How to cozy back up to your discipline.
“We must plant ourselves again in the universe.”
A quick chicken story
I'm reminded of the first year we had chickens in our backyard city homestead. I was trying to plant our annual bean seeds to grow up the trellis (which we also used as a natural way to block our view of the neighbors chain link fencing). These were dual action beans with a purpose. Anyone who has had chickens knows that letting them free range and trying to grow a garden from seed can be a loosing battle. Each time I planted a row of seeds, watered them, and watched them poke their little sprouts above the ground a chicken would escape from their outside run and scratch it up. Again and again I planted my rows of seeds, vigilantly scooped up stray chickens and escorted them back to their side. Finally, the sprouts were little plants, maybe not as numerous as years past but they were climbing the trellis none the less and strong enough to withstand the inevitable stray chicken.
My story
A few years ago, I had the realization that my well had run dry. I had depleted my joy resources through lack of self-reflection and self-care in my motherhood. So, I began a journey toward presence, joy, creativity, and self-nurturing. Along the way I learned many tools and practices that began to support me daily as I replenished my inner well. This learning and being became my new discipline. It didn't take long under that light of self-love for my inner well to fill and begin to spill over touching all aspects of my life. As with any life-long practice there are times when we forget and lose our discipline. Recently, I had the experience of waking up and feeling like I had strayed quite far off my well worn path. I didn't feel like myself (the one connected to joy and peace) and realized it had been a little while since I had. I started down the road of self-judgement first: How could this have happened? How could I have let myself slip that much? Could letting go of my self-care practices and spiritual disciplines for just a little while have this much of an effect on my life? And, what does that say about me? I felt like the little sprouts that couldn't take root. That kept getting scratched up just when they thought they were firmly planted. Will the universe hear my call even though I've come untethered? I wondered. Even with our best intentions there are times when we wake up one morning and realize we've fallen off our path (or discipline, practice, journey). The trick is to accept where we find ourselves right now- today- and plant ourselves again.And, what did that look like for me? It started with a deep, full body, breath. With picking up my mala beads the next morning for 5 minutes before I woke the kids up. Drawing a hot bath that evening with a favorite book. Giving myself a good night's sleep. Most importantly, it took giving the disciplines that I had been resistant to a different feeling. Instead of naming them as "the things I haven't been doing and should be doing and what happened!?!" I simply said "hi, old friends, I'm back."PS. Awesome chicken photo and knitted chicken cozy by sazknits on Ravelry.com. Even, seed scratching chickens deserve a little cozy.