I took the most delicious nap earlier this evening around 6PM for about an hour. It was more like a waking relaxing meditation. For the past 25 years, I have been meditating consistently at least 1 time per week. It is usually easy for me to get in that groove after being in an active left brain tech mode throughout the day and more so if I meditate several times a week.
My work involves Digital Marketing covering not only Social Media, but also SEO, website technical work and content marketing. That means I am on the computer all day! I also have a confession to make. I am a bit of an infomaniac. I am a voracious reader online about everything digital. I subscribe to many of my favorite websites and am always clicking on those links that come in my email inbox which then floods my computer with a ton of open tabs to read throughout the day.
Artículo en Español: Distracciones Para Evitar Ser Vulnerable
It gets so crazy, that I use several apps to save links like Pocket, or sharing via Buffer. I sometimes add it on Todoist app in a folder called “to read.” I won’t even mention my Google Drive folders with lots of goodies I have researched on all kinds of geeky topics. I won’t say it’s an obsession, because I have heard that being curious and learning is a sign of intelligence. So I won’t bash myself that it is a bad thing…yet ;)
So after my meditative nap, I wrote on a yellow pad some thoughts for this blog post which was about one of my challenges: Distractions. I actually am very disciplined and focused when I work for clients. I am referring to distractions which keep me from writing more on my blog.
Writing is one of my passions. That is why I started blogging. And my inspired writing, raw from the heart,comes from taking time to meditate daily vs. weekly for at least 30 minutes. I wasn’t doing it daily in the past years because I was so busy working. I had the good fortune to work with Microsoft for 2 1/2 years as a Community Manager which ended in January.
Now that I am looking for new opportunities, I am so lucky I invested all that time to be an infomaniac to learn things because my resume is pretty top notch now. I still pinch myself sometimes amazed that I am doing all this digital work. I never would have imagined it when I started blogging six years ago. Actually, it was because of this blog that I indirectly got the job with Microsoft.
Every day there is something new on job boards in digital marketing. I have a feeling a great one that I applied for is the right fit for me in no time. I also do freelance work for my brother who is a dermatologist and hair transplant surgeon, and my first client back in 2009. I am always blessed that there is always income coming in.
So what are my distractions during my free time besides my infomaniac reading? Going out to events which takes up a huge amount of time. Networking is part of the business and I love to be out with people. But I am being called to write more from my heart here on Mi Caminar. So, I decided in January to cut down on events and, lo and behold, I had more free time!
But what did I do with that precious time? I started watching TV! I hardly ever watched TV for the last seven years except for some movies on Netflix. That cable box that records series and shows is a great invention and the culprit for couch potatoes.
I started watching The Bachelor, Entertainment Tonight, House of Cards and all these shows on Bravo like Friends to Lovers, Girlfriends Guide to Divorce, Shark Tank and Oprah Super Soul Sunday. It was so nice to be a couch potato for a few months with a glass of wine here and there. But I am getting very bored of it. I will still watch Oprah and Shark Tank and other shows. But not 10 hours a week!
I am not even distracted with men since I am pretty selective with who I date right now. I am open to love….real love, with the right person. The last thing I want is to date the wrong men as another distraction! Trust me, I did that plenty of times when I was much younger. If a man comes along and sweeps me off my feet and makes my heart go pitter patter…well…I might be writing a different tune and may have to give up this blog…for a while. ;)
I told a friend recently that maybe I purposely distract myself from writing to avoid being vulnerable. I actually openly made a commitment to be more vulnerable back in December, 2013 at the Hispana Leadership Summit. I got the nerve to say it to a group of about 200 people, mainly women. So now, eighteen months have passed, but I haven’t forgotten that commitment. It’s not that I haven’t been writing. I just haven’t been writing what I really want to share and am kind of nervous about it.
Nor have I forgotten that back in the years from 2002-2006 I wrote every day in journals… deep writings from the heart, things I have never shared here. Some are very spiritual. I knew one day, I would be sharing more of this deeper side of me, but when the time was right. My career was and is more important at the moment.
Now we are nearing the end of the month and because I have been meditating on a daily basis recently and feeling more in touch with my soul, my heart keeps saying: Write! Write! Write! Gulp…there goes that vulnerability again. That, my dear friends, is the real reason for my distractions.
I can give you a million excuses, but isn’t that the truth for all of us? We are afraid of expressing our greatest self which is the part of us which is the most vulnerable. So, for me, I am afraid to be vulnerable because I might discover a greater part of me through writing and it might mess up my logical mind which is nicely organized in a structured kind of way. We can only touch our greater parts of ourselves through love and you know, that is just mush and chaotic. It disorganizes the structure which I strived so hard to achieve. But what the heck…I will give it a try….I promise. For you it may be dance, music, singing, creating a product or any other art forms.
What do you love to do and want to do more of? Go ahead…allow yourself to be vulnerable to it. Immerse yourself in it. Life may surprise you. It’s Ok to be a mush and disheveled sometimes to be able to shift into a change. You can always balance yourself once you dive in to what you were afraid of.