Tag: spiritual connection

mixed bag

In all honesty, I have been quietly considering stopping this blog.

Not because I didn’t have anything worth talking about, but because everything I’ve been doing has been sort of… mechanical. Not mechanical in the sense that it’s emotionless or straightforward, but I’ve literally just been doing the “work” part of my art for a while.

I have been creating… so, it’s not that.

I’ve been recording songs with my band for months at this point. This is where all the creativity becomes tangible, and as much as it IS creative work, it’s also a realization of things we’ve already created. It’s a difficult thing to blog about because the process takes some real time to accomplish.

It’s a mechanical process in a lot of ways.

I’ve also been writing quite a bit. Also a difficult thing to specifically talk about for a big pile of reasons without sharing what I’ve been writing. I suppose I’m not averse to that, but it would lack context at this point.

I’ve been learning how to create guitar pedals.

Again… a difficult thing to talk about directly without getting into the weeds. It inspires creativity, but is very mechanical in it’s execution. If one is proverbially supposed to walk before they metaphorically run, then I am figuratively crawling right now.

I’m training, but not for any particular event.

It’s hard to discuss training for an event that doesn’t exist just yet. I’ve got my eye on a race or two that I’d like to run, but it’s difficult to know if I’ll be able to participate before knowing what my performance schedule for the summer is. Though… I’m sure to do some fitness blogging soon.

So; that, too, is a bit mechanical.

And then spiritually…

Well, I won’t say I’m at a stand-still spiritually… but this time of year, by spirituality is strained because I live in Canada and my spiritual connection to nature is on an extended pause.

HOWEVER… I have been on a bit of a journey of self discovery that includes seeking out some professional help in assessing my modus operandi and what makes me tick; upstairs, and it’s been a wild ride so far. I’m not sure how it relates to me on a spiritual level other than the fact that I am a spiritual person who’s going through some stuff… but I guess we’ll see! It’s been really insightful and special, but there have been some definite times of absolute suckdom, if I may be so bold as to invent a word for it.

Again… not something I can really dig into until I have a formal diagnosis but I’ve certainly been challenged, and overwhelmed, and enlightened, and I’m certain that there is some meaningful writing coming around the bend.

So please stay with me as I gradually get to a place where I can be more open about what’s been happening… because it’s a lot.

motivation

I’m motivated. And I’m inspired.

… but there’s something to know about inspiration and motivation, and that is that they are temporary. I am currently a little heavier than I want to be, and it’s a strange place to be because I ultimately chose it.

I don’t mean that in the sense that I ‘chose to eat a dozen cupcakes‘ but I did choose to put my endless cardio on the shelf for a bit so that I could focus on developing muscle, and the good news is that it worked. The bad news is, that when you eat more – yes, even healthy food – and lift more, muscle is not the only thing you gain… so it’s time to cut – and cut I shall.

I’ve been doing some HIIT training a couple times a week over the past couple months amid the heavy weightlifting, which has been great, but a few years ago I hit on something that I’m particularly good at (for better or worse) and that is jogging. I can run in Zone 2 (heart rate zone, that is) for swaths of time, to the point that at the end of February, I thought I’d just ‘see what I can do’ since it had been a while since I’d put in a long-ish run.
I ran 8km.
It took about an hour.
First run back after a winter of lifting weights.

I’m sure you can tell by the way I phrased that, but I’m happy with that. That’s essentially the pace I left off at when seasonal allergies took me out of the running game in the fall. I now do it 3 times a week… longer when I can, but really, between weight training 3 times per week and running 3 days per week, I’m pretty full-up.

It’s also as spiritual as it was before.
I’d almost forgotten how connected I feel to myself, and to my environment when I’m doing this – especially outside. To push myself closer to the ever-changing limit of what I am capable of is such a magical place. I’m not heading into the river valley just yet, because to fall on the ice is to endanger my artistic life, but I can’t wait.

I also have some light bike repair to complete before getting back into the mud on my mountain bike, but that’s coming soon, too.

I do everything I can to quell the winter blues, and ultimately I do a much better job of that than ever before, but that doesn’t mean that springtime isn’t massively optimistic time for me.

I’m so ready.

At this point I’m flirting with the idea of entering a race, but in the end what I really want to do is just run. Run for me. Do I need an event to stay on track? Not really. Would it be fun? Probably.

I guess I’ll have to see what my summer gig schedule looks like.