Sometimes it just happens.
You’re going along doing something, working on a project, creating something, following a routine, then you break it.
Maybe it’s intentional, but lots of times, I find, I just slip away from something. Or it’s based on a thought, a judgment that is not really especially good. Like deciding I’m not good enough at something or will never be. Or that I can’t make it work.
I’ve returned to loads of things this past decade that I thought I had given up. Like jogging, making android apps, doing my cross stitch, even eating oatmeal for breakfast.
That’s a wide variety of things to pick up again. Some of it I regret giving up, but maybe there is a certain value in that.
We have lessons to learn elsewhere that we can’t learn with what we are doing. Or we have to leave something in order to appreciate it more fully. Test out the other side, experience something new.
Well, I’ve returned to doing a bit of cross stitch, as I’ve said. This is after a few years of doing none. Of course, doing that pushes something else out of the way.
It’s the way life works.
We can only handle a few threads at a time and too many causes a malfunction. For me, this has been in a terrible insomnia. I have trouble shutting off some nights because I’m working on five or six different projects in a day, trying to cram in time for them all.
So more than ever I need time to just stop and let the thoughts run out.
I find meditative activities like jogging, polishing rocks, and stitching to be perfect for those moments when I need the slow down. It usually takes about an hour and a half before the stress fades.
But I know if I don’t give myself that time, I risk dropping all the threads.