I have always been a huge believer in keeping things simple. A staunch supporter of “less is more” and purger extreme. I could always see the easiest way from a-to-b, and when things got too complex or crazy, I would be able to step back, trim the edges and find my simple place again.
Somehow in the last few months I lost this. Things got more difficult. Messy.
Perhaps it was me, forgetting my “rules” for life, and ignoring my instinct. Perhaps it was just nature taking over, begging for me to correct it and realign.
Or maybe it was just life, which, as we all know, IS messy and rarely simple.
Whatever the reason, and however the stars were aligned, I forgot to make time for myself. I forgot to simplify.
So, for the past month, I have been in “over correction” mode. As a previous swim instructor I always knew that to correct a cross over on front crawl you had your swimmers reach wide to the sides. In their minds their stroke was gaping, while from the deck, they were in perfect form.
Overcorrect to get back to centre.
But how does one over correct “difficult” and “messy” to get back to “simple”?
I know for me it has been about spending more time in my head than out of it. It has meant getting my hands dirty and pulling weeds in the garden (and this is literally pulling weeds. . . not figuratively pulling weeds) It has been going for walks, and runs and hikes. It has had me stopping and sitting in the sunshine, just because the sunshine is there.
It means cooking, from scratch, ever day. Stocking the pantry, matching ALL THE SOCKS.
It is fresh, clean sheets on every bed, and getting the vacuum in even those hard to reach spots.
It has meant doing the jobs on my to-do list from the bottom to the top (I always put the most dreaded job on the bottom). It is taxes, cleaning out my inbox, and sorting through the papers in “that” pile on my desk.
It is movies before bed, and powering off all weekend. It is popcorn, greasy fingers and laughter.
It means closing doors, tightly, to stop anything else from coming in, and just paying attention to the people and things currently IN the room.
It also means kicking some things out of the room.
It has been focussing on the NEED to do’s and WANT to do’s, instead of the SHOULD do’s. It has meant giving myself a bit of a break if I didn’t do one of the do’s and being okay with that.
It means NOT multitasking. At all.
It is about saying yes, or no, and not allowing “maybe” to take up residents.
In my mind my little “staycation” is almost over, but I hope that some of this “over correction” will remain and that I will continue to walk on my path, with less of a cause to sway. I feel refreshed and ready to leap back in. . . halfway only though, so I can still keep one foot firmly planted in real life.