I feel a weight, sadness, uncertainty - let's just loosely call it an "energy" - about what is happening and I absorb it and if I'm not conscious, I identify it as mine, my own problem. My dark place may have been triggered by what is happening in our country and on the planet today, which I am both aware of and sensitive to. Our society is taught to go from one thing to the next - Job A to Job B, House 1 to House 2 - and in the fast-paced American way, we often forget to observe the change and take time for ourselves. She referenced this "zone" from the William Bridges Change Model regarding transition and explained how we experience negative emotions because it is unfamiliar to be in transition or to be neutral. My business mentor gave me much relief when she identified it as a Neutral Zone, a period of time between an ending and a new beginning. I'm coming out of what I considered to be a dark place. As I become more aware of and vulnerable to my new experiences, I slow down and am reminded to simply notice. Recently and throughout life, I have taken some of life's pleasures for granted. Lord Byron's quote reminds me to experience the pleasure along the way. It takes a lot of trust and belief in myself and to be honest with you - some days I can stand proud in my trust and belief and other days, I don't know what the hell I'm doing! To expand on the metaphor, I may have to climb a tree, create tools out of rocks, and make friends with animals in the woods along the way. Additionally, my entrepreneurial (and personal) life currently carries with it so much uncertainty that I must realize, I'm not on somebody else's path this is a path that I get to create one day at a time. In speaking of my "new" approach, the simple fact that I consider it to be new creates an awareness that this is foreign territory - pathless woods. Are you able to sense the lightness just by reading that sentence about my new approach? I hope so. and what is life without pleasure? Boring! With my new approach, I get to simply notice myself and my environment, including home, friends, family, work, and nature. This narrow focus gets in the way of my experiencing pleasure. Having to find something carries with it a steadfast, intense energy that makes me envision myself marching to the beat of a soldier with my sights narrowly focused on the outcome. You see, I've been working on shifting my masculine ways of being and working. But one thing is true, I am determined to simply notice it as opposed to find it. I'm trying to not only believe this quote, but also embody it! I question it, too. His steps are not upon thy paths,-thy fields Are not a spoil for him,-thou dost arise And shake him from thee the vile strength he wields For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray And howling, to his gods, where haply lies His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth: -there let him lay."There is pleasure in the pathless woods." ~Lord Byron Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain Man marks the earth with ruin-his control Stops with the shore -upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown. There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.
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