I spend a lot of energy, I wouldn't call it wasted necessarily, on current and future work and family and money and sitting up straight and what is the proper amount of coffee to drink in the morning. Should I switch to only drinking water before 9 am? How much wine at night is too much? All these things are great and I love having them take up space in my prefrontal cortex. The issues don't really begin until the pressure sinks in. External. Internal. I, you, we tell ourselves to do better. Be better. Be better than her. Do better than him. And for what? To prove to who? Why? All we have is all we need right now. I am enough right now. This step has to happen before I can take another. This breath, and this one again, is all my life is hanging on. Without this one thing, of which I can never take credit for, I am gone for good. So while I'm still here why submit myself to a certain set of pressures that were created to keep me trapped in somebody else's vision of a successful life.
Fuck that.
My struggle is only as real as the time and energy I hand over to it. Resist. And don't do it only when it feels good. I am learning the overcoming of obstacles is really fucking hard work. I feel like we have the opportunity to take the easy way out too often these days. Mainly on the crutch of inspiration. Either we don't feel it and therefore use it as an excuse not to make something. Or we only make exclamations of our lives when we feel overly inspired. But I see there is an entire universe in the middle where the realness of life is lived. Herein lies my reasoning for learning to sit with myself. Meditating mainly, but also in the quiet hours of morning and evening painting. Turning off the music when I drive. Small moments. Big moments. But mainly looking for those quiet moments. The closer we get to the center the more grounded we will start to feel out along the edges when life is chaotic and nothing seems to fit.
So as my chiropractor recently told me... I give you permission to be gentle with yourself.