Go Big or Go Home (and both are great, no?)

How are you? How was your week?

 

If you asked me that question right now, I’d have to pause to remember all that happened… Big stuff – the concert in West Virginia, the 29-year anniversary since I represented Yugoslavia at the Eurovision song contest (you can imagine all the emotions that brought up for me), business meetings, and not so big but still important – doctor’s appointments and, well, check-ups, kids’ visits to the dentist, recording Blais’ song, hosting a dinner for a wonderful friend and fellow spiritual seeker/ founder of Portraits in Faith Daniel Epstein, coaching and training new coaches, and even co-writing a song with John Angotti (a great musician and one of the top composers of music for Catholic liturgies). Phew!

 

And even though this might seem chaotic, there was a sacred order to it all… filled with a sense of calm and purpose. (For me, it’s the breathing that helps to ground me… and staying in the present moment – focusing on the task at hand, and not worrying about the future.

 

I plan my week on Sundays, list all that needs to be done and make sure I’m hitting all the little steps that are a part of my long-term goals and my big dreams.)

 

I even squeezed in an hour to go pick up fresh soil for my raised beds to use for planting my little tomato and bell pepper plants (which wasn’t on my schedule.)

 

Between meetings, I ran into the garden, gently planted parsley, cilantro and basil, and I cleared out oregano that’s growing wild. It was in that moment that I realized how good it felt to be connected and present.

 

Not wishing for ‘some day’ when things are this way or that… not looking forward to the time when my life will have more order and fewer tasks… not dreaming about a vacation but realizing that the good life is happening right now – it’s happening in all of these moments, in every email I write, every conversation I have, every dinner I make, every hug I give… you get it 🙂

 

So, I’ll keep it short today…

 

At some point during the week, I saw quote on Instagram that said something like this: “We are told ‘Go big or go home.’ But what if being home can feel just as good as going big?”

 

While it’s great to have big goals and big dreams (and I’ve always been ambitious and driven) it’s not the outside circumstances that solely dictate how we feel inside. I can feel just as exhilarated, alive and purposeful running my fingers through a rosemary bush and breathing in the fragrance it releases to me, as I can while singing for a billion viewers (like I did 29 years ago).

 

Try it – connect with a memory of an experience that made you feel really good, and see if you can feel it again while doing something different. See what happens when you do!