What is fed, grows.
What we practice, we become skilled at.
What we think about becomes present.
When we pay attention, we demonstrate caring and then caring grows, love grows.
This phrase has been knocking on my inner doorways. It has been bouncing like an exuberant child on a bed telling me to pay attention.
What is fed, grows.
My life narrowed these past two years down into its most important parts: work, school, new business, coven. Adding in where I could some fun, the occasional flirt, community events, a movie. But there was very little time for things beyond the necessities of make money to live, study hard to change where I am making the necessary money for living. My life was stripped down to primarily necessities.
When the shift came, even though I knew it would arrive, it was a surprise. It still feels like it is creeping up on me. The shift from working full-time and in school to working for myself, not yet 20 hours per week (though spending time working on changing that so it’s not that little of a time investment). And no commuting. This should mean that I have oodles upon oodles of more time, right?
Well, I used to say that I never carried a large purse because the crap I carried would breed to fill the empty spaces. And it is a certainty that distractions and desires will fill all of the crannies of our daily lives if given the opportunity.
But that was just it. I had this crazy opportunity to rebuild life as I wanted to. I’d already stripped everything down to primarily basics. I’d already cleaned out the closet, so to speak. So what should go back in?
Stage one: healing. I needed (and still do) to rest. To get ridiculous amounts of sleep. To forgive myself for all the things that are (still) not getting done. To give myself the gift of time.
Stage two: notice what I’m adding back into living. Please note that this was not an immediate conscious choice, that the doing happened before the thinking. This is so easy to do! But also very telling on what I am emotionally drawn to at this time in life.
Stage three: consciously decide what I’m going to keep doing and what will go.
What is fed, grows. But not everything can be fed, and not everything needs the same food. And there isn’t enough hours in the day to feed it all.
It’s all about making choices. If I feed my Facebook addiction, that will grow. If I practice making fimo sculptures, that skill will grow. If I date, my relationship skills will grow as will my heart. As will my heart. My heart grows when I do what I love. In relationships, in crafting, even on FB, when I read about what my best friend got to have for dinner, made by her sweetie who is an absolutely awesome cook, I celebrate with her (with mutterings and cursings, ahem, jk, love you!) and so as odd as it may seem, our connection grows.
As I enter this new stage of my life, with new career, new styles of life management, I get to choose what is put back into it. My pagan tribe? Absolutely. But also my kinky tribe. And the discoveries of polyamory. And sewing, I’ve missed creating through cloth (and boy could my skills use improvement in this area).
The tricky part is that there is so much I want to do, but still not nearly enough time in the day. Because first and foremost, I would like to manage my life well. I would like to not stress about upcoming deadlines. Or the piles of ignored paperwork. Or those emails I didn’t get to. There still some old shit I need to clear out from the-before-times. And some bad habits from those days, too. And I’d like to live in a clean home so that when I do get some spare time, it is easy to flow into something (and not be tripping over last week’s craft project, for example – clearly I’m still working on this part).
I will have to make some hard choices. Or learn how to balance my various loves and interests better. Okay, both.
Regardless, it is a conscious choosing (mostly) and a conscious reevaluation of what I am feeding in my life.
I have not fed this blog for a long time, nor my podcast, nor any of my more public pagan side. Perhaps this rambling is a sign of things to change. Or perhaps I will discover that this is not where my passions lie anymore and will put this down. But I do think, one way or another, that it is time to find out.
What is fed, grows.