It’s a weird experience to be doing so many things that I don’t want to do after a lifetime of rarely doing anything that I don’t want to do. So much so, it brought me up short the other day.
The dog and I walk every morning. We set out for an hour to traipse through the meadow in the coolness of morning, both feeling like we have some how cheated the sun, beating out our time before she brings the daily heat.
And it was on one of these walks that I realized that there are several things I am doing right now that I do not want to do, but the attitude and resistance that usually creates an obstacle for me taking any action in that thing’s direction, are just absent.
It was such a foreign feeling, that for a moment, it was disorienting. There I am walking the dog, me being me, and with a great unsettledness, I felt like someone other than who I have always been. But there I was living pretty much the same life I was living before but some of my “I think I know, so therefore, I am not going to ________” was missing.
Now maybe this doesn’t resonate with you, and that would be fine. But for those people out there who were born with a way, and have this strong internal compass, who have been held somewhat hostage to the thoughts and ideas that percolate like an old time coffee pot in their heads, waking up one day and finding yourself in your life, but changed fundamentally to how you relate to it, is a bit unnerving.
There is a workshop I am doing and there is nothing in me that wants to do it. And if I am totally honest, if it wasn’t being held three blocks from my house, I wouldn’t be going. The convenience of it really did eliminate a great deal of my obstinance. It will be a good experience and one that I have not really had in maybe a decade. It isn’t something I felt that I needed, one second before I found out that it was occurring. I wasn’t walking around in every day life thinking. “You know what I am lacking right now, this particular workshop...”
Nope, didn’t happen like that. It was mentioned and everything in me raised us, per usual, with a resounding NO THANK YOU! But then it percolated. And then it ended up on my calendar. And then there I was sitting in it for two hours last weekend. And much to my surprise, planning on attending again and making the commitment for the twelve weeks or whatever time period it lasts.
I haven’t been willing to do this for years, maybe ever. And there was a great deal of resistance that welled up in me over the years. And this time was no different, yet here I am doing the workshop.
It was like some piece of me was removed. Some key ingredient that sorts through the opportunities in my life, and shifts them from possible, to not possible, and I suppose more rarely, not possible to possible, was now operating in some sort of rouge manner. I said yes and I actually meant it and then followed through with it.
It is likely well known to all around me that I like the idea of these types of things more than I actually like attending the event. And that is because I always come up with something else I would rather be doing when it comes time to follow through on the thing I said that I would do, that really did interest me at the time, but that thing, has now lost out to some other more important task for me. It could be something legit like a family commitment or issue, but more likely, it is because I would rather stay home and fold laundry, which is such a very low bar to set.
I would say that my disparate behavior was fear driven, but it doesn’t feel that way. I just am kind of spoiled in that I don’t do a lot of things that I don’t want to. And that has kind of been my MO for, well, ever.
So it was with some ceremony and interest that while walking my dog the other day that I found myself in this weird place of doing something I KNOW will be good for me, over my strenuous objections to the contrary. I do not want to do it, yet here I am doing it.
I have more examples but the workshop really exemplifies what I am talking about best. My thought process before was this:
Someone offers up an opportunity to do something.
I give it a great deal of consideration (usually less than a minute)
And I almost always decide, no, I do not want to do that.
And that is my final answer.
There are cases to the contrary where I immediately say yes (usually to travel or concerts) that I am unequivocally up for but I really can’t think of much else except travel or live music that I have the same pat answer every single time...YES!
I suppose there are those things that do fall somewhere in the middle, like part of me wants to and the other part doesn’t. And I will tell you that every single time the part of me that doesn’t want to wins.
So it is very interesting to be in this place in my life right now where I am doing things completely contrary to my usual nature.
And in writing this, I realized that a great number of the things I am currently doing that I do not want to have to do with joining groups...no shocker there.
But it isn’t just that I am saying yes and following through, it is that somehow with the saying of yes, all the resistance that is usually there, or actually there, just evaporates. And there I am doing the thing that I still do not want to do but I am not all upset about it or even disturbed. It is like my rebellious teen that stomps her foot so often, thereby putting the kabash on a great number of things, has taken a leave of absence. And I am left to mind the store (my life) without her itinerant and controlling nature.
It is all just very interesting, like it is happening to me and I am doing it at the very same time. I am here living this life but I am watching myself do it and for the first time in a long time, I am doing it differently, without all the rancor and resistance that has always been part and parcel to me just living my life.
It is a weird moment to find yourself going against your own grain, and seeing that it is actually not painful, as you thought it would be, and instead it is actually kind of liberating. To wake up one day and still be you, but to be profoundly changed in the most nuanced way and manner.
The answer to sky diving is still no. But who the hell knows, maybe next week I will be walking my dog and stumble across an interest, willingness and desire to jump out of a perfectly good plane or bungy jump or some other hereto for resounding NO! from me.
Who am I even anymore?
Better. I am better. In fact, I will go so far to say that I am the best version of myself that I have ever been. It is nice to be out of my own way a little and allow things that I have previously locked outside the queendom walls, to be granted access and to find myself just so very curious as to what will happen next...
And you can rest assured, you will be the first to know.
