How to put a little more "Guess what I did?" in your life

This looks like a place where you
could do some good reflecting,
not the tedious kind.

I love and don’t love my reflective nature. On one hand, it serves my writing, particularly fiction.  

It's also helpful to be this way when too many issues have been left hanging, or when I suspect that a thing I’ve been blaming someone else for is actually a thing of my making.

Reflective time has shown me that it can feel good to be wrong. 

And, when that happens, a reflective nature can help you person-up, unless you’d rather remain difficult and wonder why others can’t just be more like you.

Other times, a reflective nature is a needy, slow-talking neighbor who stops you when you’re on your way out the door, ten minutes late, with no gas, and a headache.

In this blog, I’ve talked about many things that come down to giving yourself a break – not reinventing yourself which, okay  – but just giving yourself a little breathing room.

For most of us, the years ahead have the potential to be satisfying and illuminating, but many of us, and truly – because I read and read and read about how we are – many of us are stopped by mistakes of the past or doubts about the future that line up at the steps of that future like little bouncers and say, “Yeah, but wait. What about this?” 

This is how "wish I had" happens. 

It isn’t terrible to have a file in your head called “Wish I had,” in fact, try and reach forty without having such a file in progress. “Wish I had” feelings happen to everyone, but they are not meant to just lie there and be useless. They are not meant to punish you for blowing your only shot because there is no such thing as "only shot."

Rather, “wish I had” feelings are meant to pry your eyes open to the things you have become ready for, or are trying to become ready for with just a little more age, growth and experience that is not like anyone else's.  

People can be maddeningly reluctant to pursue their known dreams. They can fill your head with so many ideas of why that is, you’ll start to agree. These are people who need reflective time; not the tedious neighbor kind, but the good, centering kind, . 

A while back, I knew an unhappy someone who was so averse to coloring outside the lines of her life, she could only trivialize the activity of reflecting and redirecting by calling it"navel-gazing."

But all of us, even that unhappy someone, are reflecting all the time - when we cook, when we drive, when we run or walk, and when we sit on planes if we are not next to people who take off their shoes and socks and eat chips. 

Reflective time was born to solve "wish I had" problems before they take over whereas navel-gazing is passive and hurts your neck. 

It's active, and like drinking water or moving our bodies or avoiding people who psychologically injure others, it supports good mental health. 

A well executed, reflective pocket of time - with a solid question at the center - can quiet the mind enough to hear the soul speak and unless the soul has been bound and gagged and put in the attic where it can't urge you off the path of "have to," the soul knows what it's talking about. 

So here is a fun activity that worked for me and might work for you and that unhappy someone if she ever looks me up.

Imagine saying to a person who loves you, “Guess what I did?”

Imagine the person saying, “What? What?”

And imagine telling them a thing you did, which at this moment, seems like nothing you’d ever attempt, but in this fantasy-exercise, is something you planned for, then went ahead and did.  Try it on.

"I decided to open a restaurant."

“I decided to run for office."

“I decided to change careers."

“I decided to sell my art.”

“I decided to see a therapist about…”

I had this imaginary conversation before I went back to school, and it made me feel too good to abandon the idea. Abandoned ideas that feel good never really go away.

If you’re lucky.

So, practice this.

“Guess what I did?”

“What? What?”

But make the loved person you’re talking to your very own self.

And make some plans without pressure, but with the counsel of your  soul. You may be surprised. 

Caution: You may not act right away. You may only have created a nice fantasy to visit now and then. But that's how many, many good things happen, and not for nothing, how a whole lot of fiction gets written.