BEGIN AGAIN

I am starting to feel like I live in the Twilight Zone. To say I’ve lost the thread would be the understatement of the decade. Actually most accurate would be to say I feel like I’ve lost and found the thread a million times in the past 9 weeks. Can you relate? The work, the gift, the mantra, the peace comes with “begin again”.

Even as things begin to open it feels like my life is taking place in a pot of creamed honey and everything is moving in a slow, thick and smoothly restrained way. So strange. And even in this slowness there is still this maddening stutter step of moving forward then losing ground that is playing itself out on repeat.

Begin again.

Then right on cue my inner critic jumps in and has a field day judging just how well this is all going and how swimmingly I am handling this…which quickly becomes an internal sandlot brawl where I get my ass kicked and face shoved in the dirt.

Begin again.

Get up. Dust myself off. Make a brain dump type list of everything I need or want to do, fix, improve, tackle etc. that week. Even though I mutter to myself that it’s only to satisfy some crazy part of me that has decided, if completed, this crossed off list would leave me a better person or fill in the blank so why bother really?.

Begin again.

Deep down I know that making progress and completing things can and most often does, somehow magically improve how I am feeling about my life, myself. BUT here’s the thing. Some days I just can not drag myself to do the thing/s on today’s list. Yes I know. Call it whatever you want: lazy, pathetic, unprofessional, no will power, immature, poor mindset, broken.…I have already called it every life wrecking, bad name in the book and that incites little action.

Begin again.

I try all the hacks but here is honestly how I am managing it currently. From this massive, unrealistic and overwhelmingly long weekly do to list I make, I break it into categories: work, house (inside & outside), family, financial, health etc. So I end up with as many to do lists as there are categories.

Even though I map out my week on Sunday’s, I find that 48 hours later I may be in a totally different realm. On Tuesday I can look at the day’s list and know there is a snowball chance in hell that I can do any, some or all of the things on it…like organize my office, plant the garden, say or write the newsletter.

I take the lists in my hands and just sit for a moment. I close my eyes, check in with how I am feeling, how clear my thinking is and what kind of energy I have. Then I find something on my list that matches the mood and space I am in so I can most effectively make progress in some area of my life.

I begin again.

Often I do push myself harder in those moments to sit longer, try a bit harder, stay with it more but I have learned that there is truly no rhythm at all if there is no space between the notes so I appreciate the pauses just as much.

Begin again.

Wherever this finds you. I offer you the chance to meet this moment and this day as the opportunity it is to simply begin again. The choice to stop or start, to pause or move. Take one action towards your truth in any area of your life and know today it was enough.

Begin again.

You are loved.