Back to Blogging

Ahhh, to be blogging again, how joyous. I had taken a few days off and had been doing my “other writing” (and it is such different writing, controlled and intentional, instead of just me being me – and since me being me, and you being you, etc, is something that I take a stand for in the world, and seem to always be coaching or sponsoring somebody or other on, it is odd to be doing the other). I have been Working Hard (on top of my 4 day a week job, my full coaching client load, renegotiating my mortgage, and various and sundry emotional upheavals) to write the content for my up and coming website. It has been no small thing. My web mistresses, both of whom you have been introduced to via this blog, they were giving you health updates when I was unable, and I came up with an arbitrary date by which to get the final edits done (I work well to pressure, and need the accountability of other people to keep me on track – which all 3 of us know and hence the arbitrary dates), that being today.

Well, God be praised (and high levels of self awareness), IT IS DONE! But at a fairly high cost. I pushed myself pretty darn hard, through some tough stuff, and skipping over some fairly intense and important feelings, as well as forgoing exercise, eating properly, and having FUN. Hmmm. Was this a good choice? Was this the right choice? It feels amazing to be done, it’s true. Accomplished, proud of myself for completing something that has hung over my head for a while on my To Do list (for long enough, I might add, that it had gotten to the Unfun stage). And, perhaps some of those other things should have taken priority.

In my celebration of completion, and luxuriating in having some down time, I opened and read the letter of my dear friend Marion, who lives in NZ (that will be New Zealand, for those not familiar). Yes, you heard me correctly, she sent me a hand written note, by regular mail. Is that not cool! What is cooler is that she made reference to material in this blog – I love watching the worlds come together, and seeing whatever ways we find to connect and create community, it is all good. Back to the point, she opened up a powerful line of thinking for me that is very related to the above. I will elaborate.

From the time I was knee high to a grasshopper I have been told and believed that working harder and trying harder will produce better results, or maybe results in less time, or something along the lines of things and life will be better (and, no, I will not work hard to go back and iron out that ludicrously long run on sentence). Over time and the involvement in a great deal of high drama and effort I have learned that this is not actually true. Case and point, I absolutely busted my hump to get that website copy done on time. At the cost of the flow (which in turn costs me an awful lot of re-write time, emphasis on the awful). At the cost of trusting that everything can and will unfold at an easy perfect time and pace, and let’s face it, that non-trusting place usually results in me feeling urgent and anxious and forcing the/an issue. Just general yuck stuff. Forcing. That can’t be good, just listen to the word. F-o-r-c-I-n-g (ok, the I, by itself, won’t stay “small”, and I refuse to force it to be so, besides I don’t know the clever tech tricks to do it, and a second besides, I am not big on forcing things to be small). No, I say leave that alone. If something isn’t working, maybe it is not meant to happen right now (this from a woman who forced herself to meet the deadline and finish the copy today, I get the irony of now writing about it, just give me some breathing room on this, I am under a fair bit of pressure these days). Maybe it is not the “right time”. Not a new idea for me, but feels fresh and exciting right now anyway. Because here is how it ties into cancer (I sort of feel obliged to tie everything into cancer, just to string the theme along, but I must say, that is not hard, as cancer and it’s wily ways are everywhere). Cancer cells are busy working harder, busy trying harder, just plain busy. So no mistakes that “busy gal” over here has struggled with “busy cells”. And surely if I can learn to silence that externally manifested and driven overactive voice that stresses the need for more action, that then will help quieten the internal over activity, yes? Easier said than done in a society that rewards the over active and shames those that go at their own pace. But isn’t our health, both mental and physical, worth it?