For Those Times We Don't Feel Shiny
About 8 months ago, I made a commitment to write a blog every month for School of Shine. I really believe in the importance of keeping my word and I fully intended to. I wanted to support a great new initiative, yes, and an amazing lady as well - but my reasons for making that commitment were equally selfish: I wanted to get myself writing again, communicating with the world around me. Showing up. Being present.
I loved writing. For three months, I loved living up to my commitment and I loved how it felt to communicate from someplace genuine. But then all of a sudden, I just stopped. I looked at the topic and I froze. Which is not a real excuse because I was then given license to write about anything I wanted and I still couldn't get my pen to paper.
I didn't just stop writing. I stopped a lot of things. I wasn't being such a good friend to some people I knew could have used my attention. I didn't really work on my start up. I was less available for my son, bringing him to work with me when he finished his daycare instead of planning fun activities for him every afternoon.
I am not a model daughter. I don't live up to my own goals and all in all - haven't been a shining example of too much of anything lately - except for overextending myself for a job that wasn't paying me enough - or challenging me in the right places - to begin with.
So, I could tell you about how hard it is to find a good work/life balance.
I could explain that as a truly single mom (meaning there is no dad in the background helping me out with child support, emotional sharing of responsibility or giving me weekends or nights off) it's so much harder and I don't have time for everything. I could complain that I hadn't found a job for a while and I have to support myself so I didn't have an option but to take the extremely demanding job that I chose.
I could tell you I was a little depressed and it s understandable because things have been kind of hard lately and I don't really see the light at the end of the tunnel. I could tell you I stopped because I couldn't find an authentic voice inside of me that also felt shiny. I can tell you all those things and more - and they are all true. But they are not the truth.
The truth is just that I stopped. Explaining circumstances, dramatizing it, rationalizing it - they don't do a damn thing. Maybe they make me feel less guilty - but feeling guilty is equally a waste of time and a device to not do.
The truth is that the only thing that will make a difference in my life is to show up in all my spectacularly ignoble and nobly spectacular glory every single day. Every minute. Every hour. Keep showing up. That is the hard work of living. Nothing else.
So - sometimes I find it hard to do that hard work of living - for all kinds of reasons that are not important but are true. And honestly - when I was in the midst of it - I truly felt that I could not keep my word and write. So I acknowledge that - that is genuinely where I was. And sometimes, it is honoring myself to break my word. Meaning - the truth of my life at that moment will mean that I should be powerfully showing up somewhere else. And that, too is ok when I do it with power and communicate it. But the only thing that will make me move forward, is moving forward.
Acknowledging that I didn't keep my word, remake the commitment and move forward again. Every day. Every hour. Every minute. Without wasting time on guilt, or what I should have done. Just showing up again. And again.
So here I am.
With love,
Nitsana
