I am the queen of making excuses.
For weeks I have been saying to myself, I’m not meditating because there’s just not enough time. Or, the classic, well because Moe is home it’s too hard for me to workout. Or, self-care? There’s time for that tomorrow.
Then a few days ago, I woke up, I had my coffee time with Domi, I fed, walked, and took Moe to daycare, I worked out, and I showered. And then I meditated and wrote in my journal for an hour. Yes, you read those words right, AN HOUR.
Now, I could tell myself that miraculously thing morning I just had more time, but I know that’s not the case. The fact of the matter is I made a choice. I made a decision. I decided to block out time for myself to meditate and journal and workout. I did all those things that I, “never have time for.” Yes, there are weeks where I am so busy the idea of making time for things that I consider self-care sounds overwhelming, but the truth is we always have a choice.
We can choose to find the time to do all the things we’ve been putting off, or we can continue to put them off and make excuses for ourselves because it’s
1) easier and
2) convenient as all get out.
There’s always a way to make it happen if you want it to happen.
I could be meditating every morning with ease if I woke up fifteen minutes earlier. But the idea of those extra minutes of sleep is just too good to let go of for me so I make the choice every day to sleep a little more and make finding time for meditating more complicated. And that is a choice and right now it’s the one I feel best about.
Sometimes making these choices can be paralyzing, so I’ve started to break it down:
1) I ask myself what decision I am actually making. In the instance I used above I am choosing between sleep and meditation. For a long time, it just felt like I was putting off meditating, but I wasn’t. I was making a choice without even realizing it.
2) I prioritize. I decide for me, at that moment what feels like the priority, or what does the priority need to be. Lately, I’ve been really tired, so right now the priority for me is sleep.
3) Then I ask myself how I feel about making that decision. I’m okay with it. I understand I will want to find time in my day to meditate and it might be a little more complicated if I don’t wake up earlier, but I want to feel rested, and therefore I am choosing sleep and that feels good.
4) I remind myself that I can choose again at any time. Maybe tomorrow the priority will be meditation because of the multitude of benefits I know I get from it. So, I can choose again tomorrow. The choice is always mine.
We always have a choice. Do I sound like a broken record yet? So, when you feel like there just isn’t enough time in the day, this is a practice I’ve adopted and is there for you too. It brings to light the choices I am making and makes me feel more powerful as opposed to at effect of life going on around me. Recognizing that you always have a choice will help you stand in your own inner power. We can make a choice in how we feel, in what we do every day, and beyond. However, sometimes choosing or recognizing there is a choice is a challenge because it requires us to stop blaming the outside world or our circumstances and forces us to own what we do and how we do it. So, sometimes changing this mindset will take time because taking responsibility isn’t always easy. But we’re here to do this together, right?
Happy choosing my loves, XOXO, CAMDW.
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