Allowing Your Mind Time and Space to Lead You into Creativity

Happy Wednesday! I trust your day is illuminating what will be a happy path towards your becoming a better version of yourself.

As I sit here, my left shoulder and the left side of my upper back and neck are currently in a bit of a knot. My thoughts are a jumble. I am not altogether clear on the direction I will be taking with this edition of the newsletter.

I know what I want to say...but the right words elude me...

...time to close my eyes...and breathe...

I recommend that if you are feeling a bit knotty in the shoulders -that you do this same thing, and click Play on the video below, as I have done at this moment while writing.

When you've got a deadline or some kind of external pressure on you to complete a task or event, do you see the entirety of the task as an obstacle before you that you must climb in order to be in excellence? And when you launch into it, do you take the time to clear your mind of all distractions...maybe move into a moment of meditation to allow for calm and for seeing the path you will take from beginning to completion?

Today, I began to write without having given myself a clarity breath, a moment to pause, thinking only of the feedback I had gotten yesterday, that these newsletter posts might be a bit too long.

And, now that I have checked myself and reintegrated what works for me and I have taken the time to inhale that invaluable breath and I have taken that priceless moment to pause...and I find that I remember clearly where I wanted to go today...and I can more easily allow these distractions to fall away...

It's important how we approach anything, any task before us...that we decide may be daunting or challenging...anything at all that requires more than a fleeting thought...

...We get to remember our self, check our self-awareness...our self-love...our trust in our intentions and in our purpose...and we get to remember that we are beautiful, powerful, resourceful, creative and intelligent beings. We get to breathe in these truths.

[If you do not believe or see that these are your truths, then we have a larger conversation ahead of us. Ask me anytime.]

And the path then becomes clear...or at least more clearly outlined

As Jack Canfield is so well-known for saying, you can drive all the way across the country by seeing only the road that is immediately illuminated by your headlights as you go. With what faces us, one step, one mile...one bite at a time, as they say, when you are "eating an elephant"...we can only take things on as ourselves, and one step at a time, beginning with the first one.

“Take the first step in faith.

You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step"

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

A Task is a task, it is we who name it. Whether you say it's going to be challenging or you say it will be easy, either way, you're right.

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.”?

―?Henry Ford

We each get to decide what works best for us and be ready to reevaluate what's working and what's not working in the face of our results.

When we don't find a path or a set of guidelines that work for us when we have a task ahead, we will almost always default into stress, self-beat-up, self-sabotage and other self-defeating behaviors. Surely establishing a practice through which we gain access to our best thinking, our most creative abilities and our most effective self is preferable, is it not?

What was once difficult for me has become necessary, and that is to always generously give myself grace when I make a mistake and keep going and give myself a 'high five' for effort...

...because "You are the most valuable person in your life and..."

..."you deserve a break today"

-Ronald McDonald

You could do as I have done, and take the Pinky Ribbon Promise for yourself and for your mental health. It is...to push back from your desk periodically throughout your day, close your eyes and take a deep focused breath. And if you need a reminder, I know I do, tie a piece of colorful curling ribbon on one of your pinky or any of your fingers -to remind you to do this whenever it bounces into your vision and your frenzied, stressed-out thoughts.

...and, please, if you find my newsletter editions go on too long, please leave me a comment or send me a DM to tell me so.

I serve at your pleasure.