Moving Too Fast for My Soul

I’m in an intense season at work. The course I coach runs for 66 days, and with over 2500 participants, the online activity, coaching calls, and individual connections never let up.  I love the work, the participants, the team on staff, yet I haven’t let go of any previous responsibilities. 

Last week I forgot an appointment. That same day my phone slipped out of my bag into a parking lot, and I didn’t discover that until several hours later when Brian and I came hunting and found it covered in a half inch of new snow, miraculously untouched by tire tracks. (Despite two nights in a bowl of rice, it’s not back to peak performance, however.)

Two taps from the universe in one day alert me that it’s time to make an adjustment. My  pace has crept up and I see I’ve been moving too fast, packing too much in, for weeks.  (I've even found myself postponing using the bathroom until I absolutely had to, though I work at home.) 

Nothing is crazily out of whack, but when I move too quickly, life isn’t as fun as it could be. 

What happens when I push too hard was reflected in a swinging door we have in our 1928 house. This beautiful wooden door hangs between the kitchen and dining room, propped open for the last four years because it catches on the kitchen tile floor. I closed it this week in a fit of pique and cracked the top so the pin wouldn’t hold. It was broken. 

The same day I missed an appointment and dropped my phone,  I ran into a carpenter friend and asked if he could repair it. Within hours I had men at my house figuring out this old puzzle.

The bottom needed to be planed, the upper cracks in the wood glued and held in vises overnight, and the bottom piece of wood shimmed up so there wasn’t pressure on that top pin.  

Each of these adjustments was minor, but together they restored the door and it now swings and catches because of the hinge, as it should.

But I’m an addict and an intensity junkie, so when I have a snafu my first response is to find a drastic solution—cancel all appointments this month, take a retreat in the woods, swear off all electronics --and caffeine while I’m at it!

My life adjustments can be smaller, strategic, and daily so that my life moves smoothly: add an evening meditation, call a buddy every morning, schedule one day a week without appointments.

 I receive a steady stream of information about the pace of my life when I notice my interest and pleasure in each interaction, time of rest, or item I read.  I can return to Christina Baldwin’s advice to “move at the pace of guidance.” 

The small lessons can be the most do-able.