From the inside looking out.

“There is nothing more freeing and empowering than learning to like your own company.”

Mandy Hale

So pretend for a minute that you have to self-isolate. Many have done it over the past year. If you haven’t, think for a minute on what you would do.

How do I cope with just me, myself and I? Lets say I start off by coming up with my lists. I am a list person. Love checking off those to-do items. All the things that I am going to get done. All the things I can accomplish. Lofty goals in hopes that this will occupy my time and make the days fly by. But that backfires. That list starts to loom over my head before I even have it half-way done. All the procrastinated home projects. All the unread books stacked up. All the saved courses in my inbox. I become overwhelmed. Intimidated by my own damn list. Now all I want to do is crawl into bed and stay there.

But I am not built that way. I am a doer. I am a list-maker. I am not a sitter-at-homer. That’s a thing. Shut up… it is so.

So this makes me really think. How does someone like me slow down and just let days tick away without a plan. Without a list. Step one – throw away the list. Done. Step two – get out of bed and do one thing. Whatever I feel like doing. Clean the house. Check. Day 2. Read a book and get some work done. Day 3. Write a blog post. Get the idea?

This is a good exercise for me. Let go of the planning. Let go of my lists and all the pressure that I put on myself to complete those lists. A test to live one day, one hour, at a time. And here’s a kicker… let go of the guilt. Because I am realizing that maybe sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes, this is my motivation. Guilt. Not a sense of accomplishment of getting something done but guilt of not getting something done.

So now I am working on being a sitter-at-homer. Working on not feeling guilty for not having a list. Working on one day at a time. Living in the moment with my own agenda and my own thoughts. I’m not going to lie. I don’t like it. It isn’t me. But I know I can do it. And through this, I know that I am learning something about myself. And that is good. That is always a good thing.

Good things come from living inside and looking out. Something to think about.