Peace Love and Pretty Things

This summer on the east coast has been brutal—smoldering, smothering and humid. We have had the type of weather that makes you want to do nothing more than laze while making your best effort at keeping cool. I had fallen into quite the routine over the past few weeks of doing not much more than creating a mold of myself in the microfiber of my favorite spot on the couch, and watching repeats of Avatar: The Last Airbender. My evening meals consisted of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia frozen yogurt for stretches of days at a time. I was barely writing, posting or do anything that could potentially be labeled as “productive” once I’d left my 9-5. It wasn’t pretty. Finally, this past week, I decided that play time was over and I needed to get serious again.

I do not find fault with myself or suffer from any guilt at giving in to a little bit of um…let’s call it “unstructured” time. I generally do so much that it was nice not to feel the need to do anything at all. However, my spirit will not let me find permanence in such leisure as I feel most at peace when I am focused, conscious and productive. So to regain my focus, I set a few goals for myself for this week as a roadmap. Here are two:

1. Exercise 2 times per day, every day, Monday through Friday: Feeling my body, stretching my muscles and connecting with my breath helps me to feel energized and increases my ability to think sharply. Working out twice per day—in tandem with re-establishing a healthy diet-- is the least I can do to aid in lifting this heavy, lethargic feeling I’ve had from not eating the best foods for my body.

2. Write at least 200 words per day, every day, Monday through Friday: writing is one of the ways I earn money, and in order to not only earn, but to (more importantly) improve, practice is imperative. In the past I’ve waited for inspiration to “strike”, but am beginning to understand that if the writing begins, the rest will follow.

Tackling these action items for one whole week is just a starting point; setting goals for smaller increments of time is a way to help my mind process--the intent is to steadily establish and maintain positive habits. So far this week, I’ve attained my goals, and I feel great; sore—but light and energized. For next week, I’ll set new ones. I consider this the official end of my brief summer slump.

How have you been dealing with the heat? Has your level of focus increased, decreased or been completely unaffected?