I’ve been back on a blog schedule for a month now and I don’t know how I wasn’t doing this sooner.

Over the years, I’ve learned I’m not someone who can be on the same schedule all the time. I need change to keep life exciting and fresh – however, that mindset leads me to lacking an effort on the things I care about.

Without structure on some things, we tend to put them on the back burner. We tell ourselves we’ll get to it eventually when that future time never seems to come.

It’s weird too. The things we get most excited about or want to pursue the most tend to be the ones we push off. We get caught up in our day-to-day lives and think there’s all the time in the world to eventually get back to our ‘thing.’

 

I wrote about habits a little bit ago and I’ve been thinking about that topic hard this week.

 

Writing and meditating daily isn’t something I’ve been keeping up with as much, at least not in the way I thought.

I’ve pulled out my journal plenty of times over the past month, but on my rough days, I tend to forget about it. I’m not in the mood to see where my head is at because I already know how terrible I feel. The same goes for meditation. I’ll put it out a few times a week, but not consistently. It’s hard to stay committed to practices. you decided on when you were in a good headspace. I know the good that lies in them, but our emotions tend to take over.

I end up wanting to order food and de-compress for a few hours. Nothing wrong with that, but at the end of the day, I feel that I ignored my emotions. I used distractions to cope rather than the practices I said I’d do in those moments.

 

I have to remind myself though that I’m already doing much more than I used to.

 

We tend to put these high expectations on ourselves when we’re setting out to change our lives. We want to go full-speed ahead on the things we’re excited about. Thing is, we won’t be excited everyday.

We’ll get our feelings hurt or have a down day where none of that seems to matter anymore.

It’s a matter of just getting back on the horse no matter how many times we fall.

Doing something once or twice is better than not at all. 

So, I’ll pull out the journal or lay down to meditate when I’m mentally there for it. 

Some weeks, I can go every day. Others, I can muster two journal entries and listening to a meditation when I fall asleep. 

We’re all set out on this quest to be the best versions of ourselves and improve upon anything when can when we’re never going to be satisfied. Our internal voice is always telling us we can do better.

We don’t exist to push away our pasts and forge ahead for hopes of a better future. We exist to take in everything we learn along the way, embody it, and continue on. We can’t fault ourselves for not living up to our current expectations in the past. 

Back then, we had no clue where we would be now. We had a different set of worries, priorities, people in our lives, etc.

 

Our lives are constantly changing and we can only meet ourselves where we are now.

 

If I find something I want to change about myself today, it doesn’t make yesterday’s version of me wrong for not doing that same thing. That’s not where I was yesterday. 

Meeting ourselves where we are daily is the only way to create long-lasting change. Shaming ourselves for not knowing better does nothing but bring you down. 

I have one of those letter boards on my wall that’s kept the same saying since I got it.

 

Healing happens in layers.

 

It’s meant different things to me over the years, but if anything it reminds me that I’m never where I once was.

If I fail at something I’ve failed at in the past doesn’t mean I’m back where I was then. I already passed that layer. I’m in a new layer of life with that same thing.

The easiest way to put it is life is like an onion, not a ladder.

We’re constantly peeling away at layers of our life experience.

Even when we think we’re the same person who struggled then, we’re not. We already made it through that part of our journey. It’s a very human experience to struggle with the same thing multiple times. It doesn’t make us wrong for that. 

We’re always only learning as we go. 

My struggle with consistency follows me all the time.

I try to incorporate new habits and sometimes they stick this time around or they don’t. It doesn’t mean those habits are out of the question for me. It means I haven’t found the way they fit in my current phase of life. 

 

So, I try new ways of doing things. 

 

Turning on meditations to fall asleep to this week has become something I look forward to. It relaxes my mind before bed and I find a new one every time. I become excited to see how the words of the meditation make their way in to my dreams. 

It’s been peaceful as hell and a way to incorporate meditation back in.

It’s different than what I wanted to do, but for now, it works for me. 

Journaling as the day comes to an end or right before dinner helps me close out my thoughts before I chill for the night. It’s a mental check-in before I start watching a show or movie.

Again, not what I aimed for, but I enjoy it.

We’re here to enjoy our lives, not put ourselves on rigorous schedules to feel fulfilled. 

Life seems like a long feat to bear at times, but it’s much shorter than we realize.

We never know what the next day holds for us or those around us.

Who you’ll meet, the news you’ll get, even the energy you’ll wake up in.

 

It all feels the same a lot of the time, but there’s inevitable change in every day.

 

Don’t treat your life like something that needs to be a certain way. Live it in a way that brings the most happiness to you.

I’ve reflected a lot this week on where we all were a year ago.

I worked in a grocery store when the pandemic began and by this point last year, the bulk ordering already started. 

Everything felt uncertain and my days drained the life out of me. 

I was losing it at the grocery store because none of us were ready for that level of panic. I lost my second job at the hotel where I met some of the best people in my few years in this town. It was so much change in such a short period and I didn’t know how to handle it.

Now, I spend most of the week to myself. The dust has settled on the pandemic and we’re all just ready to come out of the other side. We’re used to our way of living at this point, but a year ago everything changed. 

If anything, it shows how resilient we are as humans. We’re much more capable than we realize when it comes to uncertainty. I don’t think any of us could see ourselves now and not recognize how far we’ve come since then.

 

We don’t need to be anything other than what we are at the end of the day.

 

We never know what the world is going to throw at us, so when we find ourselves upset over the small things we’d change, remember the bigger picture. You don’t need to be anything but you. The little things meant for us will find a home in our lives when the time comes. 

We can pick up little snippets of wisdom along our path, but what’s meant for us will always find a way in. Don’t stress about it too much.

It’s impossible to create the perfect life.

There’s moments where everything may feel perfect, but there’s always going to be more challenges along the way. Don’t feel like you need to set yourself up to never feel a challenge again. They’ll come regardless.

All you need is that trust in yourself that you’re doing your best. That’s all.

You do the things that make you happy, meet people along the way, and watch it unfold. 

Be proud of where you stand and where you want to go next.

Everything in life is an opportunity, no matter how good or bad it may be.

The good shows us we are headed towards what we’ve always wanted while the bad gives us the opportunity to change course.

 

Let yourself become the sculptor of your life, daily.

 

See where you stand today and follow where you want to go.

Wake up tomorrow and see what you’re feeling then.

Weeks, months, years, do the same.

It’s all in trusting our gut to see where we’re led. 

Even when things don’t make sense to act on, your gut or intuition sees the bigger picture before you do.

It’s in that trust that we stumble upon the epiphanies we’ve been searching for.