On the site Createabalance.com, Stacey has invited bloggers to connect by writing essays on the theme of balance in their personal lives.

I would install a refresh button for my mind and body. What would it feel like if we had a “refresh button” for our minds?

On my computer if I think that something new may be in my Inbox or on the current internet page I just hit the refresh button. I make a conscious choice to do this because I am either hoping for something new or I am aware that what I am seeing on my screen may no long be the most up-to-date data.

For me, a refresh button holds more hope than “putting it all behind me” as if I can drop all that my body has encountered. This common piece of advice has undertones that:
a) somehow we can just wipe out old data (aka experiences) and start with a clean slate
b) that even difficult or challenging old data serves no purpose in our lives
c)that we can ignore what our body knows and holds in our cells, muscles, gut all about that experience and that ignoring it means that cellular bodily-felt data doesn’t exist for us really.

The internet metaphor holds more hope for me:

• I can refresh my experience and still be on the same page; in the refreshing I may see what is new just now
• I can acknowledge I have a “history folder” where all my experiences are recorded and filed
• I can acknowledge I have favourites pages

So, how would it feel to live remembering to refresh?

It might encourage me to notice how today is different from yesterday. I might notice that my partner is not in the same frame of mind even though I am carrying some of yesterday into today.

I might stop in the middle of a conversation or interpersonal encounter and refresh and then notice I am feeling different to when the conversation/encounter started or the other(s) are not doing/saying what I expected.

I might stop at some point in a habitual reaction and try and see if something new is here that shifts my experience. I might not load my normal program.

I might notice the play of light and shadow in my visual field or the shifting sounds around me. I might feel my body, how I am holding it, how it is connecting to the environment through touch, heat, movement.

I might use “refresh” to take a new, fresh breath to connect inwardly to how I am in there.

I might take something with which I feel familiar and perceive it in a new light.

I might reframe an experience by capturing more data.

What might you do if you had a refresh button?