Honour your energy
I usually go dancing on a Monday night, it's a great way to start the week and it's one of the highlights of the week for me. Recently, I had an important
presentation on the Tuesday, and this time I decided not to go dancing.
Whilst I love dancing and it would have
created energy, I realised that it was time better spent either preparing my
presentation, or preparing myself.
I'm learning to honour my energy.
Some days I am lively and energetic and I feel like I can take on the
world.
On other days it may take more of an effort to get out of bed and leave the house, and I used to try
and force myself to do things when my energy was low.
Instead, I'm learning that's when I need to shift down, into neutral
and slow down. That's when I need to come back to myself and to do whatever it
takes to nurture myself and nourish my soul and my body.
We may put in all the time into preparing a presentation, we may spend
hours writing it up and rehearsing, but how much time do we
spend preparing ourselves? How much time do we spend ensuring that *we* are
ready? That we have eaten right, that we have had enough sleep, that we will be
ready the next day?
I've taken to keeping the focus on me when I have a big
presentation, project or assessment coming up. I study and write and rehearse, but I have also
learnt that all the rehearsing in the world won't help if I am tired, if I am
not present, if I am unable to give my full attention to the moment, to be ready
to adapt and cope if things don't go as planned.
So on Monday night, I didn't go dancing. I went grocery shopping instead
and bought enough food to last me the week, to stock up my pantry. That's when
I realised I really wanted flowers. I had been waiting until I finished the
presentation and I knew it had gone well, before buying the flowers as a
reward.
When I saw the flowers, I realised that I wanted to give them to myself
as a good luck wish, that I wanted them to be there in the flat waiting for me
when I returned, no matter what the outcome was.
Writing up, preparing and giving the presentation, was in my control.
The outcome and how it was received, was not.
Why wait to reward myself, when I was rewarding the effort I had put
in? When it's the effort that matters?
When it felt amazing to come home to the flowers already in the vase
when I got back? That way I didn't talk myself out of buying them depending on
the outcome.
The outcome doesn't matter. What matters is that we tried, what matters
is that we put in the effort, and that we worked hard and did our best.
And we can only do our best when we take care of ourselves, when we
honour our energy.
Purlgirl xx
