I looooooovvvve doing new things. I get excited to plan and it’s a lot of fun. I’m learning to appreciate things that I do over and over again. I started thinking about this last week while recording an upcoming Woman Unleashed Retreat session with collaborative partner and my dear mentor Debbie Rosas. She said something that made me think about repetition in a new way and my relationship with it…
Repetition is an opportunity for self reflection.
I have been the girl to go to the next thing… Move on when things get stale. It was my way of keeping things exciting, not getting bored, of not having to think too much. Repetition was boring, lifeless…
In Finland during my Junior year in High School…
My way to keep it fresh when I was younger… Travel. After my mother died, I left for a year to study abroad in Finland. Three years later, I was in Japan. Two years after that, I was in Mexico. And months after that, in Spain. Each time, a new adventure. I learned a new language, saw different sites, met new people. I loved it.
It was also my crutch. I didn’t take time to slow down. When I did, I felt like I needed to add something else in. It was my way of not coping.
When Tony, my now husband then boyfriend, broke up with me, my first instinct was to go to another country. A little extreme, but normal for me. It would be a way I would forget my pain and throw myself into something else. It would be an adventure and keep my mind off my pain. I decided instead to stay and sit in the pain. It hurt. But in that space of self reflection, I was able to see what I wanted to change and changed it. Instead of ignoring the fact we had 2 different religions, I really thought about it, tuned in to my heart and made a decision that would work for him and I as well as our future kids. If I didn’t take the time staying in J.O.B. and instead zipped off to Japan, I would have missed the space for deep reflection. I wouldn’t have had the time.
I see this many times when I’m creating. I have points in my painting where I think, gosh it would be so much easier to start a new painting instead of sticking with this one. I like the beginning stages of the painting when it’s just color and design and things are real rough, but when it gets the point of putting in fine details and tending my painting, meditating with her and finishing it up, this is where I want to start something new. And many times I do. I have probably 15 paintings that are not finished. See, they are all here facing the wall…
What do they say? The way you are in one area reflects the other areas of your life…
In my relationships when things feel repetitive with my husband I think something is wrong. I think, maybe we’re getting stale. What if instead I saw the chance for more intimacy? The thing is, if we are going from thing to thing to thing, or if things are always fresh and new, we stay surface level. We aren’t able to dig deep, to find another layer of intimacy.
In my Nia movement practice, I have been teaching almost 14 years. There are routines I have taught maybe 100 times. There are times I have been teaching that I have felt bored. This again? An opportunity for self-reflection…
How can I make changes here?
How can I pay attention to what’s different?
How can I find what’s new?
Why am I bored? What’s really going on here?
So I pay deeper attention to the music and hear a trumpet I’ve never heard before. I pay attention to sensations in my body that are usually a little more quiet. I breathe in this moment and remember, this is it. This could be the last time I dance. I dive into intimacy.
Over the past couple years, I started breaking this pattern in my business. My coach is big on holding and maintaining focus. She wants me to do a strategy and then do it again and again getting better and better and better at it. She wants me to dig deep and find small things that I can change to make it better. My natural inclination was to do it once, then move on to the next thing. But I don’t. I have learned to take years to refine a program. I have learned to make adjustments midway. In the repetition, I can see what needs to change, what to make better. By doing this over and over again, I am able to help and serve deeper. Yes, my Muse sometimes gets pissed off because she’s ready to do the next thing already, but I remember that repetition is an opportunity for self reflection.
I am committed to digging in. Of looking for a deeper level of connection, of intimacy. I want to suck every last drop of juice out of this life, licking my fingers instead of grabbing the next treat already. Want to join me?
Share. Where area in your life are you feeling is repetitive that you’d like to open to self reflection?
