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Have you ever come home from a walk, a drive, or a vacation filled with a resolution, filled with inspiration, filled with the determination that this time you will succeed?

I can walk for blocks with the whitevoice of my mind thrilled that I’ve let it out of the box, allowing it to stretch its muscle of the possibilities of life with success.  This time we are going to eat perfectly, we will walk every day – no wait, we will walk twice a day!  Oh yeah, and then we are going to buy new clothes, get a new hairstyle, and post pictures of a perfect life.  We are going to be a rock star. The whitevoice coaches me, gives me that winning speech telling me I am capable, I can do it, and I am worthy.  It’s like a drug, this feeling of elation that I can, in fact, conquer my world, I will  finally, once and for all  win the gain-lose-gain battle.

The walk is over, I’m back in my house.  I look around and everything is the same, and I am curious because just a few minutes ago outside in the sunshine I felt alive for the first time in a long time. And when I say out in the sunshine I mean in terms of the feeling, the attitude, the determination that can come across us in these moments even if the rain is pouring down, the temperatures freezing.  It’s that moment when you allow yourself to dream, to imagine and believe in yourself, and you feel like you are standing in a ray of sunshine after a long black night.  But now that walk is over.  I’m back in my house. My ordinary life and the war begins.

I keep reading articles.  To be honest, at this point I only read the headlines about how we have been given this gift of time during life on pause.  This is our opportunity to do things differently.  To pull out the box marked ‘some day when I have the time’.  Posts are showing up about all kinds of creative accomplishments people are doing during this time of confinement.  This is not really a new concept. Every January, magazine stands are filled with issues depicting people who have transformed their lives and every time I buy one and imagine a year of working hard, doing what it takes to lose the weight I need to lose.  To become healthy and fit. And then another January comes around again and I buy another magazine.  So, I think to myself, this time on pause, this is it.  This is my chance to lose weight, get in shape, and have this great reveal when I get back to the office.

And so, the war begins.  Life is not always sunshine and the ordinary daily drudgery of laundry, groceries, and bills to pay is still sitting there untouched, waiting.  I don’t notice it at first, but it is there in my mind: the ever so quiet whirl as the button slowly presses down on the blacktaperecorder, that evil dark voice in my head that can knock me down with memories of my past failures, or dredge up unkind words and actions from people in my life. That voice that tells me I am not worthy, I can’t win and there is no point to even try. Foolish girl, it whispers, what were you thinking?  You won’t succeed, you can’t do it. You won’t make the time. There is too much to do.  People depend on you, need you.  You need to focus on work, your kids, your laundry. What were you thinking that you could conquer me? Good luck with that. And the tape gets louder and faster and blacker. Until life swallows me up again.

One week turns into eight, and I am still at home in isolation, now panicked because all the promises I made to myself have not been kept, again.   I feel like a failure, again. I wonder what is the use. Why not just accept that this is who I am and what I am meant to be. That in this area of my life I won’t succeed, I can’t commit, and I won’t do the work.

I win every day.  I win because I refuse to give up.  I win because I want more for my life.  I win because I believe the point in being, living, breathing is to strive to change, to evolve.  I win because of the desire to be a little bit better of a person than I was the day before, and even if I only get moments of that feeling of success that’s ok, because I’m not giving up and I’m not giving in. 

We are given a chance every single day to change what we do not like in our lives.  We didn’t really need this ‘gift of pause’ to do it, we just need to pay attention and listen.

And I go out for a walk again, and that little whitevoice in the corner dares to come out again.

love,