Right Now I Am
Right now I am thankful for sleep. My past months have been full of mental distraction leading me to drink the extra glass of wine, mentally fixate about things out of my control and ultimately sleep less.
The amount of mental discord we can create for ourselves is alarming.
And distraction is not the opposite of focus, as I once thought, but the opposite of “traction.”
Traction meaning “the power provided for movement.” And in this instance, the forward movement of IDEAS.
That’s a pretty big concept I’ve been thinking about since listening to a recent StoryBrand podcast with Donald Miller interviewing Nir Eyal about his newest book, Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention And Choose Your Life.
Combine distraction with the concept of “vacancy” that I was just introduced to when reaching out to my psychiatrist about my recurring sleep issues (aka not connecting sleep cycles and thus waking up and working in the middle of the night).
“It’s probably not so much that you’re troubled by something as that there is nothing to be troubled about any more. Crossing that vacancy can take some time. But you’ll get there.”
I’d never considered part of my mental health journey being the lack of issues to deal with in my head.
♡ Pause ♡
To even consider this topic is a little mind blowing during a time of fast spreading disease, human isolation, civil unrest, fast spreading fires and the disruption of education for our youth.
But even this long list of alarming issues around me is not mine within me.
If they are not mine to bear, they don’t get to stir up distraction that is unwanted.
And that’s where I am right now.
Not only going “mentally” home to love my family (as I love to quote Mother Theresa when thinking about all the things I need to do to “save the world”), but I’m going inwardly home… into my physical, mental and emotional being to love myself.
That love looks like being okay with who I am - my race, my gender, my sexual affiliation, my job, my home, my neighborhood, my mothering, my wifing, my daughtering, my friending… my ME being ME.
While it’s important for me, the eternal optimist and positivity pusher to know it’s okay to be sad, scared and tired because of this modern life we live and the chaos of the world around me, I also know that so much of my life and how I want to feel and live is IN MY CONTROL.
With discernment and focus, I can put positive traction around ideas I have, visions of the future I want to accomplish and causes I want to forward in the world.
IDEA: Simple behaviors and thought patterns that don’t benefit me, don’t need to be part of me.
So, instead of waking at 2am on Thursday and working (thanks to a glass of wine ~eye roll~), I brewed a daily detox herbal tea and opened the book Younger by Sara Gottfried, M.D..
I’ve had Younger on my shelf since I attended an Alzheimer’s Association forum in Richmond back in 2017.
I did’t buy it to be younger when I was 38.
I bought it because the author was interviewed by Maria Shriver (so cool!) at the forum and had such interesting viewpoints around health and our bodies ability to become younger ( = more healthy) at any age based on her DNA research. It had felt too dense and overwhelming at that time, so on to the bookshelf it went.
Then all the sudden it popped out to me on my umpteenth broken sleep night.
I randomly opened to Week 2 of her program, and it was all about SLEEP. I was in, and it is GOOD!
(NOTE: This is something my mother would have LOVED had the horrid disease of Alzheimer’s not stolen her mind and body in the early 2000’s - miss you mama.)
Right now I am 42. I’ve been the oldest woman on my mother’s side since I was 34 and look at this as a duty and opportunity to find mental and physical health deep into my 90s, so I can support and guide my children, grandchildren and great grand children with my husband (who’s family lives LONG, beautiful lives - think 97 and 104 years old!!!).
Right now I’m teaming up with my husband to be independent from any large corporation designing how we work for them and instead figuring out how we work for US.
Right now I’m loving helping companies digitally leverage their brands to grow their revenue and crush their business goals.
Right now I’m managing four kids attempting to receive a virtual education, which includes developing a micro-school for 18 kids in grades K/1/2 from our public elementary school.
And right now I am prepping to try Dr. Gottfried’s “breakthrough program.” Gotta DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT, to get different results.
Right now I’ve had no wine for two night and that means SIX hours or sleep back to back.
So right now, those people in my life better hang on to their britches, because I’m prepping for some TRACTION!
And I want you to be along for the ride with me.
I 100% know I’m an extrovert and need people to thrive. The isolation of social distancing has been hard for me.
My family is my world.
My friends and work peers bring me joy.
Let’s make a pact to make traction every day and make this world a better place together from the inside out!
Hope you can see a little idea for traction in your life and that you do something different to move toward that idea.
Don’t let the world keep distracting you. This is YOUR life. Whatever that means and whatever you can dream - start doing it. A bias toward action is the best bias in my mind.
We’ve got this!
Lotsa love,
Leah
p.s. Thank you Valley Haggard and Life In 10 Minutes for giving me this “Right now I am” prompt I come back to so often to find grounding in my own mind and on the written page. Love you!
