Hi, hello, what’s up?! Did we survive the longest month of the year? I know I did! Today I’m completing the last day of a 30 day yoga challenge for the third year in a row, and I have to say, I’m SUPER proud that I haven’t missed a day in all three years! It feels so great to accomplish something that is genuinely so good for the soul.

If we are IG friends, you may have seen me post at the beginning of the year that this year’s mantra or theme is ‘presence.’ I picked it because I personally spend so much time looking forward and backwards and often miss what’s right in front of me. All month long, I took special care to notice everything going on in my mind and my body. I added yoga and meditation into my daily routine to really help me dial down the white noise and focus on my inner world.

I have to say, my anxiety decreased exponentially. I’m going through a bit of a transitional phase in part of my life, and change and uncertainty are so scary. I used my practices to help ground myself and mute the voice that constantly tries to tell me I’m not good enough, or that the rug is going to be ripped out from under me. More importantly, I made it a practice and gave myself grace. Deciding to be present is not a one and done. It’s an over and over and over again awareness and then re-grounding in the present moment.

In this past month, I revisited a particular area of my struggle which is my ADD. I was prescribed Adderall in the past, but have found that the side effects aren’t worth the benefits for me. However, through grounding awareness, it was made obvious that although my focus has improved in my adult years, I still suffer from drifting and paralysis when overwhelmed with things to do or even ideas. Therefore, I have decided to created a theme each month for myself that supports the over-arching theme of presence. Can you guess?

FOCUS.

Hocus Pocus Focus. I love that little rhyme- it reins me in! I have SO many things I need to do in a day, and so many things I want to do in a day. In addition, I have a REALLY big, scary project I’m developing, and I am so afraid of the learning curve and execution, that I’ve found myself stalling and trying to find work-arounds to things I need to take care of. All of that self-imposed distraction leads to nothing but inaction. So I’m just going to focus and execute. If it’s not pretty or perfect, fuck it. Just doing always puts me in a zone that leads to better ideas than if I just sat and mulled intangible execution strategies over and over.

Being present for the past few weeks has allowed me to see when I allow my anxiety or ADD to take over my brain instead of pausing in those moments to really investigate where those feelings are coming from. “My work space is a total disaster, and therefor, I can’t possibly work on this new project. I must clean first,” is my anxiety giving me something to do because in reality, I’m actually too scared that I won’t be able to figure out the technology I need to use and I’ll end up wasting a ton of time or putting out a shitty product. “The house is a mess, and I need it to be spotless in case someone comes over,” is my weird ADD’s way of putting off an hour that I could otherwise get in a workout, because working out from home requires focus and commitment. Also, if you haven’t noticed, cleaning is my coping mechanism, which, if my mom knew, would probably send her into a state of shock. LOL.

My goal for February is to analyze those moments where I make excuses not to do things that I need to do or want to do to reach a greater goal and ask myself, “Ok, is this true awareness and presence guiding me because I need this right now, or is this my ego and fear distracting me from my greater good and goals?” In those moments, I’m going to do my best to refocus on my goals and then act accordingly. I know from experience that doing this over and over will help rewire my brain not to default to paralysis and inaction. Plus, starting is the hardest part. Every time we spend just a minute or two diving into something, we find that the work itself isn’t the struggle, it’s overcoming the neural wiring that we call habits.

I do think most people set some kind of yearly resolution or intention, so don’t lose sight of it now. Even if it’s time for a re-evaluation or pivoting on that goal, don’t lose focus on what you want for yourself. You CAN do it. Where is your focus? Is it on what you want? Or is it on all the reasons you don’t yet have what you want?

XOXO,

Liz