Choose Your Life Monday is an invitation to name what pattern you will lovingly notice this week and to do so in community. Of course, you can do it any day you want- you don’t have to start on Monday. Join in when and whenever suits you.

Last week I declared I would pay attention to

Pattern Noticing  + Intention Setting =  More of What I Want - Straining

Specifically I declared I would

Lovingly notice when I’m feeling heavy or snarled in difficulty or when things feel too hard

and when I notice, I will ask myself one of my intention questions

Confession:

I forgot. To notice + ask my intention questions.

I certainly noticed when I was feeling all bent up and snarled.

I certainly thought about lightness but you know what? Thinking is not noticing.

Thinking, in my case, pours more heaviness on my snarl.

The pattern is: I get all snarled and dense and terribly tense (bad rhyme, sorry) around things that I don’t know how to do. Suddenly, they seem impossible and draining- and even though I do all the good coach moves like “break it down into small steps” and “ask for help” and “delegate” and “leave it for a moment I’m feeling energetic,” the pattern is draining me.

It lives in the observer I am. It’s part of how I see the world and it’s time to see in a new way!

The Pattern in Action: An Example

Setting up a calendar for the Comfort Cafe. Kate made it but, for the life of me, when I go to populate it with the dates and such, I shut down. I get overwhelmed. It is not hard to do but I go blank.

I get in a snarl. (Not the same as a wiry fankle.)

The more I try to think my way out of the snarl, the worse it gets.

So…

This week, I’m going to study this pattern like I would a lover. I’m going to study it like the most fascinating and loved creature in my world.

I’m going to notice: is it stronger in the afternoon when I’m tired?

How tied to my hormonal cycle is it? My allergies?

Does it happen only around technical things? Marketing? Details?

What are the thoughts that go with it? What need of mine is not being met? (I’m thinking something about feeling alone and unsupported and / or feeling I have to know, be smart, or else.) (I know, or else what?)

I may stop and dialogue with the snarl in the moment of being snarled. Bring loving attention to it and ask it who it is, why it’s here, what it needs, and give it some boundaries.

I will not try to think my way out of the pattern; instead I will learn about it by observing it, keeping my heart open and my body relaxed.

My intention for the month has been lightness and while I have felt billowing waves and cascades of puffy inspiring lightness, I have also felt the snarl wanting to protect me through some odd dance of confusion and tension yet in doing so, it twists me away from life and also from my best work.

For years I’ve thought I over complicate my writing and by doing so, lose the juice and the voice that makes my work satisfying and useful. Now, of course, this is just a story and not the truth but what I see is the long tail of this complicating snarling… so it will be worth the careful attention.

This week I will lovingly be a student of my snarl.

Is there a long term pattern of yours you would like to study this week? Maybe posting the pattern here would make your commitment feel more real? Or perhaps write the pattern down on a post-it note and put it on your bathroom mirror… or set your computer clock to go off every hour and check in – what’s my pattern up to?

I’d love to hear what you learn by being the student of your patterns – and what you learned last week.