Thursday, August 27, 2009

List 5 Things That You Enjoy Doing

This question was posed to me while reading "The 7 Healing Chakras". It is one of the first exercises of the book, and I really had a hard time with it. So much so, that I even had to ask my husband, "What do I enjoy doing?" As I was sitting there with a blank piece of paper, I realized that I hardly knew myself, or at the very most, not nearly as much as I would like. I've always felt that I knew myself very well, so this was a surprise. We all know that I love to cook and bake, but this happens every day, so I hardly think that it counts toward this particular exercise.

When I started to get the pencil moving on the paper, I found that I was listing things that needed to be done according to me. "Clean out closet" or "Mow the lawn" After a few of these, I decided to start over. These aren't things I enjoy doing, but things that need to eventually get done - not fun! Naturally, answers to these kinds of questions come easy to me, so I was feeling a bit flabbergasted. I had to dig deeper than I normally do in order to come up with a satisfactory answer as far as I was concerned.

Things have changed in my life where I actually have time now to do the things I want to do, and this is proving to be much more of an adjustment than I thought it would be. My husband even commented that I am more stressed out now than I was when I had a shit ton of other stuff going on in my life. I refuse to accept the notion that I need to be stressed out in order to be happy, though it may seem that way on the surface. I think that I concentrate way too much on pleasing others, when I don't pay enough attention to my needs.

I still don't have many things on my list of what I "enjoy doing", but I've taken the first step. For the record, here is what I've got so far:

Camping
Batting Cages
Spa

I've got to admit that even this small change - recognizing that I need to figure myself out - has me in much better spirits, and I'm ready to be stress free! These three things have been weighing on my mind quite a bit, and I'm anxious to make them come to fruition. It seems that this stress I've been carrying around with me is starting to slowly melt away, and it feels really, really good. Next week, for my birthday, I'm treating myself to the spa. Here's to healing!