This morning I find this particularly hard to realize … Not worrying, not being anxious about how the day and the complicated puzzle of plans made will turn out.
As a storm is racing over southern Germany, I wonder how this will affect all these carefully laid out plans for all of us… These plans involve some air travel and could just get totally messed up by autumn weather.
Here I am, hoping and longing to go to Amsterdam, to assist my teacher in a coaching class. And it’s not just this, it’s diving in for real in again in the community in which I have grown and transformed so much, staying with my learning team buddy, …
As I realize just how much I want to be able to go there, I also feel my anxiety rise that something might get in the way, that I might not be able to get there, maybe not on time. Since days, I know this storm is coming and there’s just nothing I can do about it, other than watch the weather and hope. This storm has been sitting in the back of my mind all these days and I am wondering about its power to keep my mind busy for such a long time.
And there’s my pattern that I realize: the more I want something, the more I’ll plan to realize it and the more it should be perfect. Normal, no? Yet I can see how unproductive and unhealthy this can turn out to be. Not only I spend time planning, I even spend more time worrying it turns out just as planned. I’m just now feeling again how much energy this consumes and how it prevents me from being creative and joyful with what is going on right now.
I’m wondering what is a good balance for me between planning and trusting my capacity to be creative in the moment when my plans don’t quite work out or when they were not as seamless as I had thought.
One habit I found useful is to check: is there anything (meaningful) I can change or do right now? If there’s nothing, I try to focus on what is helpful right now. I breathe and acknowledge my wish or goal (like going to Amsterdam) and I remember at least one chaotic situation that turned out well – and maybe even better than expected – or that makes at least a cool story to tell and laugh about with a friend or a client (see my blogpost of last week).
How about you? What happens when you try to have your plans realized by all means, trying to cheat the weather or geography? As a practice, watch out for moments when it gets tight and what you really are anxious to achieve. What would happen if you did not achieve it? And what was a situation in the past where some creative genius arose from the chaos?
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