After taking a glorious summer off, I came back into the work fold and found myself a bit “off”.  I won’t say I was depressed, but let’s just say I didn’t easily connect with the confident, highly competent provider of service that I pride myself in being.  So I wrote it out.  For each project, whether professional or personal I found myself completely in my head with “the judge” serving as the master of ceremony for this exercise.  When staring at the page I had five main categories from specific projects to my health.  Each one had a number of bullet points with either a negative or a positive sign next to it (again… the judge) and suffice it to say the negatives far outnumbered the positives.

Next, I flipped the page over and drew a path… MY path with all the elements I want to see in my life.  I felt my shoulders drop as I stared at the page thinking of (AND feeling)  what a rich life there is on this path.  Then I drew the detractors or what keeps me either off this path or stuck focusing on things outside this path.  My main culprits, it turns out, were fear, (whether rational or irrational) and judgment (a.k.a., the thief of joy).  Drawing this out helped me get out of my head and into the emotions that were keeping me in the doldrums.

Does this exercise promise to keep me in a “happy place”?  Of course not, but it does remind me of the many tools in our toolbox we can use to get out of our heads and into the emotions and actions that drive us contentedly down the path we choose.  Does this strike a chord with you?  Happy to talk through it if you’d like so just reach out.  If not, no worries.  Thank you for reading and good luck on your own path!