that’s been on our bucket list to visit for many years – Big Bear mountain. Naturally, we took a load of pictures. Please indulge me as I relive the day by sharing some of the photos with you. Really, what choice do you have? {giggles}…

As we drove away from the L.A. noise and chaos, I immediately felt at peace. Cruising around twisty,snakelike roads through the misty mountains, climbing through the clouds up to 7000 feet above sea level seemed to decompress my soul and melt away my stress. Even when I lost phone service, it was such a liberating feeling; I was completely detached from the anxiety of the outside world. And then I thought, ummm, what if there’s a bear and we need help?!?!?. These thoughts always seem to run through my mind every time we’re in the midst of these majestic mountains of California. The great thing was, as we drove through these mountains, lots of fond memories of familiar places flooded my mind. When we broke through the cloud on the top of the mountain closer to the lake – the tall pine trees and jagged mountains graced with cabin like houses perched on those high slopes reminded us of Mount Charleston, NV….

All the little quaint antique stores/thrift shops added to the sweet memories of being back home on the East Coast – specifically South Hampton (which is part of NY state called Long Island and not NYC). I just love the feel of small quaint towns and villages. They bring me such a level of comfort that just makes my heart swell with joy. And of course, I picked up some treasures up there. I’ll share those in my grateful moments post on Friday, so check back soon.

The benefit of taking time to observe nature always helps me to appreciate the awesomeness (a word that takes on a real meaning when describing the creator of it all) of its creator who gives us such beauty for our pleasure. So many don’t care about him and are not thankful, yet he allows it all to still exist despite the masses that curse him, despise him and say he doesn’t exist. Such self-control on his part teaches me two things: that (1) even if I’m viewed as “unimportant” in the eyes of others, that God (who is the most powerful being in the universe), he too, is considered unimportant in the eyes of many, and (2) that no matter how unkind others are, it doesn’t give me an excuse to be unkind. Eventually, it will all pay off in the end!

Also, as I was writing this, I thought: ‘but how about you – my readers?’ What can you do to relieve stress? In order to keep this post from being more ginormous than it already is, I decided it would be best to write an entire post on some of my other tips on how to de-stress – ten of them to be exact, that I’ll post this week. Don’t forget to subscribe to my blog so you can get them immediately as I post them. Thank you for reading.

Xo,

Rebecca