Week 33,
My friends,
Here we are.
Isn't this journey a grand one?
Can you feel it?
The gratitude.
Dare I say the pleasure of finding yourself here now.
So rich.
So wonderful.
Wonder-ful.
Let's dig in.
I've been finding myself reclassifying,
Well,
Redefining.
Words I would have thought derogatory.
Things like.
.
.
Indifferent.
Indecision.
Discomfort.
Uncertainty.
And today.
Distraction.
Why not?
I ask myself.
Find the value.
The opportunity in these words that would have otherwise been thought of as something to correct or redefine or realign so as to get more right.
This is a former way of thinking.
I'd like to think,
Giving myself credit for becoming wise.
I'd like to think.
That it's an evolution of thinking I'm in.
More power to us all,
Huh?
In this one universal year.
I find these ideas and these notions and these mental machinations.
Oh,
So very welcome.
They make sense.
Starting again,
As I've suggested this one universal year is.
A restart,
But a spiraled up restart.
Boying with the idea that These negative words have blessed,
If you will.
Connotations.
Information embedded in them that is there to uplift.
Well,
It makes all the difference.
So today as I've sat here contemplating picking up this microphone and sending out this message for week 33 distraction.
Windows wide open,
Just cool enough.
Birds twittering and chirping and a bit of cacophony out the windows.
Cars with their tires swishing on the damp asphalt out the front.
And close in.
The ceiling fan spinning,
Humming.
The dog chit-chattering its nails across the wood floor.
These things.
Causing me to think I can't be here.
That it's not time.
That the atmosphere isn't just right.
And yet,
I know better.
These distractions aren't there to distract.
So I twist it.
What if distractions were an opportunity for me to draw closer?
To become more intimate with the atmosphere around me.
And my own beingness in it.
This place,
This time,
This presence.
How about you?
As you sit with yourself this week.
And you explore your obligations,
Your schedule.
The list of to-dos.
What does it mean to have this?
Compilation of obligations.
Alongside distraction.
Or what one would often consider distraction.
What if this,
Too,
Is a dance worth dancing?
To acknowledge distraction.
Equally in proportion to those obligations.
I often use the metaphor or visual of a teeter-totter.
It's fun to be up.
And to be down.
Harmony when we use this visual.
Is in the balance.
Clinging,
Swishing.
Rising and falling back and forth.
But harmonious.
Where I hold myself today.
When distraction wants to come in and tell me I can't tackle one of my obligations because the distraction is,
Well,
Distracting me from it.
I say okay.
I feel that teeter-totter turn down just a bit and the obligation rise just a bit.
And they meet in the middle.
An obligation gets its space.
So with the birds chittering.
And the tires swishing.
And the dog toe tapping.
I record anyway.
This week's quote.
Your mantra,
Bring yourself back to the space you're in.
To remember that harmonious balance.
Let's call it presence.
Is from Maria Popova.
The Great Challenge.
The Great Triumph.
Is to make of memory an instrument of presence.
How about this twist?
The great challenge,
The great triumph.
Is to make of destruction.
An instrument of presence.
Awaken Creative.
