I can slow down. I can actually enjoy the process involved in completing a task at hand.

What does that even mean? Let me tell you how much I have had to think on that one and get it straight in my head. It’s not how I have been programmed. It is not my usual vibe.

Just a few short months and 12 previous years ago, I was buried in projects. One project required a bazillion tasks. Finishing each task brought me one step closer to wrapping up the project. And I always “joked” that as soon as one big project finished, another began. It was not a joke. It was real life. I darted from thing to thing, activity to activity, paperwork to paperwork, choreo to choreo, policy to policy, parent question to parent woe, efficiently and with flair.

I was outcome driven. I was driving fast.

Outcomes meant moving on to whatever was next. Completing a big project – say, the enrollment process – meant goodbye to registration work and hello to fittings and season preparation. After fittings and season prep, I welcomed teaching, lesson plans, designing activities, finding props, coming up with choreo. Then it was time to measure for costumes, finalize show music, consider stagecraft, put together a show. On and on…one project after another, one task after another, goodbyes that lead to more hellos. Celebrate achieving an outcome for all of 5 seconds, then…NEXT!

I can say that I did make efforts to enjoy the journey. One of my most precious and treasured mentors preached that mantra always. I did get better at finding joy in the mundane, taking pride in my accuracy, recognizing my own creativity, loving people, appreciating what I had created. But I had to do it fast. Real fast. There were deadlines and projects looming. Love, love, yeah, yeah, great. Get. It. All. Done.

I would have laughed, even scoffed, if you had told me to slow down. There was no slow down. If everything was to be done, be done properly, and be done well so as to offer the BEST to my students and families, I had to move. As I look back on it, I still agree with that. Dance studio ownership and teaching is not an easy-listening kind of vibe. It’s more like a heavy metal, gangsta rap, throw in some occasional Copa Cabana for the silly times, then get back to hard-hitting house music kind of vibe.

Now I’m doing laundry and loading the dishwasher. I’m buying groceries online. I am dusting my blinds. I am taking my daughter to get a chocolate milkshake, because she finished her 10th grade online Apologetics course. It’s a Yacht Rock vibe.

Y’all, I have come to a dead stop in my kitchen and had to sit down a minute while I process the fact that I can slow down. I have had to remind myself that I do not have to have the toilets cleaned by 9:45 am, because the kitchen is due to be spotless by 10:30 am, then another wildly important project will need my attention at 11:00. I have had to physically make myself stop hurrying to fold the clothes.

Amanda, just fold the clothes. Smell the fabric softener. Look at how nicely you folded them. Feel how warm they feel coming out of the dryer. Think of how nice it will be for Keith to come in and grab clean underwear out of an actual drawer.

Old habits die hard. Old programming does not update easily.

While I work to slow down, I can decompress and change my mindset. I can actually focus on being mindful, living in the moment, and finding goodness in the process of doing. I can listen to my heart instead of the deluge of crap going on in my busy brain.

It’s a Bob Marley vibe.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,