I had a bit of a smackdown from my soul last week. Every day I check in with mind, body, heart and soul in my morning pages to see what my inner wisdom is sharing with me. Last week I had been moaning about the fact that the final bit of my Create a Life Worth Falling in Love With transcription/workbook project is going to take longer than I thought (again).
I’d hoped to get it finished last week. I’ll be lucky if it’s done by the end of this week. I always do this, I always wildly underestimate how long things will take. Couple that with my white line fever when I can see the end of a project, and the fact that I love starting and find finishing a total arseache, and you have a recipe for disaster impatience.
So I was moaning in my morning pages about how long it would take. My body’s wisdom was to release the tension, unclench, breathe, relax. My soul jumped in with a less gentle approach. “Quit whining. So it’s going to take longer than expected? So what? So you can’t move onto the next shiny thing on the list? So what? So you have been working on this forever and it’s still not done? So what?”
“It’s going to take as long as it takes, and frankly, you getting the hump about it doesn’t help you get it finished. Quite the opposite. So, accept, respect and embrace that it’s going to take time to complete…and get on with it. Stop craving the high of the next project and finish this one. Be here. Now. With this project. Until it’s done.”
I feel I need to say that my soul is not a harsh voice of criticism…but occasionally she does cut through all the bullshit and leave me no room to escape the fact that I’m making life worse for myself! When my soul gives me a smackdown, it’s from love, it’s done lovingly (if somewhat tersely) and it bears no resemblance to an inner critic style “you suck” rant.
As my soul neatly punctured all of my irritation and indignation with loving truth, I realized 2 things:
- I want this to be finished and good, not over with and half-assed.
- I am (again) living totally in the future and forgetting to enjoy this (wonderful) moment. The (admittedly endless) moment of polishing the jewel; of putting the final pieces together; of (finally) creating what I set out to do all those months ago.
You can see, I haven’t totally lost my impatience with it. My soul can’t change my essential nature overnight, but I am now able to accept, respect…and perhaps even embrace the fact that it’s going to take as long as it takes. And I may as well relax and enjoy the process. Not enjoying it won’t shorten the process…but it will make it feel much longer.
So my challenge this week is to relax and embrace that finishing takes time…no matter how bloody long it takes!
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