I was so distracted last week with other work, other responsibilities, and just kind of a “meh” approach to life that my creative side was basically SHUT DOWN.
While I always have a lot of thoughts, I just could not pull together a cohesive message. So, here are some random musings from my week that I am hopeful will inspire you to reflect today.
- My default patterns of thinking and behavior are strong! While I do sincerely learn lessons, and can articulate them well through words, I still often (very quickly) make the same mistakes. Minutes after I wrote my blog about control in my race, I realized I was death gripping control on a different matter, unrelated to triathlon. Be open to the fact that once you identify a problem and solution, it is just the beginning of a potentially life long process (and this is okay!).
- Thankfully, I personally don’t have the naive belief that I will someday find the way to perfectly mange any of my less than desirable behaviors or thought processes. I know that I won’t arrive at the land of “I make no mistakes, especially not the ones I have made before.” I instead focus on gathering tools to help me not walk as far down known paths of destruction, even if I often will take a few steps toward the dark side. And I also use the knowledge of others combined with my own intuition to create my own strategies for self love, forgiveness, grace, care, compassion, and trust. I have my own back when I inevitably mess up again, and I highly suggest you learn to do the same.
- Training, spending time with people, and sunshine is a recipe for accessible joy for me. Find and honor your own recipe.
- When I don’t get good sleep my creativity suffers most. I need to keep this in mind when navigating social situations and planning my work weeks. It is hard to create when I struggle to get in “the flow.”
- I have a lot to learn about writing. This one was a hard pill for me to swallow. When receiving some feedback on work projects, I have been able to see that my “knee jerk” reaction when my pride feels bruised is to pull back and either get defensive or quickly try to “fix it”, rather than stay curious. But, as you hopefully know, I do sincerely desire personal growth in areas out of my comfort zone. So… after some solid self refection, I owned up to the fact that my growth would be better served by being vulnerable and taking the amazing opportunities to learn that I have been given. (All of this was realized while swimming— self connection while swimming is a fairly new thing for me. It is making me enjoy swimming a lot more!) Be open to not being “the best” at something. Funny- right? But if you are honest you might struggle with this some too…
And a few final reminders that I know we can all benefit from hearing daily: to truly let go and “be” is to be present. When you feel disconnected from yourself, return to your breathing.
Try to see things for what they are and to not take all things personally. When you make mistakes own up to them— to yourself and others. Apologize when needed. Don’t when it is not. Be you.
Have a great week.
Cheers,
MB
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