If you find yourself crashed on the couch not doing anything, only to find yourself switch to a frenzied state of organizing your pantry alphabetically, and you then look at the ceiling in a semi stupor after eating foods that you have no idea how they got to your house, to then turn around and decide to go for a run [or wash your hair, or mow the lawn, fill in the blank] – you are not alone.
The world is bonkers right now. Regardless of where you stand politically, where you are on the social economic scale, if you are happily single or miserably married – if you’re alive on this earth, you are feeling all sorts of things… and if you are not, you might be drinking too much alcohol or smoking too much weed. Or watching too much porn. Or getting into fight with everyone you know, or don’t know.
Time to take a breath. It’s going to pass. We are going to find our new footing. Not to the same ‘normal’ because a lot of what was happening PP [pre-pandemic] was not normal. All of our circumstances have changed. Some for the better, some for way worse. But all of us have had to position ourselves in this new reality.
I love funerals. I don’t love that someone probably lost a loved one, but I love the sanctity of the moment. I love that people slow down. I love that the somberness invites people to introspect. Introspection is my happiest place on earth. Strange, because I’m also very social – but pondering why I did what I did, wondering what I could do better truly is a vacation home for me. So, in weird ways, I find myself more comfortable at funerals than at parties when the central activity is drinking. And that makes drinking in no way a moral issue. It’s a focus issue.
I ride a motorcycle in my spare time. An enormous machine that I can’t remove my focus from for one second or I die. It has taught me one of my favorite life lessons. Where I look, where I put my attention, that’s where I go. Gravel is the enemy of bikers, rocks on the road and you can fly off the handle just like that. So, avoiding gravel is the name of the game. If I see gravel and I lock onto it, I will roll over it. It is not an if, it is a how dangerously?
So put my focus on anything but. Look to where I am going. Lock my eyes onto what I want – arriving safely at my destination – then I look there. I love the metaphor for my life. The more gravel I focus on, the more I find myself rolling over gravel.
That used to be a pretty woo-woo concept for me. It is not. The way my Harley veers to make sure it hits the gravel as I am focusing on avoiding it at all cost is mechanics. Nothing woo-woo about that. The black belt stance here is to know the gravel is where it is and look away trusting my body and my bike. When I do that, I find myself smiling on the other side, alive, focused on the right stuff.
The key though, and the difficult part of this exercise is to not ignore the gravel. Pretending the gravel is not there is what ostriches do. No. fully embracing that the gravel could cost me my life. Maybe even someone else’s. Removing my attention from the obstacle, and gather more inner power, breathe deeply and focus on what is most important in any situation – now, that’s a ninja move.