The Art of Decision Making

Less than a week ago I sat down and wrote out some fun goals for the New Year. This list consists of things like - go to NYC (it’s been 4 years!!!!), visit one of my favorite bakeries, read 30 books, and go snowboarding, among other things. These are things that I am striving for. Things that I would like to do either again or for the first time.

I’m a list maker. I love making lists and I’m very good at crossing off all of the things too. That’s not to brag, it’s more so just an adjective of the essence of my being. Some people cannot embody the list making life, others find it to be everything they ever needed. I’m very much the latter.

I first started making lists in 2016. I was a recipe blogger at the time and list making was a necessary thing to get everything done each day and week. I reflect upon that now and see how I have been able to carry my list making habit throughout the years with success. That’s not to say that I started making lists in 2016 and I have been perfectly crossing them off every day ever since. Not even close. That all came to a halt in 2020 - as did many other things, which we are all well aware of. I had a very challenging 2020 filled with grief, loss, and instability. That was followed by a very challenging first half of 2021 where I had severe health struggles from toxic mold, a break up of a 6 year relationship, getting rid of most of my belongings (due to mold, not necessarily choice), and a long term stay on a futon at my parents house.

As 2021 carried on I got into a new relationship and focused on my health. That was my priority after losing it almost completely. Then 2022 rolled around and while things weren’t necessarily bad, I quickly realized the impacts that not only the toxic mold had on my health, but also the severe impact that the grief, instability, and extreme stress had on me, as well.

I couldn't meditate anymore. My husband, Mitch, and I started meditating together in November 2021. We started out with 5 minutes and I would sit there the full 5 minutes with my eyes open just staring into space - frozen. I certainly wasn’t laying in Savasana anymore either because I wasn’t even doing yoga. Being with my breath and my body was too much. And, when I’d go to write like I did every day from 2016-early 2020, I couldn’t put the pen to paper.

Frozen.

My nervous system had been destroyed. Back then I was aware of the nervous system but not to the extent that I am now. I had no idea the severity of the state of survival that I was in. I was just trying to survive and do what I needed to do each day to get through it and to feel okay physically.

As 2022 carried on I began to get worn down. It’s not that I couldn’t do things at the capacity that I was doing them, it’s that I no longer desired to.

We are taught to fill our schedules, to be busy, to work ourselves into the ground in the name of “success.” It is literally ingrained in us as children. We aren’t taught the value of rest, relaxation, space, boredom, and nervous system regulation. We are taught to get involved, full schedules, a sport every season, socializing every weekend, this committee, that club, it goes on and on.

And then when we go through loss, tragedy, trauma, and major life stressors we don’t know how to cope. We don’t know what to do. A lot of society reaches for something. Drinks, drugs, food, excessive exercise, sex, social media, television - anything to distract from that which is living rent free inside our hearts.

I’ve been there, I’ve done that. But the things that I have gone through over the past few years were not ones in which I did any of that.

Frozen.

I wasn’t able to even feed myself properly and I had no desire whatsoever to partake in anything even more destructive. I’m sensitive physically and energetically and I already felt the weight of the state that I was in. I just wanted to get back to a regulated state where I could feel and exist in some form of homeostasis.

And so, during this time there was no list making. I wasn’t doing it. Not a single list for basically 2 years. I couldn’t.

I felt a lot of confusion and guilt around that. I definitely put most forward progress on hold during that time period, which was very unusual for me. I was working at detangling all of this throughout the second half of last year. I started to slow things down. I said “no” more. I created just a tiny bit more space. Then I started to desire a morning routine. I am obsessed with my morning routine as it was something else that fell away in 2020. The desire grew and grew and finally I got up and got to it. It’s been 3 months now and I haven’t missed a day of it. It feeds my soul.

As I very slowly began to come back to myself I bought a new notebook and a new planner for 2023. It felt right and felt like it was finally time once again. And that’s where I wrote down those mini goals.

As I mentioned, one of the mini goals I have for this year is snowboarding. I’ve never been snowboarding and I’ve never done any other winter sports except cross country skiing. Mitch enjoys downhill skiing and we’ve had discussions about skiing vs. snowboarding and while everyone tells me that skiing is easier, I still want to snowboard. I just feel as if my vibe emanates more of a snowboarding nature and so that’s what I’m going for.

It just so happens that we were invited to go skiing/snowboarding tomorrow, and for a pretty good deal too. Mitch brought it up to me earlier this week and I wasn’t necessarily a no at first. But the more that I thought about it, the more that I realized that the answer was indeed no.

I pondered this for quite a while one day earlier this week. “This thing is on my list and randomly we are invited to go do it, so why am I not interested in doing so?” I thought to myself over and over. Usually if something happens like this I feel as if it’s a sign that I need to act upon. Not once did I have that feeling. And so I let my curiosity marinate.

If you ask the question and then provide it with the space to reveal the answer, it will come.

The answer did come, and it was simple.

There is a lot going on in our lives currently and there has been a lot of busy and full days. Saturday, the day of skiing/snowboarding, is our only day to spend at home doing whatever we want to do for the next 30 days. Mitch starts Phase 3 of Live Hard on Sunday and it will take a lot from both of us for him to perfectly execute this final Phase. I am embodying a life with more space and more ease, and that is not something that I have had much of lately. I wrestled with that and the mentality of just doing things, getting out there and living, resting in the future, etc. and while I believe there is a time and space for that, I intuitively don’t feel as if that time and space is right now.

I am fully stepping into the seasonal vibes of winter. I’m not saying no to a skiing/snowboarding trip, not at all. It’s still something that I very much want to do before the blanket of snow melts and the sprouting of spring surfaces. But it’s not something that I want to do right now. It’s not the right time. I do not want to just go snowboarding so that I can cross it off my list. I want to go snowboarding so that I can immerse myself in the experience of snowboarding.

For me, right now is a time of rest. Tomorrow is a time of space and ease. It is the foundation of the way that I strive to live my life, and also what will lead me to that day of skiing/snowboarding later in the season when I am rested, fulfilled, and showing up to the (very small) slopes ready to give snowboarding a try - not just to cross it off my list, but to fully experience it and to be in the moment. To truly live from a place of joy that is cultivated in the spaces of silence, the pages of a book turned, and the love in my heart that is there to be given to others only because I chose to give it to myself first.