Just a little something short and sweet for you to consider this week.
What really matters?
This is a personal question and one I will not attempt to answer for you. It is one that I am constantly assessing, redirecting, and often reprioritizing in my own life. So many things influence the answer— privilege to even consider it, seasons of life, levels of growth and self understanding, and demographic are just a few. Today, my overall physical, mental, and emotional well-being is what I feel I need to build my foundation on daily. This manifests is different ways.
Are you reflecting what matters to you daily?
I have talked a lot about default patterns- the things we easily fall into doing when life gets hard and/or we get distracted. When life feels out of control for me I find myself focusing more and more on control. Working ahead on simple projects. More organization. Furious cleaning. Planning ahead. Sure, stuff gets done. But, I slowly not only sacrifice my well-being, but I lose track of the things I know matter more to me-creativity, giving, adding value to the world, living in the moment… with people.
People truly matter to me. Living, connecting, loving, and laughing with people. Serving and listening to people. Forgiving and having compassion for people. Spending time with people who trust me and people whom I trust. Community. Humanity.
It is easy to get caught up in control. To put our blinders on and navigate life how we feel we “should.” It happens to all of us… but the more we avoid boredom the less time we will have for quiet reflection. We become disconnected and unavailable to ourselves. And then we often try to control more, until suddenly we realize we are far down a path that we didn’t even know we were on. A path that has taken us away from what really matters.
The good news is that we can always turn around. And the positive results of our busy-ness are still there. Our paths will never be straight and we will continue to meander, learning which ones are best for us. And then often when we learn we gain more understanding which can create new paths for us to try. For many of us we are fortunate that our paths are wide, with room for many opportunities. We can be navigating a full life of many important things while still holding space for what matters most.
I am grateful that my hobby and sport of choice allows for a lot of alone reflection time, whether with my head underwater or on the road either on my bike or on foot. It forces me to be with myself and to consider if I am living as a reflection of what really matters to me right now.
Sometimes I need to make a giant U-turn and other times I determine that I can continue on my path while staying aware of trying a lot of new off-shoots and overlooks.
So, what matters to me right now and supports my well-being is rest and living in the moment. To be present with people. To work hard to honor my commitments to my athletes and then to define and set aside time away from work. To take my upcoming opportunities to love, laugh, listen to, learn from, and share myself with friends, family, my athletes, and my communities. To flow down my path, but with some intention as to not fall into my default patterns.
So, you may or may not not hear from me for the next couple weeks. Creativity and adding value to the world always matters to me as well, and I usually find that as soon as I give myself permission to take a break from writing my creativity flows easier and it cannot be denied. (Have you ever tried denying creativity? It has quite a loud voice!) I am taking this time to think less about blog and social media content and more about presence and will share when I am ready.
I urge you to consider where your current path is taking you… are you headed in a direction that honors what matters to you? Even if you feel that you are stuck in quicksand you can find small ways to live as a reflection of yourself, your values, and your priorities each day.
And if you need some time for quiet reflection I suggest an easy, solo swim, bike, or run.
Cheers,
MB
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