I woke today to clouds and rain. With such an unpredictable winter season, it doesn't look much different today than it has all winter. But the tulips are poking up, so spring is just around the corner no matter how the day feels.
I've been leaning heavily on the challenge side of this blog, concentrating more lately on the daily tasks than the spirit of it. Even so, the spirit of it pokes through unexpectedly and surprises me. I forget, that's the way of a practice; it's like a garden. Every day you attend to it, and all of a sudden something breaks through; you keep attending to it, and all of a sudden everything's in bloom.
In a way, I've been aligning myself with the seasons. During these last winter months, I've been attending to what's already come to fruition, for better or for worse, determining what's strong and healthy, and what needs to be trimmed away. Coming to terms with what I wanted things to become, and what they have become instead. Understanding that my backyard and my life, for all my hopes, sometimes go different directions than I'd planned. So this winter season I've been digging up what's past it's time, mourning it, and making way for something new.
For me, it's the smell of the world after a spring rain that rings the arrival of spring. If I were to design the shape of heaven, it would include the smell of a freshly washed world. Refreshed. Cleansed. This is the spirit I want to bring to April, this piece of my challenge. It's time to nourish myself as if I were a spring garden.
Of course, I wouldn't be much of a coach if I didn't identify what this means and what actions I should take. How do I want to translate this concept into my daily life?
It's important to keep following through on the work I did this winter, so that's one piece.
And I've already identified that I want to take it back to basics. That means making qigong and bodytalk practices the priority, to soak up energy and help my mind and body work together.
It means turning my attention to my diet, eating nourishing, cleansing foods and staying hydrated. (That's a practice that seems to trip me up, since a way I've always indulged myself is in eating whatever I want).
It means the beginning of spring cleaning in my house, or at least thinking about it, and scheduling long overdue haircut and dentist appointments.
It means that I need to decide exactly what that looks like. Do I do qigong every day, or 2-3 times a week? What bodytalk pieces am I going to do, and how often? What falls in the category of nourishing & cleansing foods? Am I going to make any exceptions? When do I need to make these appointments by?
As I go back and reread those questions, they seem to pile on top of each other. They feel demanding, like they're being fired at me rapidly, with such expectation. I wonder how that's all going to get done on top of everything I'm already doing. Ah, my old copilot, overwhelm.
This part of the process sometimes feels like a chore, when it's time to translate intentions into accountability. How critical is it? My training in coaching has taught me that it's a pivotal piece. It seems like if I were really aligned with these intentions, I would initiate them effortlessly. Yet often there's hidden resistance, so the move from "I'd like to" to "I'm doing it" can be derailed without small, clear, agreeable, doable goals. This time, even making those little goals feels like a chore.
There's three ways to handle this: Push through and decide what those small goals are (just do it); let myself off the hook and don't make any goals, trusting that it will somehow come together (highly tempting); or observe myself going through the process and adjust as necessary. My usual way is to either push through or let myself off the hook.
Since deciding what exactly my intentions looks like in my daily life feels like a chore this time, I'm going to watch and see what happens, focusing more on the process than on the intentions. Will it be effortless? Will I somehow resist doing these things? I'm already feeling resistance around setting the goals, in the form of overwhelm. Since this experiment is about not pushing forwards, but discovering what happens when I let myself fall backwards, I'm gong to wait and watch and address whatever comes up. And I'm curious to see what that will be, and what I end up doing as a result.
I guess I've identified the experiment for this month. I wonder what will happen?
