Yesterday I woke up alone in my parents' house to the patter of Florida rain. I woke up with the familiar tension of responsibility. Christmas was over and I had told myself today I would get back to work. So I entered the day as I have for so long, with a sense of tension and unhappiness. Then remembering to attempt to stand outside of the response and see through the illusion of conditioned emotion, I decided to order my day differently. See how my soul reacted.
All I know, to start with, is this: I have had three days off – given by myself – from my work. I usually can't stop thinking about work for long. Anyone with their own business and a perfectionist, fear-based response to life probably suffers the same. But because of Christmas, having family around to distract me, and being in a different location from my office, it was easier than usual.
The cruel irony is that, being a freelancer, I can take three days off of work whenever I want. But I don't. Why? Taking time "off" doesn’t mean I’d actually be able to let go of work. I think about work while going on hikes, hanging out with my boyfriend, watching TV. Saturdays and Sundays are almost painful for me, trying to not do work, so I'd begun filling them up with different kinds of productivity.
But I figured if there were three consecutive days in a whole year that I could pull off true relaxation, if would be during Christmas at my parents' house. And I was right.
Having three days to truly break up the constant attachment to work productivity, I feel significantly less energetically owned by my idea of ‘what has to be done.’ I feel there is some more space between me and it.
Every year I get a Christmas miracle, and this year's was this: a bit of relief from the prison I keep myself in the rest of the year. It has nothing to do with my clients - who are wonderful - it has to do with something in the way I perceive my life.
So I tried something I haven't tried in a long time: I chose to do my own writing first.
I opened my computer and the next thing I knew I was checking email, Facebook, even Perez Hilton. I also checked my work email, telling myself I just waned to see what was waiting for me. And you know what? There was nothing new. After all it is just the first day after Christmas.
And then I started journaling. And it was so good to hear my own inner voice. To start to clear up and clear out a lot of that muck and confusion, needless worry, and lack of faith in the universe.
Because here is the truth: if you are miserable, it is your soul telling you to find your joy. Find your joy. That is the only thing in life that is real. Everything else is illusion.
It will be steps. The tick to go online, check email, use Facebook, these are things I have done every single day for six years now at least.
And there are other psychological traps. A voice that says I could turn this into a blog post. A nice way to share an honest part of myself on the blog. Already, not 300 words in, it was saying it. I was saying it. And here it is. A blog post. And maybe it was meant to be one. But it can't start out as one, you know?
My mind is slower and cleaner today that it has been in a long time. Slow almost like the day I wrote "A Bird in the Hand," an article for the January 2011 issue of Follow Your Bliss and the piece I am most proud of. This sanity is the true goal. This connection with myself. And yet I am not there yet – writing to explore, to go beyond, not aiming everything at some end of sharing it with people.
Steps, it will take steps.
Maybe more than that, it will take a shift – sitting and writing until I shift into the other mind where the words come through me and for the universe.
All I know, to start with, is this: I have had three days off – given by myself – from my work. I usually can't stop thinking about work for long. Anyone with their own business and a perfectionist, fear-based response to life probably suffers the same. But because of Christmas, having family around to distract me, and being in a different location from my office, it was easier than usual.
The cruel irony is that, being a freelancer, I can take three days off of work whenever I want. But I don't. Why? Taking time "off" doesn’t mean I’d actually be able to let go of work. I think about work while going on hikes, hanging out with my boyfriend, watching TV. Saturdays and Sundays are almost painful for me, trying to not do work, so I'd begun filling them up with different kinds of productivity.
But I figured if there were three consecutive days in a whole year that I could pull off true relaxation, if would be during Christmas at my parents' house. And I was right.
Having three days to truly break up the constant attachment to work productivity, I feel significantly less energetically owned by my idea of ‘what has to be done.’ I feel there is some more space between me and it.
Every year I get a Christmas miracle, and this year's was this: a bit of relief from the prison I keep myself in the rest of the year. It has nothing to do with my clients - who are wonderful - it has to do with something in the way I perceive my life.
So I tried something I haven't tried in a long time: I chose to do my own writing first.
I opened my computer and the next thing I knew I was checking email, Facebook, even Perez Hilton. I also checked my work email, telling myself I just waned to see what was waiting for me. And you know what? There was nothing new. After all it is just the first day after Christmas.
And then I started journaling. And it was so good to hear my own inner voice. To start to clear up and clear out a lot of that muck and confusion, needless worry, and lack of faith in the universe.
Because here is the truth: if you are miserable, it is your soul telling you to find your joy. Find your joy. That is the only thing in life that is real. Everything else is illusion.
It will be steps. The tick to go online, check email, use Facebook, these are things I have done every single day for six years now at least.
And there are other psychological traps. A voice that says I could turn this into a blog post. A nice way to share an honest part of myself on the blog. Already, not 300 words in, it was saying it. I was saying it. And here it is. A blog post. And maybe it was meant to be one. But it can't start out as one, you know?
My mind is slower and cleaner today that it has been in a long time. Slow almost like the day I wrote "A Bird in the Hand," an article for the January 2011 issue of Follow Your Bliss and the piece I am most proud of. This sanity is the true goal. This connection with myself. And yet I am not there yet – writing to explore, to go beyond, not aiming everything at some end of sharing it with people.
Steps, it will take steps.
Maybe more than that, it will take a shift – sitting and writing until I shift into the other mind where the words come through me and for the universe.
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