This past winter felt long, hard and dark. Someone I was talking to yesterday commented that we had 97 days of January this year. It felt like winter would never end... It is easy to curl up in the darkness and hide but that is not useful.
I'm going to step out on a limb and declare that winter is OVER!!! Spring has finally arrived and with it the sun has been working hard to pop out. It is time to emerge from hibernation and face what the bright light is revealing.
Last week I found myself learning a lesson about slowing down. The beauty in slowing down is you actually have time to think and to really look around. Then that bright light shone in and I was left looking at a great deal of truth. There is no hiding in the light.
The reality is, I am not where I want to be. My numbers are not where I want them to be. My relationships are not where I want them to be. My home is in desperate need of a declutter and spring clean. I don't even want to talk about the body clutter that seems to have found me in the dark of winter. I could look at nearly every area of my life and point out something that the light has revealed.
Now that I have taken stock of where I am at, I have choices to make.
If I follow the path of past mistakes, I will beat myself up about all of this then proceed to feel terrible. The next step along that path forks out into two directions. The first direction is to try to fix it all at once until I finally drop into a hot mess of burn out or illness. Coming from a place where I just had a forced rest for a head cold, this is NOT the path that I want to travel. The second direction is to feel too overwhelmed and do nothing. Neither of these options have served me well in the past. This path is well worn but I know that it will lead me straight off a cliff....
I spent hours working with a very wonderful neuropsychologist after my accident. She worked hard trying to teach me to drop my perfectionist views of life and embrace a different way of looking at things. She encouraged me to try a new path - one of acceptance.
Today I choose to accept where I am on my path. Today I choose to look around and accept what the bright light is showing me. Today I choose to just do what I can do. Tonight I will choose to let go of the things that I was not able to do today because that guilt is not helpful. Tomorrow I will repeat the process. I will never make consistent progress on this journey if I am not first and foremost kind to myself.
This is not a path that I am at all familiar with. Honestly, it feels like looking up the side of a mountain without a marked trail. I do know that if I can start to slowly work my way up the mountain, that the views at the top with outstanding!
Numbers as of April 30/18
Push ups 4,119/ 50 000
Sit ups 4,115/ 50 000
Kempo 80/ 1000
WuDang Sword 169/ 1000
Distance 363.9/1609
Kicks 709/ 50 000
Sparring 218/ 1000
AoK 209/1000
Gratitude 207/1000
Journal 68/355
Piano 11.0 hours/ 80 hours
Reading 5/24 books
Geocaches 9/120 finds
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