A few weeks back my husband and I got in our first, what we call, truck camping trip of the year. We usually do this in late spring as a wonderful way to decompress after our winter -- so it being later than usual this year, we were very ready for it.
What is lovely about it is it's usually a great time to really connect with my internal rhythm . . . with what is most important to me in each moment of my day. This trip (probably because it was so long overdue) was a fabulous example of this for me and how our internal rhythm can be so different from day to day, moment to moment.
Day one started off with a pot of coffee and a good book. I figured that I would tire of that by about noon and be ready for something else. Noon came and went and I could feel how much I was still enjoying just sitting and reading. And although there was a little voice saying well maybe you should go do something else now, I was able to let it go and give myself permission to stay in this delicious place of sitting in front of a camp fire and reading. That desire felt complete about 4:00 PM when I was happy to switch my focus to some activities around camp.
Day two started off similarly, however, a desire to go for a hike soon became prevalent and we ended up having one of our best hikes in that area with the opportunity to watch some black bears at the end of it. Came back to camp for a big dinner and drinks -- Perfect!
Day three started off similarly again, but this time I was soon inspired to do some editing work I had brought along. This is the kind of work that definitely needs to be inspired -- if I try to do it when I am not inspired it is garbage. After that we started to clean up camp in preparation to come home, which can sometimes feel like an unpleasant chore but this time it was quite enjoyable, with a really synchronistic flow between my husband and I.
I have bothered to itemize our activities for each day in this post to share how different my internal rhythm looked each day. Being in that kind of flow -- or what some call the sweet spot of life or in the groove of life, or what I sometimes like to call the tickety-boo of life -- is LOP. And yes, I know, having complete freedom to follow our internal rhythm in our everyday "real" life can seem impossible. But when I listen to my rhythm, instead of getting caught up in all my "shoulds," or preconceived ideas of how things must be, I know my internal rhythm is still there to guide me even in "real" life -- I probably will just need to practice that more.
LOP is hearing and trusting the ebb and flow of my internal rhythm.