Yoga Mat of Broken Dreams

“There’s no point in being frustrated with yourself. Just be truthful.”

– Frederick Lenz

Okay…that title might be a tad dramatic.

But there is a nugget of truth to it. Okay, fine…a boulder.

I had an interesting session with my life coach, Rob Flichel, last Thursday. Rob has proven to me, time and again (through yoga and coaching), that he is, as his wife once told me, a bit of a…pipeline from the Divine, if you will.

We were brainstorming about my business and he asked me if I’d read the book, “The E-Myth Revisited.”

“No,” I said.

“Well, you might want to,” he said. “I think you’ll find it of help.”

More on that in a moment.

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you may recall a recent post, entitled “Spend Wisely the Time Given Us.” In that article, I shared my rather uncomfortable experience of purging old file folders that were filled with notes for writing projects I’d hoped to accomplish someday.

Here is the pertinent passage from that blog:

Not only have I been moving some significant writing projects forward, I have also, at long last, finally got around to starting again on unpacking the dozens of unopened boxes from moving in more than a year ago. The amount of paper – after purging files – picked up by the recycling truck outside my home the other morning was shocking.

Better out than in, yes.

But here’s an uncomfortable little nugget of truth I have had to admit about myself:

If I had spent more time over the past nineteen years actually doing the work to complete the projects – instead of wasting precious time, energy, money and resources researching, thinking about, planning, printing, filing, organizing my ideas and waiting on the green light from other people before proceeding – I would be WAY further ahead today on accomplishing the projects that really matter to me.

Ouch.

Alas, I cannot change the past. But I can learn from it…and move forward accordingly. That’s another bonus this pandemic is giving me: time to reflect on what has not worked on the past so that I can move forward more effectively in the future.

And so, as part of my purging & reflecting process, this past weekend (Saturday morning to be precise), I decided to go through my notebook – the one where I keep all the specific tasks (on individual slips of paper) that need to be done for different projects.

As perhaps you can imagine, it is a rather plump notebook. The photo at the top of this blog – my yoga mat strewn with discarded notes – shows all the tasks that I had to admit to myself are simply NOT going to get done. So I figured I may as well get rid of them. My notebook is thin again.

Perhaps you are thinking: oh, that must have felt SO good!

No. It did not. It simply showed me – again – that I am failing to get done much of what I want and need to get done in terms of my work.

Am I expecting too much of myself? No, I am not. I know what I am capable of. And for whatever reason/s, I just can’t seem to get my act together in a way that I am happy with.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am happy. I love my work. I love my writing. I love my life. But deep down, I know I am way behind schedule in the writing department. You can’t fool your soul.

And so…I did what any reasonable person would do on a rainy Saturday morning. I lay back down on the couch and stared out the window (at my lovely garden).

I asked myself: what needs to change? What do I have to do differently?

The answer?

Crickets (okay, it was birds chirping but you get my drift). I don’t KNOW what I had to change. If I did, I would do it!

So I did the next best thing and picked up the book I had started reading the day before. But this wasn’t just any book. Oh no, this was the book I had found the day before that (so yes, on Thursday) in – don’t laugh – the back seat of my car. It was buried in a box full of books destined for the used bookstore. But because of COVID19, I hadn’t been able to get rid of them.

Guess what the book was?

“The E-Myth Revisited,” by Michael E. Gerber.

Yes, you read correctly. Right after my life coach had suggested I read “The E-Myth Revisited,” I found the book – in my own damn car! For some strange reason, I had the book but had never bothered to read it.

So on Saturday, I did. And this will probably come as no surprise but it was exactly what I needed to read. That book had the answer as to what needed to change: me. I shall save the details of THAT revelation for another blog.

But I will say this: I am realizing that all the uncompleted projects and discarded tasks are NOT a reflection of broken and unfulfilled dreams. Rather they are an indication that an important milestone has been reached on my journey. It’s all part of the process. I just have to figure out what needs to be tweaked so that I can…ramp up production, if you will.

“Your diamonds are not in far distant mountains or in yonder seas; they are in your own backyard, if you but dig for them.”

― Russell H. Conwell, Acres of Diamonds

Or just look in the back seat of your car 😊

What might YOU need a little help with at the moment?

All you have to do is ask the question. The answer will find it’s way to you, one way or another.

As always, thanks for reading & take care!

Related Blogs by Maryanne

Spend Wisely the Time Given Us

Holding the Pose

Maryanne Pope is the author of A Widow’s Awakening, the playwright of Saviour and the screenwriter of God’s Country. Maryanne is CEO of Pink Gazelle Productions and Chair of the John Petropoulos Memorial Fund. To receive her weekly blog, Weekly Words of Wisdom, please sign up here.