A Return to Balance: Cultivate Support

It is so easy to get in the routine of life's daily "To-Do's" and constant sense of being short on time.  As a result, innumerable things fall to the wayside-the things that seem non-essential or like indulgences.  One of those misplaced elements is often cultivating support.

Cultivating support means a myriad of things and is similar to prepping a garden so that it can flourish.  One component of support is relationships.  Though independence and self-sufficiency are highly revered, we need people.  As a Studio Art major in college, I spent hours alone, and was quite content.  However, I found I was better with people-more vivid, engaged, full.  I need both alone and together. We are designed to collaborate, to share, to help one another grow.  There's an indescribable connection that occurs when we allow people "in," and when we reciprocate by showing others that we care, that they mean something to us, their existence matters to us.  We both get filled up.  We both grow a little brighter from the experience of tending to the relationship.

Cultivating support also means creating your own rhythm of life.  Taking the time to understand yourself, what conditions support you to be your most creative, focused, motivated, inspired, or emotionally available.  For example, I continue to experiment with systems that help my life flow.  When I meditate in the AM, the day begins peacefully and powerfully.  I've found that if I get up, make my tea, let the dogs out for a few minutes, and then sit down with tea, candles, quiet music and my journal, that meditation flows.  I finally realized that I need to meditate before I feed the dogs.  If I feed them first, they think it's GO TIME --it doesn't work.  When I meditate first, they lie down and wait, and I get what I need to thrive.  Simple yet powerful.

Our systems will vary.  I like to batch cook and freeze things.  You might like to prep a bunch of raw veggies for daily snacking.  Whatever your systems, they are of your design, for your support-to create conditions for you to flourish.  When we go unconscious in life and don't take the time to be intentional about our rhythm, we're apt to feel disjointed and short on time.  Set up your life--on purpose.  Experiment and play with systems that make life easier and more spacious.  Then, there can be flow.

Take a chance today,

Robin