Retiring and Finding A Rhythm..

"Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change – this is the rhythm of living. Out of our over-confidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of hope, progress."
Bruce Barton

 I didn't mean to stay away so long again!

I retired at the beginning of Summer this year and while I have enjoyed the freedoms that it represents from schedules, I have also found that some of the demons that I struggled with during covid have reared their heads again.  I have had a very hard time explaining how I have felt for a long time because I can't find the right words, so I've just kept it all in and I've stayed quiet. It's almost a mental paralysis that keeps me from doing simple things and a loss of my voice.
It's a lack of ability to really put myself out there, finding it is easier just to stay home than to venture out where people are most of the time, even though I do enjoy the time I spend with family and friends.

One of the things that has really helped me focus on getting things done and feeling a sense of accomplishment has been creating short daily "to do lists". Crossing off each one of those to do's makes me smile and motivates me to do the next one. I'm feeling a sense of rhythm as the days go by.
Top of my list to day was to sit down and write this blog post..ha!

I have been following Kim Klassen for a long time going way back in my early blog days.  Her classes helped me learn how to use Lightroom and Photoshop more effectively.  I hadn't received an email from her in a while but this showed up in my mailbox this weekend and I immediately resonated with it.  It was about "Self Gatekeeping", something that I have never heard before.  I completely recognized myself in her words, it was like a light bulb going off in my head.

So, I started researching this a little further and came upon this post from Juan Reyes where he describes Self Gatekeeping "as  as the act of imposing barriers or limitations on oneself, often driven by self-doubt or a belief that one does not belong or deserve to participate in a certain community, activity, or opportunity." 

While a lot of his post doesn't completely pertain to me, I can still see so much of what I struggle with in his words and it's nice to know that I am not alone.

Whew…this one was a hard blog post for me to write, especially given that I don't usually put many of my personal struggles out there but this post has been marinating for a long time, I just found the right words thanks to the information that I read this past weekend.  Knowing that there is a name for some of the paralysis that I have struggled with since covid has helped so much.

So to close, I am just going to say that I working on finding both my social voice and my creative voice again. I know for me it's not going to be easy, but I am going to try to show up in places that matter to me more often.
Photo by: Matthew Henry