Photo by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash
unpolished thoughts 2/20/2019
What do you do on a day with no agenda?
In my case, it makes me a bit anxious.
I’m more productive than I used to be, but also less driven by the compulsion to constantly work. Still, the feeling that time is being wasted is something that really gets under my skin.
Part of the issue is insufficient money in the bank.
Because I don’t work for anyone besides myself, it’s tempting to think that to earn more, I must work more – even though I have enough experience to know that isn’t always true.
Today, I have a lot of unscheduled time. I also have a lot of dishes in the sink.
That might be a good place to start. When there’s order in the environment, it’s easier to think.
I need to think first to find work on that feels meaningful. Otherwise, I’ll end up just working in order to work.
Or I could determine that there is no need to work, and give myself permission feel good about leaving it behind.
Otherwise, I’m stuck in the muck in between.
The one thing that’s really clear right now is that I don’t have clarity. Something is disconnected in my experience.
This feels like a good moment to practice Awareness Through Movement.
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YES! That was precisely what I needed!
After twenty minutes of deeply listening to my body in motion, feeling myself from head to toe, I am more myself.
With a more continuous sense of my whole being, each thought and action feels purposeful. I feel the will to do what I do – rather than merely doing to escape the guilt associated with inaction.
However, I didn’t ponder any of this during the Awareness Through Movement lesson.
Instead, I mostly thought about the length of my spine and how to maintain it, noticing the moments when I lost its integrity.
I studied the changing relationship of my shoulder blades to my ribs as I rotated around myself.
I got curious about different ways of activating my legs against the floor to support lifting my head.
Now I can turn to back to thinking about tasks and how to prioritize them. But I am different because I can feel my skeleton.
It holds me up and frees me from the unnecessary strain of fighting a losing battle with gravity that was polluting my thinking only an hour ago.
A day with no agenda still stretches out in front of me. But now I have more clarity.
Along with that clarity, comes a sensation that feels much more like freedom of choice.