A whole year has gone by. I have been doing something new each day to distract me from the things that used to absorb my whole being. I was so busy thinking about what needed to be done, what was messed up already and everything in between that I was missing the right now. When you push yourself to be different each day...practice...exercise...put a heavier weight on the bar...you get stronger, better, bigger. What used to terrify you is now nothing. What used to scare you is now something you can face. The big ones are still tough but you slowly use your new muscles to stand up taller than ever before.
It also takes the wires in your brain and moves them. Reconnects them to new places or to ones that were severed. It grows all new pathways for new thinking. It is a beautiful thing. I thought it was impossible. I'm now telling you it is not. You CAN change your thinking. You can see things differently. You can learn the tools needed to respond in a whole new way to the thing that might have taken you down before.
When I say yes to a movie I might never have watched...it is so much more than watching a different genre of movie...it is the process of opening up my world. If I agree to slurp down a raw oyster...it is so much more than eating a piece of shellfish. It is slurping down the idea that everyday can be a gift of some new adventure. When I do the hard things like clean out a closet of a woman I can't bear to be without...I am doing it with a goal and it removes the obstacle and gives me a pathway to follow.
The girl that used to say "no" because it was safer, easier or cheaper now looks to say "yes". The woman that started to lose her voice has found it and is now practicing how to use it. The Mom who used to let time pass now looks for ways to make it full. The simple, the mundane is now a gift. Adventure can come in many forms depending on what the spirit can handle that day. Maybe one day it is shooting a gun and another it is merely a soup never tried before but that is the beauty of this process. Do what you can that day. Push when you need it. Be gentle and kind if it's necessary. Be brave when you are a chicken. Be sensible when you need to be whole. At the end of the year you discover not only are you what you needed to be all along but you always held the potential. They say you shouldn't hold out for the potential of a person or an event....but I think with ourselves it's fine to...because we are only in charge of one thing in this world...our own self. So maybe the others will be the way they are but how we can deal with them can change.
Don't forget to be silly. Please let yourself sob. Be brave. Ask yourself if you have done something that makes you feel uncomfortable today...because if you haven't...you haven't really lived. Remember to laugh at yourself. We beat ourselves up far too often. In the early part of last year I fell off of a step and twisted my ankle and skinned my wrist. Immediate reaction was bad but as I sat there stunned and injured the next thought made it all better. I had done my new thing of the day and suddenly I was giggling. Just like that I was off the hook and something that could've been annoying was now quite comical.
This assignment has done so many good things in so many ways that I couldn't possibly list them all. But let me share a big one. I reach out to people now. I am vulnerable and honest and raw. I ask for help. I beg for inspiration. I never did that before. I fought against the world behind a tiny shield. Now I have an army behind me and another at my side. I thank you all for your help this year as I learned the process. I ask for it again this year as I spend another year practicing.
A new year of work. A new year of growth. Another 366 (Leap Year people!) days to DO the NEW! Join me...you still have time!!!
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