Developing Patience

I have always tended to be rather impatient. I'm more likely to just jump right into something and figure it out along the way (well, I usually do at least a bit of considering and checking into for big ventures - but not endlessly). I'm a Seven on the Enneagram. It's pretty clear.

However, I am trying a new approach these days. I'd love to just do all the things I would like to do to move more quickly into my right life. Things like acupuncture and massage weekly, the Sunrider herbs, get a dog, hire a personal trainer, hire a life coach, dump all the furniture I no longer want (well, I'd done a LOT of this), buy new furniture that I love, quit my job, move immediately to Asheville, buy a home I love, create my own business doing exactly what I love, travel the world twice over, etc., etc. I could do all of those things. However, I chose not to as I do not want to be hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. (and honestly, I don't know that I will have to do ALL those things to find my right life. It's probably much simpler than that. I also have a slight tendency to make things more complicated that they are...).

I realized last night - or rather, my wonderfully wise father, pointed out to me- that there has been a serious lack of diversity in my life the last few years. I think a huge part of the reason I have been feeling so dissatisfied and restless and bored and impatient for my life to change RIGHT NOW, is that almost every aspect of my life revolves around mental health. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy working in mental health - I just don't want it to be my entire life. Right now, my full-time job and part-time job are in mental health, 90% of my friends work in mental health and we spend a lot of time talking about it, half of what I read is related to mental health, I'm co-president for a counseling association, I write a blog on grief and am working on a website for grief support. Where the hell did all the diversity go? I used to have friends who weren't therapists. I used to have hobbies outside of mental health.

So, I want to start mixing in a few creative, fun activities into my life that don't center around mental health (although doing so will probably improve my mental health!). Possible ideas coming to mind are learning to play the guitar, taking a creative writing class/joining a creative writing group, increasing the amount of hiking I do & add in camping, photography, getting a second job in a non-mental health related area (since I recently quit my part-time job), making collages, drawing, fingerpainting, etc. Learning to play the guitar and doing the collages, drawing, fingerpainting appeal to me the most at the moment. The guitar would be a creative challenge for me because I am the most non-musically talented person I know. I know nothing about music and I am completely tone-deaf. But I love the guitar and would love to learn - I can learn and be horrible and do it anyway! The collages, drawing, and fingerpainting appeal because they are cheap, creative, free-flowing, and fun.

Now the other challenge with this for me is to not run out and try to do all of these things at once. This would be the developing patience. I truly believe that changes in one area of my life will filter down and impact all of my life - and the my intention to create a healthy, balanced, creative life will manifest once I let go of the need to know how I'm going to make it happen.

I am challenging myself to develop patience - to take things slowly, to be mindful, to not know the how and when or where and to allow my right life to manifest in exactly the right way at exactly the right time.

Sit. Breath. Let it flow.