What keeps happening over and over again?

With President’s day celebrations, YOU are the President, Champion and Leader of your own life. You must take any and all responsibility for what occurs. And yes, some days that’s a rough pill to swallow.

As spring attempts to emerge out of the harsh winter, every plant has to assess what conditions existed in recent months. From adequate snowmelt to nourish roots to amount of sunlight available. For drought stricken areas, every tree will assess what past conditions occurred to warrant future growth. The same goes for your own life.

Have you been sleeping, hitting snooze since you no longer commute to an office? Has this led to poor habits? Or, have you been maximizing the extra time with mediation, reading, and organizing your day? Or, something else altogether?

Every day you have the opportunity to start your day anew and refreshed.

This is a special time of year. Before you start planting the seeds for your harvest, its time to take a closer look and assess the ongoing patterns in your life, career, and relationships. Let’s re-evaluate old commitments. What patterns emerged to give you your current circumstances?

Captain Bill and his friend Linda took his sailboat for an afternoon adventure on a beautiful day. A weather front was coming in yet not expected to arrive until later that evening. Linda noticed a small craft advisory but not until 7pm well after their scheduled return back to the marina. Otherwise, there were slight clouds and a gentle breeze. What a perfect day to get outside!

As they left the marina, Captain Bill shared low tide and high tide charts and reminding Linda of their previous sailings together. As they entered the main body of water, Captain Bill noticed white capped waves indicative of higher wind gusts. Together they got the sails up, caught a good wind and set sail for the next couple hours. Captain Bill noticed this was their fastest speed since Linda began to learn to sail. They never went so fast so quick. Linda delighted in the speed enjoying the cross cut of wind against her face and with the gentle sun tickling her nose.

Linda even took the wheel to steer the sailboat to the lighthouse.

Shortly thereafter cruising quite fast, Captain Bill decided to turn back around as wind and gusts kept increasing and white caps increased in size.

Linda’s inability to steer caught the sailboat at a harsh angle quickly letting the Captain regain the wheel and move back into the appropriate angle of the boat. Linda breathed deeply and remained calm as the sail boat boom flew from one side to the other. She vaguely remembered the scene in the movies where people got knocked off the sailboat by the boon. Landing in white capped waves was not a good idea at the time. Linda kept her cool.

To decrease speed and for safety purposes, they decided to bring the sail down and motor back in. With strong sways, Linda was glad she had amazing balance. She swayed from leg to the other distributing her weight as they crashed through each wave. Holding on with one hand she slowly made it to the mast and began to pull the sail down.

Then….WAPPPPP. WTF was that? The sail ripped apart! Oye! While Linda felt bad, this wasn’t the time to worry about that. While balancing on one foot to reach the sail, and holding on with her right hand, she gently pulled the sail down with her left hand with as much might as her arms could muster.

Her highest priority was pulling the rest of the sail down and not falling into the water.

Coast Guards were watching from afar making sure we were okay.

Upon arrival back at the dock, we learned the small craft advisory was reissued for 12:35pm, the same time we sailed off for the afternoon. Neither Captain Bill or Linda were aware. Taking stock of the situation and happy that nothing more than a broken sail occurred, they both agreed that they kept their cool despite a stressful and chaotic situation. Yet, simultaneously agreed that they both would prepare better on teaching certain techniques. For example, Linda didn’t know she could have stepped on the mast to give her height to reach the sail thereby giving more stability.

Captain Bill and Linda took a stern look on what went well and what didn’t work in this circumstance, noting exactly how to change the pattern for future outings.

In each aspect of your life, assess commitments and how you’ve handled challenging situations. How would you do it differently?

A change of attitude?
A different choice?
Treat yourself better with less harshness, judgement, and criticism?

Reassess. Break out of old cycles that no longer serve you and compromise your integrity. Be and act differently. Choose a new path. That’s how new patterns emerge.

Wishing you an abundant, joyful, and prosperous day!

Lora Polowczuk

Chief Energy Officer