My friend gifted me a handmade blanket. I appreciate the work in it, the care in it, and the love in it. But never more so than when my world was falling apart with COVID and anxiety a couple of days ago, and I was clinging to that blanket like it was my last scrap of proof that the world is a kind place. (I’m melodramatic when I’m ill.)
“Lift your toes,” he said.
What?
“I know it sounds like I’m trying to be a smart ass. Toes are the furthest part of our anatomy away from the head. It literally gets you out of your head. As you lift your toes, your awareness travels down to your toes and away from the head.”
And you know what? It worked.
This New Year feels different. It feels like there’s hope. We can look back, learn lessons, and use them to build back better, and I’m no exception to that. So as the year turns and my voice slowly heals, it’s time to use it to tell my truth.
You know you ought to be working on it, but there it still sits, in a bag/on a shelf/in the corner, looking at you. You know the deadline is approaching. Your project keeps whispering to you about it. You know it’s going to be a last minute nightmare, or worse, a missed opportunity. So how do you break the standoff?
Creative people have minds that race with ideas and inspiration. All too often, they race with everything else, too.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who has felt like I’m in a lifelong battle to keep my mind under control. It’s like an untrained pet that races all over the house, knocking things over and generally causing havoc. But what if mind ownership, like pet ownership, didn’t have to be constant chaos?
Has anyone ever told you that you shouldn’t care what people think? You know they’re right: you shouldn’t care so much what other people think of you. Except you do. You do care. You want to be a good person, and you want to be seen as a good person, and that’s only natural, right? So how do you stop caring so hard?