This week, after months and years of hard work, I suddenly reached several of the goals I’d laid out for myself. With each goal I reached, I was totally surprised. Yes, I’d been working towards those things diligently day after day, taking small steps, making progress…and yet, I can’t believe I did it. Milestones are funny like that.
This installment of Mel’s Notebook is emailed to paid subscribers every Thursday at 9AM EST. If you would also like to receive it by email, become a paid subscriber and earn access to my full archives along with my undying gratitude!
I always love to watch the progression of my Wordle attempts. Take the one above, for example. My first word: LEADS. I pick first words based on intuition alone. Whatever’s in my gut at the moment. This time, I picked an active word, a take charge, go get this ish DONE kind of word, but Wrdle said NO. I got a few letters right, though, so my next guess was close: ABODE. I’m not surprised that this is where my brain went, considering I’m selling my house this week.
Again, wrong. But very very close. There was only one other word that could be the solutio at that point: ABIDE. Wow, talk about the universe correcting me. I wanted to LEAD and the universe said you can ABIDE. I know this is just a Wordle word and some algorithm probably picked it, but in that moment, it was really interesting to see how it played out, and the contrast between my gut feeling and the solution. I like to take lessons from moments like that. It’s possible to abide by what needs to be done now. I don’t always have to lead. Sometimes, when I let go of leading so forcefully, that’s when I suddenly reach one of my goals.
I’ve been so busy and overwhelmed in the past six months that many things I would nornally stress out about have become NBD (No Big Deal). I am NOT a No Big Deal kind of person. I’m an anxious mess. I always freak out. Only, now I don’t. So many really huge things happened to me at once that I literally could not freak out about all of them. I had to let a lot of things go that I would normally have fought to control. And it turns out, they worked themselves out on their own. I did my part, sure, but I didn’t obsess or fixate because I couldn’t. And everything was fine.
I’ve always resented myself for getting so worked up over things. I’m a sensitive person. I’m emotional. I’m not very well regulated at times. But I’m working on those things, because they are skills that can be learned. And as I work on them and as I get better at letting go a bit and abiding by what is in store for me rather than trying to control it all, I’m finding out that I never needed to control it, and that my wonderful empathic intuition can be directed in healthy ways that benefit me instead of wrecking me. I’m learning about trauma and healing and changing my own patterns, and over time, it’s working. One day, I expect to arrive at that goal quite unexpectedly as well.
Change happens slowly and all at once.
When I thought about change for this bit of fodder, the first thing that came to mind was the Grand Canyon. It’s the utlimate example of change happening over time and having a cumulative effect that we can’t even see coming, but which can be SO powerful. How can you allow change to occur at its natural pace? How can you support it? Are you embracing change in your art? Can you allow yourself to evolve at your own pace? I’d love to hear about how you are encountering changes, too.
If you enjoy this post, please share it with friends! Or feel free to click the ❤️ button so more people can discover Mel’s Notebook on Substack. Thank you!!! 🙏