input | output :: the antidote of expansiveness

two days ago, I had a back to back, jam packed kind of day, where each moment blended into the next. I traveled across los angeles for various engagements, and thousands of ideas flitted through my mind along the way. it was a very productive day of thinking, working, learning, meeting the right people, and socializing. 

after returning home that evening, my brain was still buzzing with all the new possibilities that had opened up throughout the day, and it felt like my body was in a liminal space of energetic possibility. many of the projects and ideas that I had previously assumed were “dead ends” somehow returned anew,  reviving me with new connections, vitality, and purpose. it really is true that there are seasons of life and seasons of opportunity— we cannot know when the “right” time is for something to blossom, and although hard work nudges things in the right direction, most of the progress I believe comes through other forces at work. god, timing of the universe, energetic alignments, synchronicities, or the mystique, as one may call it. anyways, I couldn’t fall asleep until 3 am that morning, but thankfully my cat kept me company. we took shifts tossing and turning, staring at my peacefully sleeping partner and wishing we could join him in that blissful realm of the dreamscape.

as a result, I have spent most of yesterday and today practicing slowness. emptiness. openness.

at first, when my body and mind weren’t responding to my inner drive to “be productive” as they usually are (understandably so, considering how much I had gotten done the previous day), I made the mistake of blaming myself. I sighed with the heavy feeling of my body and a dispassionate look on my face, chastising myself for being “lazy,” berating myself with guilty feelings about not being able to carry on with the powerful momentum that I had tapped into the previous day. 

but something switched inside me— I remembered that I am not a robot, I am human—and I simply accepted my emotions, stopped blaming myself, and decided to rest. to just go with the flow of the day, do as my heart and body pleased. I ended up eating good food, chilling on the couch, slowly mulling over the events that happened the previous day, and reading. guilt free.

I think something that helped me with this transition of mindset was to consider the natural flow of the seasons, and the need to balance output with input. I truly believe that some of my best ideas have come to fruition only through a continuous exploratory process of inputting my mind and body with whatever knowledge and nutrition that my intuition leads me to, without questioning what the purpose, relationship, or utility of exploring something is.

in other words, trusting in divine guidance. 

I realize that when I am distressed, many of these fears or anxieties come from feeling the weight of decision paralysis.

but a lesson that life teaches me over and over again, and which I must learn to practice over and over again, is to forgo my worries and enjoy the process with an attitude of expansiveness. to practice letting go of deep expectation or desire, being fluid enough to acknowledge the possibility of several paths forward (including paths that I may not even be able to imagine for myself at this point in time), and knowing that the one most suitable for me is the one that will turn into reality. 

takeaways: balance output with input. the antidote to decision paralysis and fear is expansiveness.