I’ve hit a wall.

I don’t know how. I’m not even sure when…but I find myself banging my head against the same issues over and over again. Last night I realized that the momentum I had been building all summer has just gone away. *poof* Gone.

This summer was fabulous. I was following my path and feeling awesome. I met the most amazing man in the world. Last month, we got married. The wedding was beautiful and the honeymoon was like something out of a dream. The boys and I had tons of fun. Work was still dull but I didn’t mind. Creativity coursed through me and I had tons of ideas about how to move toward finding a job that I would love. My finances were stable and actually pretty comfortable. Relationships that had been strained either healed themselves or moved out of my awareness.

All of this – it was effortless! I didn’t have to think about it or work at creating it. All I did was follow my path, listen to my inner wisdom, take direction from my spirit guide, and write, meditate, and do yoga. Whatever I needed was right there, most of the time before I even knew I needed it. I was in the flow.

Everything was going so well that I felt like I started this blog at the wrong time…how could I talk about how I got there if I was already there? Sure, there were little lessons and some contrast here and there, but I always realized I was heading down the wrong path and immediately turned it around.

This time is different…I’ve been heading down a wrong path for awhile, and if I keep going in this direction I am going to get a well-deserved thunk on the head. (I seem to have missed the gentle taps on the shoulder and the tugs on my elbow.)

It doesn’t matter where I was yesterday…I’ll just say that it is pretty much the opposite of all of that good stuff up there. I’m still married, but a huge reason that relationship was able to happen is that I was following my spiritual path and my vibration was high. Now that I am apparently vibrating at a much lower level, that relationship is struggling to find its center.

I don’t like it.

I’m fixing it right now. Because I’d really like to get back to that whole effortless awesome thing.

As soon as I figure out what to do.

Meditation…preschool naptime…not so different, actually.

Finding stillness has been coming up a lot for me lately. I really, really crave it right now. The more I want to sit quietly and “do the work” the more activity life throws my way…particularly since I set an intention to add writing time to my morning routine. I have been so busy that free time in the morning has been non-existent since I wrote that post. Funny how that works, isn’t it?

When I try to find stillness in meditation my mind is sometimes like naptime in a preschool. Cots scoot against the floor, kids chatter to each other, blankets rustle, and every once in awhile a teacher loudly whispers, “SHHHH! It’s naptime!!” which only provokes more chatter and giggles from the naughty girls over in the corner.

I know I am supposed to let the distractions go. I’m good with ignoring external distractions (having cats is good training), but I frequently struggle with internal ones. Like this morning…I sat down to meditate and my mind was a swirl of thoughts. I tried gently releasing them. I tried focusing on my breath. I tried a mantra, which sort of got me moving in the right direction.

I occasionally found a little corner of quiet, but mostly I was like the teacher whispering, “SHHHH!” to a bunch of ideas that wouldn’t go away. That is what led me to the preschool analogy…which led to this blog post…which mostly wrote itself while I was sitting there with my eyes closed. (I love it when that happens! And really, it’s just about the only way I write.) I was so excited to have a new idea to work on this morning, though, that I jumped off the sofa and ran to the computer as soon as it came to me. I was afraid I was going to forget the beginning before I got to the end!

So now I don’t know how either the analogy or this post ends…which is about to get really obvious. =)

Why was I suddenly afraid I was going to lose my ideas before I was done sitting? If an idea comes to me it always hangs out until I do something with it. My best guess is that it was my ego once again trying to thwart my progress. I would really love to learn how to trust the process a little more and get out of my own way.

So, what do you need that you haven’t been allowing yourself to have? How do you get out of your own way?

Do What Engages You

This morning I was trying to focus my ideas for a new post while I was writing my morning pages. I wasn’t really sure what to say and my mind was getting restless. I wrote in my journal, “I really just need to sit quietly and listen…I have to trust that the ideas I am supposed to have will flow through me when I am supposed to have them. I can’t force it.”

And then my ego told me, “Later for the sitting quietly and listening, woman…you really need to wash those dishes before you leave for work. And fold those clothes. The only ideas you are going to need are how to find a new job when you get fired for being late to work if you keep up with this writing nonsense.”

The daily grind. So many things that have to be done…and very little time left to do the things that truly make me happy. (Do you see a theme developing here?) So I let my ego boss me into doing dishes…but I negotiated a peek at Daily OM on my way to the kitchen. I usually read the day’s inspiration post and check my horoscope before I hop (mistyped as “hope” — the fingers don’t lie) in the shower because I’d rather think about something happy than be miserable about having to go to The Job.

I don’t know why I am surprised every time an answer pops up right when I need it. I know, intellectually, how it works. I really do. Ask, intend, remain open, and receive. Easy, right? Still, I had to giggle when I received the answer to my blog post dilemma right there in my horoscope: Do What Engages You.

Choosing to do things that we are interested in helps us make full use of our creativity. In our lives there are so many things on our to-do-list that we tend to overlook the things that are truly gratifying for us. Our efforts usually go into things that we feel we have to do rather than want to. But if we set aside time to do something that appeals to us, we make way for our creative process.

I decided the dishes could wait a bit.

That’s the thing. There are always things that have to be done. Always. And even if there is nothing that must be done, if my ego doesn’t want me to move forward with something that makes her feel threatened, it will invent things for me to do. Like that filing that has been sitting in my closet for six months? Yep. Has to get done right away. Except that my ego is so smart! She knows I still won’t do the filing — I’ll just find ways to avoid doing the filing. Then I’ll not get to do what inspires me, feel guilty for not doing the filing, and feel even worse because I procrastinated and didn’t get anything done at all.

We need to make doing the things we love a priority.

This must be a lesson I really need to learn because it keeps popping into my awareness.

I love solving problems and making plans (follow through…eh, we’ll talk about that later)…so I’m going to make creating time to write my first little challenge. The most practical solution is to commit to sitting down and writing first thing in the morning before I get distracted by “life.” I already have a habit of doing morning pages and meditating first thing in the morning, so it wouldn’t take much effort to add some writing time into that plan. So I’ll just do that for thirty days and see where it gets me.

What do you love that you are not making time for? And, how could you carve some space in your life to pursue it?

How are your roots today?

As I was falling asleep last night I decided that this morning I was going to make sitting down to write my first priority – writing is the thing that brings me the most joy and also the thing that I consistently put off when I get busy with all of the other things that must be done. I’ve been feeling stuck, restless, and a little lost lately…and also a bit fearful about moving forward on the very thing that always helps me get unstuck – writing.

The other day a little earworm visited me…Suzanne Vega’s “Unbound.”

I was once
bound at the root
confined with twine
both mind and foot

I cut it loose
and now am free
as anything
alive can be

I bounced around singing that song to myself all day. And the next. I woke up and found myself singing it again this morning when I went out to the porch to have my coffee with the sunflowers.

I like to do the daily readings from Simple Abundance while I’m having my first cup of coffee. The entries are about feeling grateful for what is and appreciating the day, sprinkled with happy thoughts and gentle suggestions about exploring spirituality and expressing yourself more authentically. It is so much more pleasant to wake up and be peaceful and content than it is to start plowing through a to-do list. And, if I’m not connected with spirit – which happens more often than I’d like right now — this book gives me something to start feeling happy about.

Of course, I hadn’t picked up the book in a few weeks because I was doing the opposite of gently flowing into the day. (And getting the expected results.)

This morning’s entry: “Repotting: Giving Roots and Yourself Room to Grow.” Sarah suggests that we will know we need repotting when “we wilt even before the day begins” and it happens over and over again through days and weeks.

I knew I was stuck. I just didn’t know how to get unstuck. Maybe I still don’t know. But, I do know it is time to care for myself as well as I care for my plants…to be gentle with myself…to start snipping away the twine around my roots, loosening the soil, and looking for a larger pot to hang out in.

Have you ever been root bound? What happened when you moved into more fertile soil?

Use Your Widsom Wisely

A few years ago I visited a woman who could channel spirits.  I wasn’t looking to connect with anyone specific and actually had no idea why I was there.  I just had a feeling — a persistent urge — to go see this woman and do a spiritual life coaching session with her.  I sat down with an open mind and an open heart and listened.  A few minutes into the session…my grandmother had a message for me:  Use your wisdom wisely.

What does that mean?

I’ve been trying to figure it out ever since.  I certainly didn’t think I had any wisdom at that point in my life.  (I’m still not sure I have any.)  I was struggling through the end of a broken relationship.  Nothing made me happy.  All I could do was work on keeping myself distracted enough that I didn’t notice how I was feeling.  I created drama.  I drank too much wine.  I bought too many pretty handbags and shoes.  Whatever it took to not be where I was…I did it.

I decided I should go read a bunch of books to try to find some wisdom.  After all, that is where the answers have always been for me before – right there in black and white, where someone else had done the work and explained everything and all I had to do was follow the directions.  I read stacks of books and scribbled in my journal and did the prescribed exercises and meditated until my ass was numb and went to seminars and talked to people and looked in the bottom of cereal boxes and after all of that… still didn’t find any wisdom.

Well…I did find wisdom, but it was everyone else’s – not mine.  What I also found is that a lot of the information was contradictory.  Not only that, but the information was shared from a place where all of the hard work had been done by that person, and they were now telling me how to do what they did to get where they are.

I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.  I cannot follow someone else’s path…I must create my own. While all of the information I absorbed gave me lots of starting points and kept me inspired and motivated to keep seeking…the people sharing that information had already done the work.  And in some cases, they ended up in places I’d rather not go.

It would have been really helpful to see them working through that process before they “knew” how things worked enough that they believed they could provide the “answers” to the rest of us.

Right now we are all spirits having a human experience.  We don’t need a thing – not food, not shelter, not material comforts – but I don’t think we can deny certain aspects of our human experience, either.  We’re here for a reason.  Or maybe we only think we’re here?  And who is this person thinking these things, anyway?  I’m not sure I even want someone to give me the answers…but I do hope to keep asking the right questions.

I like to work from a place of knowing nothing, needing nothing, and believing everything. It’s a great place to be but a difficult position to find balance in as I move through my human existence.

So, I’m going to start right where I am.

Where am I?

A bit stuck, actually.  I’m working in a job that doesn’t inspire me.  I’m pursuing a degree which will enable me to advance in that uninspiring job (but will enable me to move on to grad school in an area that does inspire me)(at least I think it inspires me).  I don’t seem to find or make time to do the creative things that truly make me happy (the very things which will get me unstuck!) because I feel so drained in that one area of my life.

And, right now, I’m pushing past the fear of moving forward with this very blog.  I’ve been in the planning stage for about six months or so.  I wanted everything to be technically perfect before I started.  I wanted to make sure that I had the proper motivation for even starting.  I wanted my first few posts to be written and awesome and explain why I decided to write about this stuff before I even started.  And then I realized that I (or my ego, more specifically) was going to forever keep making excuses to not move forward (if I let her).

So, here I am.  I’m just going to noodle through and see what I come up with.

Where are you?