The Work

Turns out building a good life that feels fulfilling and attuned to your values takes work. It takes dedication to the actions you want to become habits. It takes thinking about the unhealthy behaviors you're repeating and then actively choosing something else. It means when you’re unmotivated you still do what you need to do. It’s intentionally (aka putting the work, showing up, knowing what you want) making the space for yourself. It requires a lot of work. 

Recently this work feels hard for me. I haven’t been motivated to work on my business or read the books that teach me the important stuff. Coming to my yoga mat feels like a lot of work for what I know it will gain me. Doing creative endeavors was feeling inauthentic, I wasn’t writing in my journal, and I hadn’t created a blog post in a while.

I remembered a few things as I started to fall down this hole.

One is that life is a spiral. I like to imagine it as a spiral going upwards, and either side of the spiral represents 1 of two polarities. Lately I’ve been diving into the duality of life, the light / dark, yin / yang, feminine / masculine, ease / struggle. I like to listen to this YouTuber Aaron Abke, who talks a lot about spirituality in a way that makes sense to me. One of the things he recently pointed out was the alternating energies of opposing polarities. Because realistically life is never always joy and flowers and goodness. There are also sad days and rain and pain. But this spinning of the wheel, the eternal spiral, always comes back around. So while both periods of the polarities are temporary, they will come back around. Hopefully all the while, moving up, growing, expanding, and becoming something different along the way.

Another thing I like to remind myself of is that right now I’m not going to have it all. I’m trying to build a business and that takes time, hard work, and dedication. So I’m tuning back in. I’m creating office time for myself. But I’m taking small steps that matter. I am at least putting some brain energy into creating my dream work, and at the same time I know I don’t have the resources and background information I want to start treating clients. And that’s okay! I’m in a learning phase, which is awesome in it’s own way. So I’m trying to accept where I am, the limits of life right now, and lean into the current chapter rather than punish myself for not being in a future one.

Last point I’d like to make here is that with momentum, things come easier. Implementing one habit back into my life like a really yummy shower routine, coking for myself, or keeping up on my yoga practice tends to result in other habits I love coming back out of the woodworks. It’s easier to keep going once you’ve started. So try just taking a small step today, just something to move you in the right direction. And if that feels like too much, that’s okay too, but don’t let feelings hold you back for too long, honestly you’re stronger than them. Actions speak louder than thoughts if you can tune in without being attached.

With love and light,

Paige