There are so many days when it’s hard for me to get out of my own head, get motivated and just DO THE WORK! I’ve struggled with motivation, energy and self care this summer. I feel like I’ve “wasted it”, an entire 10 weeks away from the classroom and I’ve largely done nothing, accomplished nothing (in my mind) and my inner critic is berating me on a daily basis about that very fact. Here we are, the last week before school begins…”What have you accomplished?” She asks me, hands on hips, one eyebrow raised. I don’t always have an answer, can only provide her with a a shrug and downcast eyes. Shame and a fowl mood follow these sessions, as anyone who has to deal with me is well aware…sorry, Daria! My trainer had to deal with this last episode, where I gut my way through the session, staring into blank space, not making eye contact because I feel so crappy about myself. The worst! Not at all a beneficial place to be and it solves nothing. You’d think I’d learn after three years of therapy and countless self help books. I guess we are all just works in progress.
That’s easy to say today, when I feel good and my energy is positive and joyous. Following this day was a semi usual occurrence in my building, the too early morning (4am!) fire alarm. You’re not helping the mood any, alarm! I found myself standing on the sidewalk, awaiting the arrival of the local fire team (watching them disembark to deal with us is one small consolation). A false alarm, an issue with our system, of course, and they shut things off and we all shuffle back inside, disrobe and crawl back into bed. My head no sooner hit the pillow and the damn thing started ringing again! I’m fortunate that I’m ground floor and can just walk out of my suite to the sidewalk…so, this time (it’s now 5:45am) I decide to just stay up, make a coffee, get myself going and just deal with the day ahead. As is my habit, my feet want to move. I threw on shorts, jammed my mop into a bun, grabbed my pack and hit the curb.
Moving meditation often does more for me than sitting on a pillow and trying to “clear the mind”. As I walk I let my eyes roam and and my skin enjoys the cool morning air and my ears revel in the relative silence before the inevitable noise of all the local construction begins. The farther I go the better I start to feel. I love how the city feels in the quiet before things happen for the day…like the way Sundays used to feel before stores became “7 days a week!” It’s quiet, meditative and thoughtful. I noticed that the seasons are changing, autumn is almost upon us, you can see it in the gold and tan colors that are starting the replace the vibrancy of high summer. Blooms are dying, replaced by seed pods and there is a darker, danker and more mysterious smell to the earth. It’s complex and makes me feel both sad about the waning summer but also excited and energized about the dawning of my favorite time of year. I’m feeling inspired, relaxed, ideas are starting to flow…hey, maybe I should get up at 4:30 every day!
And there it is, the thought that breaks the mood and the garbage headspace…the gift of each day, time, 24 hours of it, all yours… what do you want to do with it? Robin Sharma spoke about this through his character in, “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari”, the fact that we are all, every one of us, given that 24 hours every day. What we do with it is determined by us, for the most part. Yes, we have to work, care for children and go through the dailies but that’s also a choice. Or, maybe it isn’t…gotta pay those bills, gotta DO (be DO-E, as my bestie, CDog, would say). My mood when I’m unproductive is certainly an illustration of the result of wasting that precious time. Certainly, it’s what was really nagging at me, that 24 hours was yours, you could have made so much happen…even if I had consciously decided to sit under a tree all day with a book at least I made a conscious choice to not DO. Maybe that’s more what nags at me sometimes, the idea that the gift of time was not treasured and managed in a careful, conscious manner, befitting the preciousness of each day.
- There is a hiking group that calls themselves, “Chasing Sunrise” who believe in this idea of time and what we make of it. Getting up at 3am to hit the trail at 4 and climb to catch the sun rising at 5:30 is not everyone’s idea of a good time or a good use of time, period, but the goal is the same. You have the time, what do you want to do with it? I think it’s about stepping into each day knowing that there is a limited amount of time and that how we act, what we do, what we think and say, the interactions that we have are all taking place in and coming out of a limited bank of minutes and hours. So, what are our intentions and how can we honor that gift in the best way possible each day? I don’t presume to have an answer but maybe the Robin Sharmas and Sunrise Chasers of the world are onto something. For me, I’m back to the drawing board of managing myself the best I can, trying to be gentle in my self criticism, in keeping with the concept of limited time. Thoughts are as important as actions and DOING after all
