I have to write my blog post. This was my first thought this morning! It has been the lovingly ignored item on my to-do list for months. I have not had this long of a gap in between posts since 2018 when Ted had his heart attack. I have been feeling a bit like I fell off the face of the earth - again. But I haven’t. I’m still here, sitting right here at home where I spend 95% of my time these days.
The last 3 months have been pretty intense. This could be a topic for this post. But we all have poignant stories of the last 3 months, and the 4 before that. Political and social unrest, economic insecurity and global pandemic, the normal events and ups and downs of life. The universe has been offering up a continuous flow of disruptive events on a massive scale. I’ll leave my story where it is; as in coaching, the details of the story aren’t what’s important. It’s about the meaning making, the inspiration, the insight and the framing and reframing in service of living our best life and being our best self; it’s about discovery, curiosity and learning about who you are, what matters and what you have the urge to do about it.
The last 3-4 months have been about health, family, connection, asking for help, nature, self-care, learning, friendship, engaging, signing up, and leaning in. All of these might be topics for writing. They swirl all around but won’t settle. Even as I sit here now, fingers dancing across the keyboard, committing to myself that this post will be up before the end of this Halloween Eve, I have no idea where to land.
So, I’m just going to go with it. I sit here propped up in my bed on a Saturday afternoon, music playing overhead, luxuriating in the decadence of being able to spend a day in this beautiful space and in creative energy and enterprise. And what’s coming to me is ether, air, flow… stream of consciousness.
Stream of consciousness, a meandering journey, through the words, the thoughts, the day – through life. Life can seem like a curated path, a solidly planned adventure. We seek out the all-important career ladder, targets and milestones of the project, itinerary of the trip, the paths paved with “absolute and known” steps toward success and happiness. But it’s elusive, it rarely happens that way and more often comes together like this post that has somehow turned from blank page into what you are now reading, or this new song by The Bengsons called, "The Keep Going Song".
In the rear view mirror what we see as a straight line or evenly placed stair steps upward was anything but. It is the stuff of pivots, adjustments, arrows backwards, huge leaps sideways and catapults forward. It is the stuff of pain and loss, magic, creativity and resilience and like stream of consciousness, just going with it.
So…as my Leadership program has gone on the record to put the program on hold until 2022, and as I continue to work from home for the foreseeable future on endless Zoom calls, as I sit here and wait for our election outcome, as I count the days until I might see my kids again, and visit friends far less frequently and only outdoors with masks on, I am going to lean into the stream and allow for greater consciousness, invite in inspiration and hold onto my heartfelt knowing that this is the moment that matters and that in the next one, anything is possible, even a great idea for a blog post!
What would happen if you jumped headlong into your stream of consciousness?
photo by Lynne Harris Bernstein
quiet moment in Sequoia
©2020