The Effort…

With which it took me to sit down and write this blog post was astronomical. The effort in which it took me the second time… not as hard.

You see, it’s Monday and I typically write these posts on Fridays. As my husband put it this morning, I am a creature of habit. He’s right; As a busy mom with ADHD, I rely on successful systems and positive habits to drive my days. Without them, nothing, and I mean nothing, would get done. And I would be pretty depressed (and a lot more anxious [than I already am on a day to day basis]). Anyhow, I was telling you about how hard it was to get started today to remind you that it is okay if the things you want to start doing are hard. In the words of Glennon Doyle (and others), we can do hard things.

Now, as I wrote out the paragraph you just read I got up to check my oatmeal on the stove (close to burning by the way, hello ADHD). When I came back, my system had not saved the words I had worked all that effort up into writing. But hey, I sat back down and wrote them again. It can be so easy in life to become incredibly frustrated by setbacks like that…little things…and no judgement if you have experienced that (today even), it happens to me too. But sometimes, it can be just as easy to sit back down and rewrite the words. Sure, they may not be exactly the same, sure they may lead to new topics and build differently than you had thought but that’s okay.

When something is hard, sometimes we have to do it anyways and what I have been wondering in my life lately, is what would it look like if we let it be easy? Not the frustration and the reactions but the joy and the forward action. I don’t remember where I first heard this concept but it is so interesting to me. What if I let it be easy to write my blog every week? What if I let it be easy to parent my toddler with patience and love? What if I let it be easy to move my body with intention every day? To put paint to paper? TO MOVE FORWARD WITH THIS PERFORMANCE. Recently, I was on a podcast; It was a coaching call with Merideth Hite Esteves of Artists for Joy (Artistsforjoy.org) and you can read more about my experience in my most recent newsletter (sign up under the contact dropdown!) and listen to it through her website or Apple Podcasts. On the call, we looked through different lenses to move through the creative blocks I am currently feeling and while previously I had described the distance between current self and future self as murky, by the end of the call, I realized I had the magic to reach through the murkiness into the life I want to live. So here I am letting forward momentum become easy, habitual, systematic, sustainable, and perhaps most importantly, joyful. Even if that means writing this post on a Monday because my Friday had to shift. Systems can shift too.