Have you ever noticed how, when you stop doing something good, like: writing, drawing, dancing, exercising, meditating, delivering a baby,* even if you start to want to do it again, your “this is so good for my soul” muscle says, “um… sorry, no.”
*Of course I have to tell you the story of the interruption of delivering a baby…
1987: I was in the birthing room with my sister, (husband was there, but had a hard time with that kind of thing) things are progressing smoothly, this was my second child plus my sister was my breathing coach. As I was transitioning, we’re talking full blown labor, dilated to 10, the nurse comes in to check and she says:
“You can’t push yet, the doctor isn’t here.”
In case you’ve never experienced labor, my ENTIRE essence, all my cells, everything was on the only mission there was–which was to push with each contraction, each contraction that were now from finish of one to the start of the next probably 30 seconds apart. Every 30 seconds and lasting for 60-90 seconds the MAIN DIRECTIVE was to push my baby out.
The nurse said:
“Do your breathing exercises.”
When your body is trying to turn inside-out and someone tells you to “breath” to get through it, many bad thoughts about that person flit through your head…luckily, my sister was there and she really did coach me to breath the right way–because, also, when the whole body inside-out thing happens, you really do forget how to breath, at least how to breath the right way for that circumstance.
S L O W F O R W A R D 30 minutes…the doctor is in!
All-righty, let’s get this show on the vaginal canal road!
Except, I had interrupted the natural “body in motion” of child birth, I had stalled it and now, my body said, “um…sorry, no.”
Eventually I did give birth, but the fact that I could stop a natural process and then not be able to simply, naturally, begin again was, to say the least, disheartening–I felt like some kind of birthing failure. I didn’t understand this at the time, but when I think about it now I admit I wonder what hope I have with any process whose habit I haven’t sustained?
I don’t have an easy answer for this–wish I did! We all need to come to our own way, maybe you need a “coach”–my sister helped me “not deliver” but then she was able to coach me back to the natural state of labor and delivery.
Maybe you need to remember why you’re here–I’m here to have a gosh-darn baby, today, for cripe’s sake! Dagnabit!
What ever it is, the first thing is realization that you’re NOT doing something you want to be doing–don’t worry about why you’re no longer doing it, don’t even worry about how you’re going to start again–not once did I think, well, geeze, how am I going to get back to wanting to push.
You do need to find your WHY for DOING IT. I wanted my baby in my arms. And it helps to find a coach, whether that’s someone you admire online, from a book, or it’s a real relationship.
I’ve been struggling with why I haven’t re-started the things I want to accomplish and do. I think I’m on to something, and then I let it peter out…I hate when I realize I’ve let something slide. Then, yesterday I saw something, it was a blurb for someone’s book that was going to be published in 11 weeks–11 weeks out, I think is how it read.
And something clicked. 11 weeks. What if I made a plan based on the outcomes I wanted in 11 weeks? And then sort of worked backward, what would I need to accomplish everyday, week and month? And what if I made my mom be my coach. (off-topic, we’ve been talking about creating a Master-mind group–cool, huh?) She hasn’t actually said yes yet…
I wrote out a rough draft, then I re-wrote it, I created landings–as in every Sunday, plan out the week, every night plan out the next day, NO TV until all goals for that day are done. This is my first day in my 11 week journey and I’ve hit three of my 5 goals for the day so far. Yippee!
By the way, semi-off topic: I believe our hearts have a muscle memory too–the more we practice/act open-hearted the more we are open-hearted.
My supporting oils for today: Young Living’s Abundance, it smells like everything-I-want-to-accomplish-is-done, ha!
Please share something you realized you’ve stopped doing that you’d like to start again.
Practically Magic 