As you might recall, my word for this year is Cultivate. I am taking a more laid back approach to my word this year. Am picking a theme for each month, and then seeing where I end up.
My focus this month was to cultivate flexibility. Sometimes I feel like I get stuck on one way of seeing or doing something, and I wanted to explore ways to shift that perspective. Here are some things I worked on this month:
- Stretching. Physical flexibility is something that I have flirted with over the years. I know it is good for me, and yet I don't do it often enough. Read those words again. Did you catch the phrase "often enough"? It turns out that that simple phrase is one of my largest stumbling blocks. If I cannot do a full hour of yoga, then why bother doing it all at? After all I should be doing yoga. Stretching does not count. It is not YOGA. So I worked on that this month. I did not do yoga. I simply stretched every day. A short pre-warm-up stretch before exercise, and a lovely post-exercise one. And guess what? It works. I have gotten more physically flexible over the month, and yes, even though most of my stretches are technically yoga poses, shhhh! don't spoil it for me.
- All or nothing. This is really a continuation of the section above. I find that I have this tendency to go all in, or why bother. This can be a problem for me. As I've started training for a 5K again after an injury, I've had to pay close attention to my physical, emotional and psychological energy levels. And you know what? They change daily. And drastically. I've always maintained that we are just a bag of chemicals, and now I have confirmation. I have had to learn to pace myself. Some days I go faster. Other days slower. But go I do. Here is my new mantra: The 20 minutes I do walk is better than the 4 miles I did not run. (Credit: Gretchen Rubin).
- I know best. I have classic oldest child syndrome. I know best. Really I do. And I'll often do it for you. I have spent the past several years working on deprogramming this tangle of neurons, and I have gotten better. I was given a piece of advice many years ago: When you always step forward first, you do not give others the chance to do so. So, I practice waiting. And, yes, it drives me nuts. But I wait. And see. And am sometimes pleasantly, wonderfully surprised.
- Practice non-attachment. If you know me at all (see earlier sections), you are probably laughing out loud at the moment. Me? The one always at the helm steering is talking about non-attachment? Hilarious I know. I got this advice from none other than the Buddha himself. Well, not in person people, you know what I mean. And over the years, I have simply put this advice on the bottom shelf. Yes, that might work for other people, but me? No way. Well, I had a break through this month. I was reading something (wish I could recall what) and realized that there was a difference between detachment and non-attachment. Detachment means that you do not care; hence why bother at all? Non-attachment means that you care, often very much, but you are not attached to any specific outcome. There are multiple outcomes that are all acceptable. Maybe not my "right" one, but also acceptable. Turns out I was hung up on a vocabulary problem. A light bulb went off in my head. And while I am not fully there, I have been practicing this, and you know what? It is a lot less stressful.
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