Think Small

What to do when you don’t know what to do?  Starting small is the best advice I can give based on my own experience.  One step at a time, one thing at a time, you slowly begin to discover that you have pivoted to a whole new version of yourself that you can hardly recognize anymore (in a good way) all because you just made small little decisions.

Whether it be to begin a new health habit, try something new, sit quietly with yourself for just a few minutes at a time, or even just to put down the smartphone for a couple of minutes so you can be stupid. It’s amazing what can happen one baby step at a time. 

For me it often involves sitting down with one of the many blank journals I have been gifted over the years and making lists.  Sometimes it’s a gratitude list.  Other times it’s a list of places I’d like to go. One hopeful yet lonely evening I made a list of all the qualities I wanted in my future partner.  I went back and reread it after I started dating my husband and I’m not even going to elaborate on how uncanny the similarities were, but oh what I would have added had I known the power I was wielding back then 😂.  

Today, though, I am remembering two lists I made on my couch at the beginning of my reawakening period after a tough year of being unsure what to do next.  The first was a list of all the times I could remember in that moment of bold moves and brave moments that went against what I either had seen myself doing or what I had expected to do.  Changing my major in college, following my boyfriend to a new state on a whim, moving across the country with a young family, switching waitressing jobs to try something new, and even getting up from what I was doing and going to put my resume out in the world only to be hired practically on the spot! 

It was a list of times I listened to that quiet inner voice and I realized that it was those moments that had the most positive and life changing impacts on my life.  The bold moves that came from out of left field, but led to miraculous moments and a more adventurous life compared to the one I had seen for myself of comfort and stability.  It reminded me to trust my gut and that life can be amazing and provide us gifts in ways we could have never dreamt up for ourselves.  So when I was moved to make another list that day, I didn’t bat an eye.

The next was a list of things I knew for sure that I enjoyed doing as a young child.  The things that were genuinely me, not influenced (that I’m aware of) by peers or by trying to make someone proud.  Things like making up songs while on the swings outside.  Playing in the sand or digging in the dirt.  Swimming and jumping into the pool.  Setting up elaborate Barbie houses out of whatever we had available (can you say baby doll blanket couches). Music and dancing. Doodling with a spirograph and being fascinated by the color names of sharp Crayola crayons.  Dollhouses, books, rocking chairs, hobby horses, roller skates, or just rolling around in circles on the carpet. Oh, and cartwheels…I love me some cartwheels.  

This list served as a jumping off point of things I knew at a core(soul) level were me and brought me joy.  Children come without inhibitions and lack the awareness to care what others think about them and what they are doing with their time.  When we can go back in our heads to that time, we can peel back the conditioning and overthinking we put into what we spend our time on as adults and see the things that truly light us up. 

Pick one from that list and try it back on or at the very least notice the ways some of those things creep into your lives and how it makes you feel.   I might not play Barbies on the regular anymore, but I am known to create cozy living spaces on a budget.  I love digging up the dirt every spring to get ready to plant my new garden year after year.  Just try and stop me from singing a banger from my ipod or dancing to disco while I’m cooking in the kitchen!  Did I mention my coffee swing in the backyard under the trees?

The point is that your inner Self needs to get out, it wants nothing more than to connect with you as often as possible.  We can honor it in little ways to bring back sparks of joy into our lives.  Even if you don’t feel up to doing anything on a given day, just having the list to refer to can give you a jumping off point and maybe even turn that day around.  

So today, think small…think little you and your favorite or even quirky things you liked to do when you were small.  If for no other reason than to rediscover some long forgotten thing that makes you YOU or notice why you enjoy that adult coloring book so much.  It doesn’t happen overnight, and you don’t have to do them all at once…but slowly over time, you may notice a more joyful you.  Then when you notice yourself slipping into a slump or in my recent case, a perimenopausal rage (lol), you can order yourself a spirograph and laugh to yourself as you discover, it helps.

Whatever small thing you start today, may it snowball back into the small you that is itching to come back out of wherever we shoved them when we thought it would be cool to pretend to be adults and fit into this crazy backwards world we live in.