ripples
It’s the first newsletter of 2021 and I’ve been feeling writer’s block about it all day, so I popped on a guided meditation to help focus myself and maybe get inspired.
I’m trying to meditate more regularly. Well, actually the exact goal is to meditate for at least three minutes per day. I already missed it yesterday, but the intent is not all-or-nothing. I’ve learned that I tend to use that all-or-nothing way of thinking as a complicated excuse to get out of doing hard tasks and challenging goals. Like: “oops, I failed. Guess that means I can’t do it! Oh well!” And then I give up before even beginning.
In reality, the real challenge for me is to proceed and persevere despite misstepping. Although I already skipped a day of meditation on only the second day of the new calendar year, I am not using that skip as an excuse. It just means I can get right back to it.
And lately I’ve found myself really connecting with and refocusing myself (gently, lovingly) with the idea that one small change creates ripples of other changes. Whether you consider it “the Butterfly Effect” or the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy concept of the interconnectedness between action-thought-feeling, or you want to simply think of it as ripple effect, the magic is in recognizing that a small shift makes a difference.
For instance, I didn’t used to stretch at all. Over the last few weeks, I’ve “only” added one morning habit of stretching out my shoulders. Thought it’s a pretty small change in my day, it’s led to some other shifts in my life, too. I’ve started carrying a little less stress in my neck, which has made me feel a little happier and more relaxed. I’ve also started waking up a little easier and have felt a little less need for caffeine. And those are simply the ripples I notice. There are likely other effects of which I’m not even cognizant.
So back to my writer’s block? I figured a five-minute meditation might help, and it would also let me check that task off today’s to-do list. And, lo and behold, the meditation did help. In the midst of the practice, the narrator mentioned a quote that resonated with me: “more is lost by indecision than wrong decision” (apparently by the Roman statesmen Cicero?). This quote overlaps so nicely with that ripple effect concept that I’ve already been pondering. And so here I am, with a long intro, after I was worried about what to write. One little step. It worked.
prompt #24
My prompt for you today builds on those ideas above and is really just a series of questions. If you’re drawn to one, focus on answering that one. If you want to go through them all, homework assignment style, please do. The hope is that they’ll help to open up something inside of you that gets you writing. That’s how I got to my intro, after all.
So, the questions:
• What is one small change you’re going to or are already trying to make in your life?
• Is there value in setting goals?
• Do you think of change as “good,” “bad,” or neutral?
• What do you think about “self-improvement” as a concept?
• Where do you see self-improvement and capitalism overlapping? Can they be divorced from one another?
• What is your relationship to the Butterfly Effect/ripple idea that even small changes have further-reaching consequences?
Oh, and maybe these questions just bring up something else that gets you writing? That’s completely fine! Follow wherever it takes you.