Spring has sprung and if you tune in you can feel the energy of change in the air. A new moon and a new season is upon us. I spent the day yesterday deep cleaning as I felt this energy swoop in and I tidied up about a million art projects of my daughter's. We have a designated art table but she doesn't stop there.. she covers the kitchen counter, the kitchen stools, the kitchen table, her bedroom, my nightstand, the piano bench, the outside benches... As I began to tornado clean through the house, at first I was annoyed and then minute by minute, I softened and I smiled and held such a deep appreciation of her in my heart.
She makes it easy on herself. I'll be on her case to put stuff away before school, before we leave to go somewhere, before bed and she'll say "please mom, can I leave it?, I'm not finished and I don't want to lose my place." As I straightened up handmade decorations, letters, picture shop drawings, and crafts, I thought about how I do the same thing.
At the beginning of the year, I wanted to meditate more. Not just meditate where I try to calm my monkey mind and get in the present, but rather a more active meditation where I'm overcoming a habit of thought to become a new mind. I wanted to get clear on who I want to be in my life, how I want to walk, stand, sit, how I hold myself. I made a commitment to not get out of bed in the morning until I am embodying and inhabiting that version of myself - confident, courageous, patient, kind. Well, I used to have a judgment about having my phone by my bed or in my bedroom at all, but now, I make it easy on myself. My phone is all ready, on airplane mode with the headphones plugged in, so that when I wake up I can reach over and begin. I would literally have to do more work to skip my commitment than to just do it.
I also wanted to learn the piano again. So I don't put the music away. I leave the sheet music up and ready so that all I have to do is sit down. I leave the ingredients for the new recipe on the counter in plain sight where I would literally have to move them out of the way if I didn't follow through. It's right there in my face, waiting for me to get to the other side of "I can't, I don't have time, not now, maybe later, I'm not worthy to receive what I create." And because I'm envisioning someone who follows through each morning, someone who has the courage to try new things, I'm making it easy on myself to make that choice, to make it to the other side of the thought that's not true, the thought that would have me not follow through.
So who do you want to be as we move into a new season of growth, of momentum, when the sun returns and the plants and animals have restored, renewed energy from a winter's rest?
What is something new you'd like to try? Some new behavior? Some new choice you'd like to make? How can you make it easy on yourself? How can you set yourself up for success?
I invite you to embrace the energy of this new moon and new season by taking some time to get clear on just that.