Are you brave? When you want to do something do you grab the opportunity and wring the life out of it? Or do you overthink, procrastinate, and list all the reasons why you won't instead of why you will?
I am thinking about this at the moment as I have just finished a writing course. I have always wanted to write a book, but like pretty much everyone else who says this I have 'never had the time' and 'am waiting for inspiration to strike'. What this course has taught me though is that the main reason people don't get a book published is because they don't write it. Not because it is not good enough, but because they don't glue their bum to the seat and bash out tens of thousands of words. And then edit endlessly, but you need to have something to edit first.
We were talking about this in class during the week, and the overthinking that women do around putting off pursuing their own thing is quite impressive. I sometimes think that 'life keeps getting in the way of me getting on with my life', but of course this is my life. The minutia, the mundane, the ridiculous. Figuring out how to wrangle time to fit in all the good bits amongst the tedious and necessary bits can feel like a daily (and very privileged) challenge.
What I have discovered though, is that showing up 100% (okay, maybe 90% as I am extremely human) for whatever is in front of me is like a form of time warping. It seems to create more time and what I do is more enjoyable. I am better at it. It makes the activity meditative, as I can relax into doing just this one thing.
This is one of the many reasons I am looking forward to our Retreat next year. Being together in one place, doing just this one thing for 3 days. Being like Winnie the Pooh and having a 'big think'. The opportunity to look forward and back, to gain perspective on this middling time of life. To be brave, in big or small ways.
I think bravery is learning to follow the thing that tingles your belly, that sense of standing on a precipice. The space between leaping and landing is the place of creativity, courage and letting go of being in control.
John O'Donohue says it beautifully:
May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers
To break the dead shell of yesterdays
To risk being disturbed and changed.
May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.
We think we know ourselves so well, but all we know is our own narrative, the story that we tell ourself about our life over and over.
Sometimes it takes a space, a breathing space, to uncover a different perspective.
With love,
Amanda xx
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