The Extraordinary Ordinary

In a world that can often feel heavy and uncertain, it’s easy to get caught in the noise of headlines, social media, and the pressures of everyday life. But what if the moments that help steady us are the ones we’re most likely to overlook?

In this episode of Becoming Lotus, Tamara reflects on the quiet power of the extraordinary ordinary — the small, often unnoticed moments that can shift our perspective and restore a sense of balance.

From the simple act of listening to birds on a spring morning, to the unexpected healing found in pulling invasive weeds during a difficult season of grief, Tamara explores how nature, pause, and presence can help us reclaim our footing when life feels uncertain.

Drawing inspiration from the writings of Anne Frank during World War II, this episode reminds us that even in the darkest chapters of history, people have found ways to notice the beauty that still remains.

If the world has been feeling heavy lately, this conversation is an invitation to slow down, look up, step outside, and tune into a different frequency — the one where the extraordinary ordinary lives.

Because even the smallest moments can be opportunities to make it count.

Until next time—keep rising, keep blooming, and keep soaking it all in. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Becoming Lotus. I'm Tamara O'Shaughnessy. And this is a space where we share stories, insight, and perspective, with the hope that somewhere along the way there's a moment of insight and that something resonates with you. Stories have a way of finding the people who need them. And one of the things that never ceases to amaze me about this podcast is what happens after the episodes go out into the world. Pretty much every single time I've shared a story, you know, whether that's my own personal one or it's one that I've retold that someone else has shared with me, I receive some sort of feedback. Whether that's in an email or a message through social media, the messages are always fairly similar. That spoke to me. I needed to hear that. I needed that little reminder. Someone who recognized themselves in a moment that I described. Someone who needed to hear exactly that story at exactly that time. And every single time that happens, it reminds me of why I keep doing this. Because we never really know who might be listening. We never really know when a simple story, something ordinary, something honest, might be exactly what someone else needs in that moment. And that's exactly what today's episode is about. This particular episode came to me this week when I sat in the early morning hours before the light even started to poke through. Oh, my extraordinary, ordinary morning routine. Those glorious first sips of coffee that help to awaken and fire up the mind before the journal even gets opened. But then something really amazing happened. I heard them. After months and months of a long, friggin, cold, quiet winter, they were back. They were serenading me, calling me to open that window. I hopped up immediately and I cracked it wide open. And I took a deep inhale and just let the sounds of the spring birds flood into me. Oh my gosh, the feeling infused into every single cell of my body. Nature's magic concoction. Those few moments of pause, of soaking it all in, actually changed the trajectory of my day, filled me with inspiration and creativity and a sense of renewal that somehow spring always delivers on. So I sat back down and I opened my journal and I feverishly wrote about how easy it would have been to have missed this, how easy it would have been to rush through the morning routine, easy to overlook once I scrolled past the headlines about wars and falling markets, rising oil prices, and the uncertainty of the world as it stands right now. And you know, in recent weeks, I've spoken to a number of people on both sides of the globe who seem to really be struggling. The world just feels so heavy right now. And it's easy to get caught up in the noise that is screaming at us from all directions, the news, the mixed messages of social media, an algorithm that continues to feed our fears, our anxieties, and even our belief in ourselves. But there's a beautiful contrast that sits quietly right alongside that, waiting for us to discover it. While the world shouts, the extraordinary, ordinary whispers. It's always there. We just need to tune in to its frequency. We just need to change the channel. But most of us miss the whisper because we're too busy listening to the shouting. And it reminded me of what happened during COVID. You know, when the world shut down, people were forced back into their own little worlds. And many of them rediscovered things that had quietly disappeared from their lives. Walking, cooking, gardening, reading, creating resilience started showing up in very ordinary places. And something else happened too. Even in the middle of all of that uncertainty, life kept moving forward. Businesses were started, people still fell in love, babies were still being born. Ideas that had been sitting quietly on the shelf for years suddenly came to life. Because life doesn't pause while the world sorts itself out. It keeps unfolding. And sometimes in the most unexpected places. I think back to just after my husband died. We were still in lockdown. My mind was filled with noise, filled with uncertainty. I needed an outlet to take back control. And I found it while staring out of my kitchen window in the mass of tall weeds that were growing all along the perimeter of my property. Fucking garlic mustard. I needed something to control, so I started pulling weeds for hours and hours. Mindless physical labor. I tuned into the sounds all around me, and that helped me to tune out the noise inside me. Nature became my healer. Silence became my healer. Physical exertion became my healer. And somewhere in the middle of pulling all those weeds, I found my power again. I found my creativity again. And you know, it sounds like such an ordinary moment, and to a certain extent, it was. I was really just pulling weeds, but it turned out to be extraordinary. Our lives are filled with weeds, worry, noise, comparison, distraction, endless headlines, fears about things that we can't control. And if we leave those things long enough, they start to take over. They crowd out presence and joy and creativity and resilience and clarity and even hope. And there is a hidden metaphor here. Garlic mustard is an invasive plant. It spreads quickly and quietly. It takes over space. And if you ignore it long enough, it crowds out everything else that should be growing there. And the only way to deal with it is simple. But it takes effort. You pull it out by the roots. Not once, but over and over and over again. What I did without even realizing it was something so powerful. I reclaimed a small patch of ground in my mind that I could stand on physically, mentally, emotionally, I pulled the weeds and in doing so regained my steadiness, control of one small piece of my world. Our bodies respond to nature in so many measurable ways. You know, research showing that when our bodies make direct contact with the earth through our feet, through our hands, or even just sitting on the ground, we connect with the earth's natural electrical field. Some people call it grounding, some people call it earthing. The earth carries a subtle energy. And when we reconnect with it, our bodies begin to naturally rebalance themselves. And I didn't know any of that when I was pulling garlic mustard weeds for hours that afternoon. But it makes perfect sense, doesn't it? My hands were in the soil, my body was moving, my nervous system calmed, and my mind finally quieted. Our bodies regulate themselves through contact with the natural world, biological restoration. These opportunities, these moments are happening all around us. They're always there. Whether it's the walk that clears our mind, the workout that shifts our energy, the conversation that grounds us, the morning rooster that wakes us up before dawn, or the birds outside your window on a spring morning. The extraordinary ordinary continues to show up for us every single day. If we're willing to notice it. When we really pay attention to them, they are the moments that shape our lives. They are the moments that quietly ask us if we're truly alive. Are we present enough to feel them? Are we letting them fuel us? Because once we start to notice them, something happens. We start living more intentionally. We are a little more awake. We are a little more alive, a little more in control. And we realize that even the smallest moments are opportunities to make it count, to make this moment count, to make this day count. You know, most listeners are probably fairly likely to be familiar with the book The Diary of a Young Girl, written by Anne Frank, when she and her family were hiding during the Second World War. By early 1944, Anne had already been living and hiding in a small attic in Amsterdam for more than a year and a half. She couldn't go outside. She had to remain quiet for much of the day so the workers in the building below wouldn't discover them. And she lived with the constant reality that at any moment they could be found. And yet, in the middle of all of that unimaginable uncertainty, she continued to write about nature, about the sky, about the beauty that she could see from her attic window. And in one of her entries on February 23rd, 1944, she wrote that the best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy, is to go outside, somewhere where they can be alone with nature and the sky. You know, of course Anne herself couldn't simply step outside. The closest she could come was looking out the window at the sky and at a chestnut tree. And yet she understood something profound. And just a couple of weeks later, on March 7th, she wrote another line that really resonates with me. I don't think of all of the misery, but of the beauty that still remains. That line aligns deeply with something that I believe and has nothing to do with naive optimism. Anne Frank was fully aware of the misery surrounding her. What she was describing was something so much deeper, the human ability to choose where we place our attention. Misery existed, but so did beauty. And even in that attic, she chose to notice it. And in doing so, she made the days that she had count. And just before we close today, I want to say something to anyone listening who might be going through a difficult season right now. If life feels heavy, if things feel uncertain, if the path ahead feels unclear, please know that you're not alone in that. Sometimes the bravest thing that we can do is simply keep going. One small step, one small moment, one ordinary day at a time. And maybe today the most powerful thing that we can do is simply slow down long enough to hear the whispers. After every long winter, the birds return, the earth begins again, and life quietly renews itself all around us. So maybe the invitation today is a simple one. To look up, to tune in to a different frequency, to step outside, to notice what's growing, to pull the weeds that are crowding out what should be growing, and make space for something new to take root. Continue to tell your stories, because we never know who might be listening, or when a simple story might arrive at exactly the moment someone needs it most. Even the smallest moments are opportunities to make it count, to notice the ordinary and to discover that it was extraordinary all along. And that's all I've got for you today. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, keep soaking it all in.