Did you water dead flowers again?

The other day I did something really silly.

I was puttering around my apartment, one of my most favorite things to do, off in my own little world thinking about God knows what. Thinking thinking thinking, unloading the dishwasher, thinking thinking thinking, watering the plants, thinking thinking thinking, and then I realized what I was doing.

The flowers in the vase on my desk were dead, and I was watering them.

I mean DEAD. Like point of no return dead. Yet there I was, watering them because my human was on autopilot while I was off solving some large dilemma in my life.

After I realized what I was doing I started laughing at myself. You’re so funny, you’ve probably been doing this for a while without realizing it.

As I took the flowers to the compost bin for a funeral service, I got to thinking about what just happened and how often in my life I’m on autopilot. How often I’m just rolling through the motions, doing all the things, mostly checked out of what’s happening around me.

You too?

My assertion is that we tend to live life for the future. All the things we’re going to do, excited about, problems we’re trying to solve, all the while life is happening moment to moment. Real life. Right now.

We mostly miss it because we’re on autopilot, or we’re being so damn productive doing all the things that we miss what’s actually happening.

We miss the beauty of the present moment completely.

I think this might be one of the saddest realities of our human experience, what we miss because we’re so consumed and distracted with all the things.

It’s times like this I like to take a pause and go on a bit of an introspective journey to get curious.

Where am I just rolling through the motions in my life?

What use to serve a purpose, maybe was even a source of excitement, but maybe isn’t so much anymore?

Where am I feeling unfulfilled and kind of … bored… in my life?

Awareness awareness awareness.

From the space of knowing what’s what, how things actually feel, we can start to make different decisions. Essentially, we can choose to stop watering the dead flowers of our lives because we’re now AWARE we’re watering dead flowers. We see it.

We can pop our eyes open and make a different choice. Willingly.

I’m curious… where are these places and spaces in your life? They can be teeny tiny pinholes, or large gaping voids. Maybe a sprinkle of both. I’d love to know if you’re open to sharing them (feel free to send me a message!)

On another note, I wanted to introduce you to a resource I’ve come to love over the years that has helped me in more ways than I can count.

Are there things that you’ve created in your life that once gave you immense freedom, that now feel like prison bars? Are the boundaries and limits you’ve placed on yourself giving you a sense of safety, or are they keeping you captive?

Being human is synonymous with change. With adaptability. We need to be willing to move things around until they feel good, and then move them around again as needed.

Switch up an old routine. Pick up a new or old hobby. Create something without any expectation or attachment to the outcome. Say yes to something you’ve wanted to say yes to and have historically said no to. Say no to something you’ve wanted to say no to and have historically said yes to.

Instead of running on autopilot, use your free will to choose where you put your energy.

One of my longtime mentors Alison Armstrong has a course called Extreme Freedom that I’m in right now. She talks about how we draw our own conclusions about how things happen in our lives from our belief system, and if we’re able to see things in a different light - that the belief we held may not be true - the belief changes and then the conclusion changes.

The result is freedom from the confines of our limited belief.

Her work usually centers around partnership, about understanding both men and women from a biological and hormonal standpoint. Out of everyone I’ve ever learned from (and there have been LOTS), I think she may have changed the way I walk through the world the most. The way I see and interact with other people.

She’s running a promo for $100 off some of her offerings until the middle of July. I hope you’ll check her work out if you haven’t already, as she’s helped open my eyes to a deeper level of communication, human-ing and partnership on all levels (not just romantic).