Lots happened this week – less about the stuff I did (even though I did start the INFJ Facebook Group which is awesome!) but more about what I learned.

(I’m also having compassion for myself, for the fact that the lighting on this video is terrible. Sorry/lol.)

Related posts:

1. Harry Potter, Brownies, and the Bitch in the Corner
2. Life, Certainty, and Turning 37 on Facebook.
3. EveryDay4: Burnout, Compartmentalization, and My Lighting is Messed Up

Today, I am plagued by resistance.

None of the my usual strategies worked – couldn’t get myself to Panera Bread to write, cleaning out my purse didn’t free up mental space, a cookie and some hummus and crackers and a glass of tea didn’t medicate my ego.

So here are two things I did instead.

What do you do to get through resistance?

Related posts:

1. The Seduction of the Resistance Monster: Day 6 of Writing Every Day
2. Resistance Is Not Futile
3. The Other Kind of Resistance: Listening to the Quiet Message From Your Soul

“Good day so far?”

To questions such as this, I like to answer “yes, it’s great!” or at least “sure, of course!” or something equally enthusiastic … as if pronouncing my day as going amazingly well will mean that it actually is fairies and chocolate and wet sand between my toes.

But today is not.

Today is just meh.

Now, nothing *bad* happened today.

No one rear ended my car, no one broke up with me, the server didn’t crash, the card didn’t bounce, no doctors sat me down to give me the news while pointing to graphics of a cerebellum on their iMac.

I have plenty reasons I could be great.

The amazing testimonials sent in from my clients, how well my daughter is going in school, having a car and an apartment and the ability to pay my bills and put Whole Foods groceries in the cupboards.

This mediterranean sandwich with no feta that I’m consuming here at Panera Bread.

The fact that more than one someone has asked me about my day … and actually cared about the answer.

But due to the complexities of my life and the uncertainties of my everythings, I feel painfully unsettled today.

Confused. Preoccupied. Meh.

For the record, I don’t feel meh every day.

Not even most days.

But today, meh is all I got.

—

What do you do when you are having one of those days?

Do you fight it, try to change your mood? Do you tend to wallow in the meh? Or do you just let it happen?

Related posts:

1. Resisting Resistance
2. Tattoos, Pedicures, and Falling in Love.

Every time I sat down at my desk to complete the next drawing lesson in Drawing From the Right Side of the Brain … something came up.

I didn’t have the right plexiglass frame. There were emails to answer. The lighting wasn’t right. The pencil needed sharpening. The kid was too loud.

For weeks I kept at it, trying to make it happen, trying to break through …

Until this morning, when I finally stopped to listen.

Yes, there are thousands of books and blogs and butt-kickers out there preaching on how to break through resistance, how to eat the elephant, how to write every morning or fight a war to create the art or just do the work.

And yes, I agree that many times, the resistance is from ego, the bitch in the corner, the fearful caveperson inside of us who is screaming at us, trying to keep us from not dying. At the expense of killing our purpose and passion and our changing of the world.

But there is another resistanceish message that comes from an opposite inside of us.

This opposite feels completely different than that ego.

She is a quiet whisper.

She is kind yet direct, accepting yet persistent, understanding yet strong.

She nudges.

Honey, that writing book is not the one that will work for you. I don’t care that it got the best amazon.com reviews or that the big writing schools use it in their courses or those other people said this is the one to get.

You need something more fun. More nurturing. More expansive. More gentle.

That other book … the one you bought and it’s sitting on your floor because it seems too informal and unprofessionalish and kind of weird and artsy? Yeah. Use that one.

Oh, and that drawing pad you bought because it was what the book said to get and what looked the most normal when you were in the art store? Yeah, that’s not what you need right now either.

You need a drawing journal. Something you love. With paper that feels good under your fingers, that’s sized so you can carry it around and draw from anywhere, with a blank front cover so no one is tempted to look at your neophyte drawings.

This morning, I listened to her.

To that little voice of wisdom, who knows what is in resonance with our souls.

She knows what is the right option – when we are trying to think ourselves into a should, when we are really close to the right choice and starting to force it instead of waiting for rightness to be received.

She knows when it’s the right time – when instead of spending months to force a manifesto, we could just wait until it’s ready to be written and spend two hours in a coffeehouse getting the thing done, on a lovely Friday afternoon.

She knows when it’s the right person – when we are trying to twist ourselves into a pretzel for this guy, instead of letting it happen with the guy who thinks we’re awesome, just by being ourselves.

She always knows our truth.

All we have to do is shut up and listen.

–

Do you have a little voice in your head that speaks the truth? How do you tell between that voice and the mean/unhelpful voice of your ego/resistance?

Please leave a message below – I’d love to hear from you!

Related posts:

1. Resistance Is Not Futile
2. The Seduction of the Resistance Monster: Day 6 of Writing Every Day
3. Resisting Resistance

Yet again, here I am.

Searching for another apartment. Figuring out how to document an undocumented life. Looking at debts and deposits, at underwater assets and overlapping bills – and wanting to fight. To weep. To pound my fist against the zipcar steering wheel and screech at the universe in frustration.

How could I be here again?

Didn’t I do enough school, enough experience, enough launches, enough posts, enough certificates and seminars and trying and making it happen? Don’t I deserve to have my act together? Don’t I deserve to be settled?

Here I am again, eighteen years after I was eighteen.

Then … I was leaving home for the first time, moving into that first dorm, signing up for those first credit cards, passively resisting my first roommate, dipping my first plastic red cup into a punch-filled lined trash can in a dark corner of the frat house.

Eighteen again. Starting over.

But really … why am I surprised?

Growth, love, money – all of this life is a spiral.

The transition, the in between, the lull – we come around to that space, again and again.

It’s where we are reforged. Tempered.

Where we remember who we are.

Where we remember what we are capable of.

Where we remember that we will survive – even when down, even when everything falls away, even when forced back to the beginning.

And yes, I’m not really at the beginning.

This time around – I have a clue.

I know that I don’t know everything. I’m learning how to ask for help. I’m learning how to receive. I know what’s not me. I know what turns me on. I have degrees, a business reputation, a positive net worth, a wonderful daughter, an involved baby daddy, and amazing friends who love me.

But … I’m still fucking pissed that I’m here.

And I’m even more fucking pissed that I know I’ll come around to this fucking place again in the future.

So ….

I just typed “I’m trying to accept the spiral” <— lmao. What a meaningless, ball-less, completely useless statement.

As he said, do or do not. There is no try.

So here we go.

::Deep breath.::

I accept the spiral.

I accept this in-between.

I accept that right now, this is what is before me.

I have faith that I have the resources and capability to pull it off.

I know I have the balls to do it.

And I know that on the other side, I’ll have learned something.

::Deep breath.::

And I accept that someday I will be back on this part of the spiral. Again.

::Deep breath.::

Because, there is no done.

And, to be honest, I’d be bored any other way.

—

Are you finding yourself in a traditional, lull, starting-over kind of place?

What are you doing to help yourself through it?

I’d love to hear from you below!

Related posts:

1. This Blog Post is Not About 2010.
2. Two Half Written and Nothing To Post
3. (whine) I don’t wanna write a blog post!