Best Laid Plans
I surrender.Life is one big metaphor for daily inspiration. It’s kind of a game - the more you play, the better you get at it. The more fun you have, the easier it becomes to identify all the messages around you.For me, this has been the “summer of surrender” (let’s be honest, surrender is not exactly in my nature). Goodbye to best laid plans and intentions. It feels like just about everything I put into place thus far, has been toppled over or derailed to some extent by an unforeseen event or circumstance. There have been vacations cut short, rained-out camping trips, scheduling conflicts and budgetary constraints.Clearly, I had two choices before me. First choice, I could feel sorry for myself (which I admittedly indulged on occasion. Perusing Facebook, it appeared as if everyone I knew was off on some exotic excursion: Private yachts in the south of France, yoga retreats in Bali, seaside lunches in Capri. Hell, even a day at the beach was looking better than the view from where I sat at my desk. Second choice, I could curiously look around and ask myself, isn’t it interesting how none of those best-laid plans of yours are coming to fruition exactly as you envisioned them? Instead of looking at this in a negative light, what if I infused a little sense of whimsy and humor? What if I playfully asked myself, I wonder what the Universe is trying to tell me, what is the hidden message within all of this? (And the answer is NOT that you are the only one who doesn’t get to go out and have a fabulous vacation.)For one thing, while I didn’t have elaborate vacations away from home, I did end up having several fantastic speaking engagements that have transformed the trajectory of my career. A few weeks of creative immersion on my “staycation” has spawned a tidal wave of fresh ideas. The summer has in fact provided me with gifts…massive gifts, beautifully wrapped in elegant bows. I was too busy looking at what other people were doing to recognize them piling up in the corner. Time to redirect my focus.But back to the private yachts, with a staff preparing grilled fish on the Lido deck…I can’t deny that, that is certainly for me. As a matter of fact, I miss my travel terribly. My green-eyed monster knows this and loves to whisper in my ear, sabotaging all the good stuff that is unfolding around me. She says, “Why don’t you spend a little time on the Internet looking at what everyone else is doing. It will add some salt to your wound and make you feel even worse. It will derail you further from seeing anything positive about your current circumstances.”OK – so I know that conversation sounds ridiculous, but HELLO people, that is exactly what our self-sabotaging voices sound like. Denying the absurdity of our own self-defeating soundtracks, doesn’t make them go away. What if we learn how to talk back to them? What if we learn how to cut through the red tape of our mind-chatter and get back in alignment?One strategy that works for me is to “Name It & Tame It.” Learn to identify that voice. Go a step further and name it. Call it out and tame it when it rears up. Give it a try. Let’s face it, what do you have to lose in that situation? Nothing. And quite honestly, you have everything to gain. Don’t beat yourself up if you can’t fully eradicate the “Debbie Downer” within. It’s a benchmark from where to stretch back up, dust off and carry on – all the more resilient.Is there something in your life you are refusing to see differently? Are you wallowing in a little self-pity? Sometimes a little time-out to regroup and figure things out is just what the doctor ordered, but my advice…make it a pit-stop, not permanent housing.Maybe next summer I will be writing aboard a private yacht, cruising around the Mediterranean, or maybe not…either way, I’ll make peace with it. But in the meantime – a girl can dream, feel what she feels, work through it and keep reaching for the sunshine. All is well.What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it. -Author unknown