Last Monday was a Manic Monday. It was taking forever to get anything done. The spinny wheel of doom was on every single website. I was running late because of some arbitrary deadline that I gave myself. Meltdown in 5, 4, 3, 2 wait a minute? Stacy, what are you doing? Well, self, I was about to start my violin pity solo. Would you mind handing me back my bow? Why do you need to have a pity party? Is everything really coming to an end. You do realize you are on vacation and have all the time to accomplish everything important to you, right? I guess. So, what do you say? Do you want to stay in a bad mood? I guess not.
There is a dark side to #hermitlife. You have the potential to get stuck in a rut because your life has become very insular. I notice that when my routine is interrupted that it throws me off. Should I give up my structure and be a free spirit? Life does not have to be either-or. Brushing my teeth is non-negotiable. I have discovered this week that me-time is also non-negotiable. The "When" and the "What" are negotiable. Balance comes from understanding the "Why." I labored on an art piece this week and despite the hours of work, patiently waiting for the materials to dry and learning how to get something to "pop,"; I much preferred my scratch paper.
Meditation without movement is meaningless. I mentioned in one of my posts that failure to plan is planning to fail. What happens when planning causes less than desirable outcomes? Failure may be too strong of a word. Can planning interfere with one's flow? I have always been a wash and go type of person. When I take the time and effort to style my hair, it looks artificial. Ah, the world I am looking for is not planning; controlling is the actual action. When I let my control-freak tendencies take over, I pave the way for "busyness" or analysis paralysis. Have you ever had an idea just come to you? It feels like you did no work at all, and it was a gift? That is flow. Flow does not mean that you do no work. Flow comes when I set myself up for success. I have my "why" as a guideline, and if I follow my intuition, things come to me quickly.
My blog posts usually have a plan and a format. None of that felt "right" today. I trusted my gut and let the words write themselves. Are you getting in your way? Do you have a solid foundation and robust processes in place? For example, if you want to have a healthy lifestyle, it is crucial to have healthy choices on hand. Doing meal prep or planning makes it less of an effort to prepare or snack on healthy food. Have you tried to cook when your supplies are low? What kind of choices do you make? Do you make it easy for you to make reliable decisions and take impactful action? When I second guess myself, my work suffers. What input are you giving your mental algorithms? Garbage in, garbage out. If I can help you find the right questions, please feel free to reach out. Namaste.
