Two whole months and a handful of days into this year and I couldn't keep up. That's after thriving my way through last year. The change in emotion and pace left me unsettled for a long while.
Change entered here in an abundance, add to that a decent dose of overwhelm, the perfectionist in me coming out to play, cue feelings of failure and then replay that overwhelm... and that pretty much summed up the first six months. Each month felt big, then the next month simply followed suit.
Among all this I wondered just how and when surrender {my guiding word this year} would surface and what it would teach me, because it was feeling far off.
Each month I seemed to relearn surrender, reset my rhythm, and reprioritise. I felt oh-so-tested. Continually tested.
And when I look back, I can see I let this feeling keep me away from this space. I'd come back and share, then tell myself that once I got on top of things I'd come back again. But I never really got on top of it.
I saw surrender as calm, a slower pace and quite frankly me at the top of my game, just like the previous year. I didn't see surrender as "giving up". But, it was only once I threw the towel in on my "big plans" and preconceived ideas on how surrender would pan out this year, that surrender arrived.
I found new ways of making space and time for breathing; I spent a lot of this year researching, studying and reading all I could on mindfulness; and I rekindled my meditation practices {finding myself meditating in five minute bursts, and amazed at what a few minutes of heart-centred awareness can create}.
And so this year I've accepted that I'm not as good at surrender as I first thought... I've accepted that it's more than okay to schedule slow {and all that will create slow within my day}... I found myself adding meditate, write and walk to the top of my to-do list. Before all the shoulds and musts. And it turns out prioritising surrender moments is not just about mindfulness and creating a gentle kinder rhythm, but about nurturing my soul. xx
How are you? Did you choose a guiding word this year? What did it teach you, and will you choose one for next year too?
~ I have a bundle of free mindfulness prints ready to send out, and a meditation mini-ebook coming out mid year. You can sign up for them here xx
