I went for a walk in the rain yesterday. I didn’t want to go and contemplated skipping it for a treadmill session instead. After a bit of thought I knew what I needed was to get outside.
I’ve been taking daily walks for a long time now but at the beginning of this year I decided to ramp it up a notch by turning the 20 minute walks into 45 minute walks.
The impact this has had on my creativity and clarity is nothing short of amazing.
As I was walking in the rain yesterday I was resistant it. I was walking fast and consumed with annoyance of the water droplets free falling from the sky. My coat wasn’t waterproof and I was wearing my glasses splattered with wetness.
“Please stop,” I’d think to the rain over and over and over as I debated turning around and shortening the walk.
Each moment, each step, I decided to keep going. To continue on in the less than comfortable conditions. That’s one thing about winter, it provides you with daily opportunity to get comfortable with uncomfortable conditions like the cold, wet, snowy, icy, ever-changing weather.
My silent begging of reprieve from the rain switches to the mantra of “just keep going.” This time, I’m talking to myself. It’s easy. “Keep going,” playing over and over in my mind.
“Please stop.” Resistance.
”Keep going.” Perseverance.
And finally, about halfway in, it all fell away.
I reached acceptance.
It will continue to rain and that is that.
Acceptance.
I walk and I get wet and I begin to settle into my normal rhythm of thought and movement.
These phases are phases that we experience throughout life in so many ways. That is, if we let ourselves experience them.
I’ve been committing to an hour of yoga every day for the past 9 days. I’m going to keep it going for at least 40 days, and maybe more after that.
This is something that I’ve been wanting to do for a while.
That resistance was strong though. I made excuses as to why I didn’t have time for it. Excuse after excuse. “Well, I did do yoga today for 15 minutes and that’s better than nothing,” I’d try to reason with myself. But deep down I knew that I was called to a longer commitment on the mat.
The day before Ash Wednesday Mitch asked me what I was going to do for Lent. Not being the religious type, I didn’t even know Lent was coming up and since I’m not necessarily observing Lent, I decided to do 40 days of yoga for an hour a day.
I have shown up every day on the mat for 60 minutes and I will persevere to carry out the 40 day commitment. On days when I am a bit busier I accept that other things will shift in my life to keep this commitment to myself.
So often these days we quit prematurely. We give up, make up excuses, “don't have time,” or whatever it may be. We just quit. Or maybe we don’t even try in the first place.
We try to override the phases and instead want to revert back to our bubbles of safety and comfort.
Safety is so interesting because it is something that we inherently need for regulation of our nervous systems and overall state of being. But, safety also keeps us stuck in our bubbles of comfort. Or should I say the perception of safety keeps us stuck our bubbles of comfort. We seek “safety” and mold our lives around it even if doing so dampens the bright light of our soul. Meanwhile, the true safety that we chase does not come from that 9-5 job with a 401k and 2 weeks of paid vacation. That is a difference sense of safety, the false sense of it. True safety comes from regulation of our nervous system and our overall state of being. It comes from doing “the work” on ourselves. It’s an inside job. Looking inward and truly knowing thyself.
But since we have the definitions of safety all mixed up we end up quitting too early to go back into the “safe space” of our lives, marching to the beat of the status quo drum.
There is nothing wrong with marching to that beat if that’s what you’re looking for. But for those of us who are looking for more, each step in that direction feels like a step further and further away from ourselves.
And that’s why when there is resistance I don’t quit.
And that’s why when there is perseverance I don’t quit.
And that’s why when there is acceptance I don’t quit.
With all of this talk of not quitting things, to balance things out I also have to mention something that I am in the process of semi quitting… again.
Social media.
This past week I have been submersed in a book that I really have been enjoying. All of my free time I want to be reading. I don’t care about social media. I don’t want to scroll. I want to read this trilogy about the beach and the dramas of the characters.
Any time that I get distance from social media like this for whatever reason I begin to reassess my relationship with these apps. Earlier this year I downloaded the Opal app so that I would not be scrolling first thing in the morning or before bed. I block social media between 7pm and 11am. The longer into the day I go before clicking on Instagram, the less I’m interested in it when I do get on.
The fact that I needed to download an app to keep me off of other apps is a bit ridiculous but it’s a tool that I need at this point and so, I shall continue to use it.
Anyways, as I am once again reassessing my relationship with these apps I am revisited with a knowing that I want to do less scrolling and that this practice of more submersion into life off of my phone and putting more work into long form content that I love provides me with a richer experience, more happiness and contentment, as well as the clarity and creativity that my soul craves.
It is a deeply rooted knowing.
Along with that comes a lot of fear and limiting beliefs around the “rules” of social media and whatnot but I have finally reached the point of acceptance that I am not meant to walk the standard path. I am not one to follow the crowd. I never was. I very much beat to my own drum. And so, I realize that I may be blocking all that I want and desire to come through me and out into the world because I am trying to fit into the confinement of everyone else’s rules.
No more. No more. NO MORE.
I have resisted stepping into my own power for long enough.
I am currently persevering through the uncomfortableness of this shift.
And soon, so soon, I will accept that I am meant to do things differently and truly embody it.
This is the path. This is the journey. This is the process.
The smoke and mirrors and all of the success stories without the vulnerability of the struggles and process of getting to where they are is like offering someone a sandwich with no meat, lettuce, or veggies in between the bread. You get the bottom of the bun, the beginning, and the top of the bun, the now. Maybe there’s a bit of mayo spread in between to represent a bit of the journey but you don’t get the bulk of the transformation - the growth, the resistance, perseverance, acceptance, and everything in between that came with the process.
This type of stuff right here, this is the process.
And instead of hiding behind a facade of having it all together to make you think in a certain way about me, I am here to be real. And ironically, as my Instagram bio says, I am here to do things differently.
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Know Thyself - Feelings, Grounding, and Stress | Holy Health Podcast
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