RESET.

I’m practicing publishing my writing again; I want to get back into the swing of it.

Somehow, it’s December 31, 2021. I just finished a personal writing session (a tradition I keep every year), where I write a series of letters to help me process what is passed and prepare for what is ahead in my life.

I started this practice 5 years ago after a particularly tough year, and it has been an incredible way to help me compartmentalize what I can leave behind and what I want to take with me into a new year.

The other thing I do each year(ish) is choose a new word to help guide my steps forward according to what I believe will be best for me in the coming year (or months, or minutes…).

For 2022, I wanted a word that would take me back to me. Something along the lines of authenticity, back to my passions, me in my element, back to the path I had created for myself before the Big Bad. Essentially, clearing away that which is distracting or hiding me from myself.

What does that mean? Well, cutting straight to the chase: I’m sick of pivoting, that’s what. I’m so tired of working so hard to get by after Covid shut my beloved industry down overnight in 2020, that I need a break.

Crisis mode is not sustainable. I believe that’s why it’s called “crisis mode” and not “crises mode…” it isn’t supposed to be plural, or long-term. And my “crises mode” capacity for pivoting has been entirely overloaded for entirely too long.

Bleh. There has to be a more sustainable way.

So for 2022, I am choosing: RESET.

Personal Batteries

In October-November of this year, I finally, FINALLY, got to travel to Europe to lead my first group trips in two years AND to spend a few weeks just traveling FOR FUN! (CANYOUBELIEVEIT?!), along as many south-facing coasts as I could.

I was gone for six weeks, but it took about five for me to actually relax.

Five weeks out of six to slow down long enough to actually feel like I had started to recharge. No wonder a month in Baja this last May felt only like a tiny blip.

You know when your iPhone dies so dead that even when you finally plug it in, it only shows the battery charging symbol for several minutes before it even has enough juice to power back on?

That was Baja for me.

I had plugged into my power source, but it was only the start of a very long, very demanding recharge.

Europe helped a LOT, as I was finally able to complete the group trip(s) that had been planned since 2019, thus unplugging something that was taking up an overwhelming amount of my power supply.

Recharging after (during?) a hard season is a tall order. I’ve been in a similar place before, and it took me three years to “come back to life,” as far as I was concerned.

Unlike an electronic, I don’t expect any one event or experience to replenish my batteries overnight. However, as much as I want to recharge, it doesn’t work when I have too much of myself plugged into too many outlets.

But, lest we ever forget, there are some things we can control.

Sometimes, we just need a hard reset.

Unplugging

I am well aware of all of the projects I have plugged myself into in the last two years, on top of everything else that was already there. It’s up to me, and me alone, to prioritize these projects and consider whether I want them utilizing my precious power or not.

My capacity has been overloaded, so my choice is to unplug.

Here goes…

I’m taking a break from podcasting for the first time in nearly 8 years. Yep.

I’ve had “accidental breaks” before, where I was taking care of myself and incapable of producing shows consistently, but I’ve never scheduled a real break. If you heard the latest episode (160 – possibly my favorite episode ever), then you’ve heard the news already – I’m already in my break.

For once, I published an episode and didn’t immediately have to restart the clock, ticking away the minutes until I have to publish another one. Do you know how good that feels?

I need to step out from under that stress blanket for a few. No idea when I’ll pick it back up again, and for right now, it needs to be that way.

That said: Thank you, listeners, for your support over all these years, and for your encouraging messages as I enter this much-needed pause!

I’ve also built up and adapted a few of my projects to be automated, and/or self-guided, so they demand less hands-on maintenance from me and my team.

Unplug, unplug, unplug. It feels good.

Those six weeks in Europe showed me a LOT about the amount of stress I’ve been under these past two years. I swear I have a gray hair on my head for every month of covid.

And as I find myself just wanting to work on things that make me feel like ME again, not off on some side road in survival mode, I have narrowed down to just two (symbiotic) priorities: writing and travel.

I am a writer. I have been a writer for longer than I have been a traveler, and yet I lost much of my ability to do both in the past couple years.

Aside from today, I published one real (non-announcement-related) blog post this year. One. I’m not even sure who will read this after so many months of silence, but you know what? I find my home here in my words. I feel like I’m honoring my authentic path when I create with words, even if it’s just my dad reading, because I know he faithfully will (thanks, Dad).

That’s how I know writing is part of my reset, because it feels like me. It’s also why I’m pushing myself to publish this, and not just edit and stare at it until it’s no longer relevant, like I have with so many drafts in the past two years.

So, I will continue to write, not only here, and in my journal, but also… in the drafts of pages that will eventually become my first memoir… it’s already begun.

And, covid-gods-willing, I will continue to travel, with YOU alongside me, because it LIGHTS. ME. UP. For me, travel is straight up Power Delivery mode.

So, here’s to a reset for me in 2022, what will it be for YOU??