A fan once asked Tom Hanks, "What's it like to be you?"
As he was signing her autograph, he sighed and said, "Lady, whoever you are, it's just one thing after another."
Amen to that.
No matter how far along you get or how far you feel you have to go, there is no avoiding that it is you doing all the doing.
Putting first things first, for me, has been about letting myself FEEL all of it.
Once you start to do that, you become aware of your little hiding places. The cubbyholes in your mind and spirit where you tuck away what you can't deal with in the moment.
When you ask yourself to change a habit, and actually start to do it, it is as if the doors to each of those little cubbyholes fly open, giving everything you're going through an added dimension.
You begin to see how so much of what you do (or don't do) is colored by what you did, or didn't do. And how you felt about it then, and now.
If you are at all like me, you start to become aware of how you use "doing" as a bridge across the troubled waters of feeling; how you have taken refuge in the future to avoid a present that has been powerfully influenced by the past.
Most of what I've been tucking away are wishes.
That things were different.
That I hadn't done this, or had said that.
That I would be there instead of here, if this had happened.
And wishing that these feelings would go away by simply ignoring them? It's like wishing a cavity would fill itself up: painful, and painfully unrealistic.
That's heavy, man!
It's no wonder we develop coping mechanisms aka habits.
This brings us right back to first things first.
This week, I have learned that sometimes, you really do have to go backwards to go forwards.
And that forward momentum is almost never built by force, but by grace.
The grace to look back on the past with kind eyes.
The grace to forgive what is happening now for not conforming to your expectations.
The grace to mess up, forgive yourself, and above all...
to try again.
By grace, yes; and also the humility to, in the middle of all of it, accept the gifts that are freely given.
Like unexpected walks in the rain with poeple you love, that surprise you with rainbows and no lines at one of your favorite places.
