When Life Hands You Lemonade, Drink It!

I love my practice.  I value the time I spend talking with people and listening and supporting and laughing and crying and connecting.  And running the business end.  Lately the collaborations it takes to make an even simple practice like mine go, have been super creative and enjoyable.  These activities tend to require my full attention.  And time.  

I longed for time to reflect quietly and write.  I began writing a blog a few years back and discovered what a joy it is for me to write. Often in response to something I heard in a session or in conversations and reflections with Steve.  Or something that just happened to me —the blog is a place I get to sort it through.  And writing tended to squeeze itself in on the very bottom of my list of things to do.

This morning, while doing morning chores, I was considering on all the ways people have been sharing that they have more time right now, and either are, or are not doing the things they wished they had time for —back when they didn’t actually have the time, remember just about 4 weeks ago?

For those who aren’t —why aren’t you doing those things?  What is in the way now?  Is it the story you might be telling yourself, ‘well, I didn’t want the time this way!”  Is there some sort of guilty story, that if you enjoy your life, or if you are happy when your happiness comes at the cost of so many, then you are (fill in the blank)? Maybe you (even unconsciously) think “Am I a monster?”  “Maybe I should suffer in solidarity”.  Remind me to write a blog on judgements —oh, that’s right, I did. 

I am reminded of a conversation I had a few years back.  Talking with a friend about tithing.  I was struck at her wild acceptance of any way the money (abundance) came back to her.  She was fine no matter what.  She shared if someone died and left her a bunch of money it would be equally happily received as if she worked hard and ‘earned’ it.  I immediately became aware of my own stories that I believed to be the right way to be abundant and the wrong way.  

In that moment, I remembered the Buddhist story of Maybe, Maybe Not.  You likely have heard it before in some way, about the man who had horses.  It goes something like this:  

One day one of the horses got away, and his friends and neighbors said to him, “That’s bad”.  He replied, “Maybe, maybe not”.  When the horse returned, it brought many others with it, and the friends and neighbors exclaimed, “That is good!  You are so lucky!”  The man replied, “Maybe, maybe not”.  When the son went out to break one of the new horses, he fell and broke his leg.  Once again friends and neighbors, shared their concern, “Oh, this is so bad!”, and once again, the man replied, “Maybe, maybe not.”  When war broke out and the army passed over the son because of his broken leg, the neighbors spoke of their relief declaring, “This is wonderful!”  And, as you are probably guessing by now, the man replied, “Maybe, maybe not.”

This story continues, and the end is, there is no end.  We can never know.  Good or Bad. 

So…I am in the kitchen this morning thinking about our situation where many of us are saying we have the time to do the things we want to.   And there are many reasons not to.  First of all, some of those things revolve around cleaning or organizing basements, closets and the like.  While yes, we may have time, we are pretty sure it won’t be fun.  

Not all of our longings revolve around chores though.

It might be important to do the things we want to.  Regardless of what you might think about the circumstances that this gift of time is being offered to you, saying yes, and beginning to do the stuff you want to right now offers you necessary information that you might not be able gather again.

The only way that you might know how your life might be if you do the things you want to is by actually doing them.

You might find that you absolutely adore doing the thing, and doing it moves to consider how you will prioritize it in the future (if) when life returns to busy again.  Allowing you the opportunity to enjoy your life more fully, more mindfully, moving forward.

You might find that something happens because you are doing it.  Perhaps someone else loves it too and you develop a friendship you weren’t anticipating.  Perhaps it evolves into a new business idea and you discover ways to earn an income doing something you love.  Perhaps your thing exposes your children to something they discover they love and will become enthralled with this new creative outlet offering their life something deeply meaningful. 

Perhaps you explore deeply this thing you wanted to do more of, and you realize it was just something you thought you loved, or something you used to love.  That it really is something that doesn't particularly bring you joy.  I can imagine all sorts of freedom you might feel, relief from the ‘should’ or the “I wish”, moving forward.

In all these cases, you will have new information about who you are and what you want in life.

I decided that I am going to say yes to the offering of time.   How about you?