Over the past few weeks, I’ve had a bunch of ideas for blogs – I get them in “weird” moments…hanging clothes on the line, standing in line at the grocery store, in the bathroom. Most of the time, I don’t want to stop or pause what I’m doing, to pick up my phone & write or dictate notes to myself. The phone feels so intrusive.
Sometimes I’ll keep reminding myself of my idea(s) until I get a moment to take some notes (I guess I could keep a small notepad on me at all times – that feels like work though). But often, life happens & I lose the ideas.
That’s why there was no blog last Monday – if you follow these Monday mornings, you probably noticed. I know at one point, I had at least 2 good ideas for blogs. But when the end of the week rolled around…I had nothing:)
Liz Gilbert talks about this is her book “Big Magic” – one of my favorite books for life & yoga! She says ideas come to us to – they’re genius. I am not a genius – but I do feel like I am visited by something (that she calls genius) when my writing & teaching flow. She also says that if you sit around for too long, or get distracted & don’t act on your idea (with) the genius – it’ll leave you. It’ll go find someone else who is showing up & putting in the effort & it’ll deliver a package of inspiration or genius to them.
You might have noticed that I just said, “showing up & putting in the effort”. Because she talks about that a lot to. You can’t just sit down one day & write an award winning novel (or maybe you can?). You have to show up. Not just with writing, but with anything. I use this in teacher training. You might show up & teach an amazing class & everyone will tell you how inspiring & wonderful you are. But you might also show up & teach a regular, solid class & everyone politely thanks you & leaves. Or, you might not feel like showing up, but you do & you teach a mediocre class & everyone leaves without saying a word. You have to show up. Before you can even show up & actually teach, you have to show up & practice teaching! Before you can do that…you just have to show up. For yourself. For others. In life. Show up, put in right effort…not just effort, but right effort – that comes from the Yoga Sutras. I also think you have to give yourself credit for that. Whether it’s a good class or not, whether it’s a good day or not. Show up, right effort & give yourself credit.
I used to get bummed out about missing ideas. But I’ve gotten better about letting them go. I hope they find someone else who does a better job in expressing them. And while I would love to always teach a wonderful & inspiring class – mostly I practice showing up.
As an aside – this was going to be a short blog about how I had nothing to write last week. Then I sat & wrote…& kept writing because I think I got visit from genius. Please note! I am NOT a genius:) But I had a dozen other things that I should have been doing in the time I took to stay with this to get it all down. Showing up. Right effort.
And if it had turned out to be a short blog about nothing? That would have been fine too. It’s a practice.
