How To Fall In Love With Something All Over Again.

This week I got smacked in the face by a powerful idea. I drove my car which has been sitting in the garage for three months unused.

I had to drive the car because my girlfriend had to go to the airport. Driving used to be a fun pastime of mine and then for whatever reason, driving became boring.

Something strange happened though on the day I had to go to the airport. I was actually looking forward to driving and couldn’t wait to get in the car.

“I’d fallen out of love with driving because I did it every day”

Having not driven for a while, my skills on the road had declined significantly. Going on the freeway was like driving a car for the first time when I was 16.

After this weird driving experience, I went back and looked at other things in my life I’d fallen in love with again. I realized driving was only one of many.

Here’s a list of things I fell out of love with and then in love with again:

• After seven years of playing drums, I quit. Then, I heard a podcast talking about drumming and became fascinated with it all over again.
• Reading was something I loved during high school, but then I didn’t start reading again until I was 26. Now I’m obsessed with reading.
• Writing stories at the age of six was fun and then I didn’t write another one again until I was in my 20’s. Now I’m in love with writing.

Falling in love with each thing again changed.

What I noticed was that when I fell out of love with a particular task or hobby, when I eventually fell in love with it all over again, it was different.

Reading when I was at school was for fun whereas reading as a thirty-year-old has to do with my obsession to inspire people.

Another example is driving.

Driving when I was 18 was about looking good whereas driving now is a meditative practice I enjoy to destress.

Since my transformation back in 2011, owning a car now is a privilege whereas before it was something I took for granted, felt entitled to own and thought everyone had.

Now I’ve travelled around the world and spent time with the homeless, my view on having a car and the simple pleasure of driving is very different. 

Assess, in your own life, things you’ve fallen out of love with and then in love with again and you’ll see a similar pattern.

I’m willing to bet you’ve begun to appreciate passions you gave up a long time ago in a different way.

The opportunity to fall in love again.

Think about those pastimes you gave up. What did you love doing as a kid or a teenager? What were you obsessed with?

Once you’ve got a list of three things, go back and relive some of these pastimes. Use Google to look up images of these activities, look for photos of these activities that you took with your camera and talk to people you used to do these activities with.

If it was a sport, go and watch a game. If it was a computer game, go and play it again.

What you’ll realize if you take my advice is that you have an opportunity to fall in love with these former passions all over again. It’s a transformational experience.

The answer was space.

The lesson I learned from falling in love again with some of these pastimes was that it was space that allowed it to happen.

Not driving for three months helped me to see why I love it in the first place.

Not reading for a long time helped me see what was missing in my life.

Not playing drums for many years helped me see why I was so obsessed with habit building practices like drumming from a young age. The habits I built as a drummer at age twelve are exactly the same habits I use now as an adult blogger. Crazyyyyyyy…..huh?

The realization was this:

We need space from the things we’ve fallen out of love with

There is incredible power in these past activities.

Part of my personal growth has been thanks to looking back at what I’ve fallen out of love with.

This is one of the most powerful practices you can ever do in your life.

There are so many lessons and secrets to your future wrapped up in what you used to love many years ago.

Take a look in the rear-view mirror. What don’t you do anymore that you used to love?

Analyze.

Grow.

Embrace your former loves.

Source : https://theascent.pub/how-to-fall-in-love-with-something-all-over-again-f776feca8a1d