This week, I attended a quarterly “refresh” session for a mom’s group that I’ve been part of for more than two years. During the course of the evening, we did some journal exercises meant to help us set an intention for the rest of the winter. I found myself in a foreign position—I didn’t know what I wanted or needed. There are several areas of my life that I’d like to focus on, but I simply don’t have the time to make major changes right now.
As I reported a few weeks ago, I don’t have any resolutions for 2012. I have a list of things I’d like to do or experience—most of them fun and relaxing. So as I tried to set an intention for the winter season, the words “peace” and “pace” kept coming back to me. While I usually charge full-steam ahead like I’ve got ants in my pants, that just doesn’t feel important right now. I am remarkably sleep-deprived, and yet I am, for the most part, enjoying the ride that life is delivering these days. Piles of dirty diapers, gummy baby grins, and whispered bedtime stories. Weather-defying exercise followed by the heartiest of comfort foods.
So my intention for the winter? To let things percolate. Sure, I have goals brewing at the edges of my consciousness. Yes, at some point I will step up and start going after them. But right now, what seems important is to give myself time to let those dreams develop at their own pace, to let them seep slowly and become more delicious over time.
At the mom’s group, we were asked to choose an “anchor” to help us focus on our intention. Mine? A beautiful handmade mug that was given to me long ago by one of the most loving, patient women I’ve ever known. Whenever I am feeling anxious, frustrated, or not good enough, I am going to toss in a tea bag or load up a pile of marshmallows on a sea of cocoa. For me, this winter season is about letting things be, letting things come in their own time. Letting ideas percolate until my intuition says, “yes.”
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I Want to Know
What are you letting percolate these days?
Do you have a physical object that you use as an anchor of sorts?
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This is SO well written and describes about where I am at right now. As the Achievers and Activators that we are it is hard to sit back and not be chasing some goal, but I agree this is really the perfect time to percolate!
Thanks, Alecia! You and I are so often on the same page. I’ve been enjoying your posts on similar topics.
I LOVE this idea of percolating…I am sort of doing the same thing with a few of my goals and I honestly think that’s the best way to do it sometimes, warm up to it, tweak it, then commit to it, either privately or publicly. Great way to get it right and really KNOW what you want that goal to be, ya know?
Most of us only know the last stanza of this poem, but I thought you might enjoy the entire thing.
Babies Don’t Keep
by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton
Mother, O Mother, come shake out your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing, make up the bed,
Sew on a button and butter the bread.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.
Oh, I’ve grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue,
Lullabye, rockabye, lullabye loo.
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo
The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew
And out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo
But I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo
Look! Aren’t his eyes the most wonderful hue?
Lullabye, rockaby lullabye loo.
The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow
But children grow up as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep!
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.
Love it! So true! And THAT is why my house is a disaster most of the time.
[...] Percolating [...]
[...] Percolating [...]
[...] 2012 Back in January, I wrote a post in which I gave myself permission to let things be. “Percolating,” I called it. Well, it took a lot longer than I thought. Letting decisions come to me in an [...]