At any moment, you can go for a different part. You can decide not to be held back by comparison or spite, and you can make a start in a new direction. I’m not saying that the new direction will come naturally or that you won’t experience some starts and stops as you go. But if you don’t like the role you’re playing now, it might be time to rewrite the script.
Hannah Brencher
Braveheart, rewrites begin with an awareness of what needs to be changed. Awareness begins with noticing and acknowledging patterns in our choices and habits that are creating resistance, preventing us from living differently.
Any degree to which you can see the truth that our time is limited, that we can’t do everything, that you can imagine far more goals than you could ever achieve but be OK with it, that is another degree you know you have taken ownership of your life and started to build a meaningful one.
Oliver Burkeman
There comes a point when we determine that certain desires (experiences, experiments, creative work, etc.) have waited long enough — and that not everything we desire is entirely possible.
Within the progression of change, there are days we will slip into auto-pilot — time passes unnoticed, we slip into default assumptions, conversations and habits.
- Living on auto-pilot is like driving to a routine destination, taking the same route, making the same turns, seeing the same landmarks; arriving and parking, repeating the same route back home — but not noticing/experiencing any of it.
- Sometimes change includes days (weeks) of being on auto-pilot. (Please reread that and remember it the next time you feel “behind” … trust your pace.
- You are precisely where you need to be, Braveheart.)
- We do what we must until such time we can do more of what we desire.
Just because [it] is taking longer than we originally thought, doesn’t mean we are not making progress.
[post] notes from my weekly pages Week 24/52
Dailies (and weeklies) on auto-pilot unfold the same way. Default sequences, hour-by-hour, until the evening — when we sometimes slip into a blue mood; tripped by wondering what we actually accomplished that day (that week), or bemoaning the fact that we still haven’t [fill-in-the-blank].
Look closely at the present you are constructing: it should look like the future you are dreaming.
Alice Walker
- We are not able to “possess time in the way that you might possess a dollar or a pair of shoes” (Oliver Burkeman).
- Braveheart, when we repeat default cycles to the point we know we need to recalibrate, we must choose (in these “un-beautiful moments”) to ask beautiful questions.
- A willingness to ask these questions ensures the desired change actually occurs.
The ability to ask beautiful questions — often in very un-beautiful moments — is on of the great disciplines of a human life. And a beautiful question starts to shape your identity as much as asking it as it does by having it answered.
David Whyte
[post] starting art & collage for Week 25/52
Maintaining some type of chronicle, regularly and consistently tracking what we do with our hours, provides us with data — details and awareness — pertaining to living our desires.
This data enables us to envision the details of experiencing our desires. To self-compassionately live differently in order to stop unintentionally wasting time and living the same life over and over.
If I can accomplish one thing with my work and life (second to making us all a little less lonely), it would be to cultivate a space where care and support is so nourishing that giving feels like receiving.
Caitlin Metz
Braveheart, I am grateful for the continuing opportunity to host private spaces where giving feels like receiving, where we care and respect for one another as we faithfully show up for ourselves, and for our community.
These safe spaces allow us to support one another (and “analyze” our data together); to make sense of what may be blocking us, and to remember that we are not alone in our rewrites, our default sequences, comparisons and what-iffing. ♥
The motivation behind Right Brain Planner® is to inspire a self-paced and compassionate creative practice by offering free and low-cost resources and support.
- I share ideas and examples here because it is part of my practice, but also because it is a way of fostering a cycle of gratitude that I have shared with my supporters for over fourteen years.
- I also share about my right brain planning practice on my Ko-fi account.
P.S. Braveheart, it is important to note that there are no formulas for change. And changes of any type may feel impossible when we are anxious and/or depressed. Please practice self-compassion and ask yourself: “Where am I in pain, and how have I been ignoring or denying it?” (The Courage to Look).