Best laid plans
If all had gone to plan, I would be traveling in Scotland right now. I was there last year and within days of returning home felt a strong call to go back. Within a week, a tour presented itself and I got the last spot - paid in full. I marveled that it was the first time in ages I’d felt clear on making plans an entire year in advance. Little did I know!
These past days I’ve felt a wave of sadness, nostalgia, and intense wanderlust for the travels that would have been. I know many of us have had to cancel trips and plans we were really excited about. As I tended to the feelings around not being able to travel, I reflected on other best laid plans that have fallen to bits and pieces and I remembered something that shifted my perspective and experience of the loss and disappointment.
Around this same time last year, a month or so into the school year, my man-cub was going through a very hard time. There were tears almost daily in response to a number of challenges and issues at school. I'd reached the point of seriously considering the feasibility of homeschooling him as a single, working mama. After a few weeks of digging into the details, I came to the conclusion it was not in the cards. It felt unreasonable to take on homeschooling in addition to everything else. I concluded it would not, could not, work.
Well, here we are. One year later. Homeschooling. The fundamentals of our situation haven't changed. I’m still a single, working mama AND I’m homeschooling. The stunner is that's working fairly well (following a week+ of mishaps, mess-ups, and misdirects...let's keep it real here). Is it a massive shift in our dynamic and how our household does life on the day-to-day? Of course. But what seemed impossible just one year ago, is now our reality. And it was not in the plans.
Living life during the convergence of a global health crisis, unrest on so many levels, and unknowns galore, I realize the importance what I learned and experienced by answering the call to travel to Scotland – the importance of living life with ease and enjoyment. This isn’t about living a life that’s easy, it’s about connecting to the path of ease rather than struggling to make things happen. Learning to enjoy the journey rather than resent the challenges along the way. Walking the lands that have seen it all, activated within me what would be needed for the days ahead – to do with relative ease and enjoyment, what only one year ago, seemed entirely impossible to manage.
Consider your own best laid plans that have fallen apart over these past months. If you step back and look at the pieces, what has emerged or is beginning to take shape that wouldn't have been possible had it all gone to plan? What are the touchstones available to bring you to a new option, a new reality, a new 'normal'?
I’ve heard clients and friends talk about life feeling flat. Feeling a lack of purpose or zest for what once seemed like a clear path forward. In the chaos of what's breaking open all around us, many of our best laid plans are casualties of the collective changes taking place. The good news is, it’s not all lost. There are intentions, goals, and dreams that will re-emerged in new form when the time is right. Along the way, new pathways will unfold, maybe to things that you may have released as impossible or not in the cards.
As you explore and dig into the details of what shows up, I encourage you to discern where the ease and enjoyment reside. Even though these are heavy times to live through, you can and should seek out what lights you up. What are you drawn to that’s opening up in welcome? Even if it’s not easy, it may still be a path of ease. The more you surrender into the ease, the more you will enjoy the experience and the more clarity will present you with the next right step.
