For the past few months, I realized it’s time in my life for simplicity and I took a nice long break from all that involved creating my passion projects.
Why? Because the work behind creating and marketing my heartfelt projects became a grind.
When I retired (it was more resigning from my marketing career), thankfully I took this action when I felt enough was enough. I could finally create something meaningful to me.
Except …
Over time, I pulled in the same patterns I used in the Corporate world all those years. I applied a perfectionistic attitude to everything I did. Not because I’m perfect, but because of my fear of not being good enough in anything I created. There were systems upon systems I felt I needed to implement so my projects would flow seamlessly. Fortunately, I love tech. But I was spending the bulk of my time on the tech and systems rather than enjoying creating and sharing a creative spiritual wellness project once in a while.
My intuition never said “work so hard that you feel you’ll never get it all done and feel stressed out”. That was all me. While I was encouraged, I was never encouraged to take it all so seriously. Again, that was all me.
There’s a formula for creating and sharing one’s ideas in the online space. It probably works pretty well but…it’s a formula. To me, the formula didn’t honor my individuality. It wasn’t for me. How did I know? Because of how I felt.
I was one person trying to “do the formula” and I was completely overwhelmed. Being older (though I believe this holds for any age), I’m not interested in a several hour work week. I have a lot of free time at this point and I surely don’t want to fill it up with long hours. I’m enjoying time with my husband, creating our woodland garden, a little kayaking, sailing, walking on our favorite woodsy trails, painting, updating the home we bought, cooking, a little traveling…watching the birds on our bird feeders. And yes, to create and share my heartfelt projects.
How does one know it’s time for simplicity?
Right now the energy on our planet is changing.
That may sound woo-woo to some of you and I don’t mean to scare you off. It’s time to honor who we are in a uniquely individual way. To stop making ourselves be so busy and stop the hustle. What are we hustling to? To stop following “how it’s done”. What are we working so hard for? Will it only result in being more busy?
Our planet has been dominated by male energy. And it can be a very controlling energy. It’s always been in our governments, our financial institutions, in culture, the Corporate business world, and so forth. That’s shifting. We all have parts of male and female energy within us. We still need male energy but we’re now experiencing the rise of female energy. That will show up, among other ways, as individuality, inner peace, confidence, self-empowerment, self-care, creativity, personal freedom. It will ask us to notice what works best for us individually rather than following others.
There’s no actual rule that we have to stress ourselves in order to create our ideas. Not even in order to pay bills and to financially thrive. As I feel joy in more and more moments, I consider myself more and more successful. It’s a new measurement that doesn’t involve financial compensation or the approval of others. And a pleasant surprise is that I now personally experience more financial freedom, an expanded lovely lifestyle, ease, and tiny miracles every day. The more I notice and appreciate them, the more I notice them.
When I lose gratefulness due to busyness, my energy steps up to remind me in not so subtle ways. For me, it shows up as aches and pains, scattered thoughts, feeling stressed, and not so joyful. That’s my clue to breathe and return to honoring my time here.
Now I’m practicing cultivating a vibration as though I’m sitting on a bench looking at a lovely view.
And that vibration will look different moment to moment. For an hour I may paint, later on I may jump on my exercise bike, or handle one task around one of my passion projects, or later on make a lemon mousse. I don’t plan or have a punch list because now I choose based on my feelings, my intuition. However it looks, I’m excited to see how I will continue to move into this new energy.
If you’re a new subscriber and you find this blog post, I’m speaking to you. Please understand if you don’t hear from me that often. I’ll communicate when I feel I have something to share. And that will be better for me and for you.
Recently, I deleted any references to my online community (I don’t have the time to create and manage a community…wish I did but I don’t). I also removed the sign-up for my monthly newsletter (I wasn’t enjoying writing a monthly newsletter…maybe at some point but not now). And, I’ll probably never organize a retreat in an exotic location.
I’m considering how I want to show up as I still create my ideas but in a way that also contributes to my own life. A way that I can align with more easily, more joyfully.
I hope you understand that I too am discovering and uncovering through my own life journey. Maybe this is something we can work on together, separately but in a connected way.
Here’s to considering what practicing time for simplicity means for each of us as we create more personal inner peace.
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