A confession: The only reason I'm posting now, is that this is the last day of the month, and if I don't post by the end of the night - about 38 minutes from now - this August will stand as the one month since June of 2010 in which I've failed to post to this blog even once.
That may seem a trivial motivation, but in fact it got me away from family late this Sunday evening, away from Willow, our lakefront cottage, where I was enjoying a bonfire after a great meal, and ready to start thinking about bed. I got in the car and drove to this McDonald's, half an hour away, just so as not to have this blank on my creative calendar.
All that not to say it's so difficult to come up with anything to write about. If anything, there's so much that I hardly know where to start. Which is a lot of how life is feeling these days. Sometimes I feel almost overcome with blessings. The challenge is how to manage it all.
Which is as fitting a topic for this post as there could be. Because while there's been no shortage of material, it's been extremely hard to bring myself to productive action these days. Just as I've been absent here, I've suspended my radio show and podcast. I've not been exercising to any meaningful extent. I've struggled over finishing a short story that feels ripe and ready, and there are all kinds of ideas and plans with yet no firm anchor in the world.
Yet, I'm not at all bored or lethargic, or even inactive. And I've been feeling incredibly alive! So what is it?
Maybe it's me trying to break loose. That has some resonance...it feels at least partly true. I've been knowing that I need to change my job for some time now, even while I recognize what an incredible job it is, and even while I'm in the midst of a kind of resurgence of energy and satisfaction in the job. Despite all that, I know it's time for a change. And I guess one thing I've been doing is pursuing that change, though not yet with any success.
What else? I know that I have some substantial rebalancing to do to bring my life to a healthier place. And I'm being active in that, too. And here too, a big factor involves letting go on old patterns. It's clearer than it has ever been that, in order for me to do some things in new ways, I'll need to shake off some old patterns first. And that hasn't been easy for me to do.
I'm reminded of a saying, that if you want to have a particular life, you simply start living it. No preliminaries needed. No need to have it figured out in advance. And when I think of certain successes I've had, I can see that they are characterized by a kind of flow. "Flow" to me represents a
state of being in vibrant harmony with creation, in such a way that one's actions have a ripple effect that extends them beyond conscious intent. It's a way of being that creates huge efficiencies as energies link up in surprising and tangential ways.
I've been experiencing moments, even hours of flow lately. And I'm trusting that these moments both result from and generate the positive changes I'm trying to make. An aspect of this flow involves being open to what comes along. One way that has manifested is that I took the suggestion of a friend and met with a therapist - a very young one from whom I frankly didn't expect very much. But, among other useful observations, she planted a seed, that I try and experience a "Fresh Mind" - meaning, that I not negate efforts I'm making by being burdened with the failed efforts that have come before. That notion has been a very helpful one as I approach making difficult changes.
It also puts tonight in a different perspective. I didn't make the effort to drive here, to get this post onto my blog while it's still August, merely to continue a played out routine. I came here also because I want to inject something fresher and newer into my writing, my thinking, my perceiving and my sharing. Let's see how I will do with this. I don't want to let this blog die - it's been helpful to me. But I recognize that, if growth is involved, it may take a shape I cannot foresee.
Maybe I'm not just keeping pace, as in marking time. Maybe this is about setting a new pace, a new rhythm, an entirely new dance?
That may seem a trivial motivation, but in fact it got me away from family late this Sunday evening, away from Willow, our lakefront cottage, where I was enjoying a bonfire after a great meal, and ready to start thinking about bed. I got in the car and drove to this McDonald's, half an hour away, just so as not to have this blank on my creative calendar.
All that not to say it's so difficult to come up with anything to write about. If anything, there's so much that I hardly know where to start. Which is a lot of how life is feeling these days. Sometimes I feel almost overcome with blessings. The challenge is how to manage it all.
Which is as fitting a topic for this post as there could be. Because while there's been no shortage of material, it's been extremely hard to bring myself to productive action these days. Just as I've been absent here, I've suspended my radio show and podcast. I've not been exercising to any meaningful extent. I've struggled over finishing a short story that feels ripe and ready, and there are all kinds of ideas and plans with yet no firm anchor in the world.
Yet, I'm not at all bored or lethargic, or even inactive. And I've been feeling incredibly alive! So what is it?
Maybe it's me trying to break loose. That has some resonance...it feels at least partly true. I've been knowing that I need to change my job for some time now, even while I recognize what an incredible job it is, and even while I'm in the midst of a kind of resurgence of energy and satisfaction in the job. Despite all that, I know it's time for a change. And I guess one thing I've been doing is pursuing that change, though not yet with any success.
What else? I know that I have some substantial rebalancing to do to bring my life to a healthier place. And I'm being active in that, too. And here too, a big factor involves letting go on old patterns. It's clearer than it has ever been that, in order for me to do some things in new ways, I'll need to shake off some old patterns first. And that hasn't been easy for me to do.
I'm reminded of a saying, that if you want to have a particular life, you simply start living it. No preliminaries needed. No need to have it figured out in advance. And when I think of certain successes I've had, I can see that they are characterized by a kind of flow. "Flow" to me represents a
state of being in vibrant harmony with creation, in such a way that one's actions have a ripple effect that extends them beyond conscious intent. It's a way of being that creates huge efficiencies as energies link up in surprising and tangential ways.
I've been experiencing moments, even hours of flow lately. And I'm trusting that these moments both result from and generate the positive changes I'm trying to make. An aspect of this flow involves being open to what comes along. One way that has manifested is that I took the suggestion of a friend and met with a therapist - a very young one from whom I frankly didn't expect very much. But, among other useful observations, she planted a seed, that I try and experience a "Fresh Mind" - meaning, that I not negate efforts I'm making by being burdened with the failed efforts that have come before. That notion has been a very helpful one as I approach making difficult changes.
It also puts tonight in a different perspective. I didn't make the effort to drive here, to get this post onto my blog while it's still August, merely to continue a played out routine. I came here also because I want to inject something fresher and newer into my writing, my thinking, my perceiving and my sharing. Let's see how I will do with this. I don't want to let this blog die - it's been helpful to me. But I recognize that, if growth is involved, it may take a shape I cannot foresee.
Maybe I'm not just keeping pace, as in marking time. Maybe this is about setting a new pace, a new rhythm, an entirely new dance?
