Wow, May has been one long month. Earlier this week, I blamed the chaos on the full moon and eclipse because you know…finding something external to blame always makes me feel better but reflecting back on this month, I do not remember a day I didn’t feel like my brain or mind was completely clear from this fog or mist just sitting there, waiting for the storm to arrive. It’s been feeling fuzzy and not in that heart-felt warm and fuzzy feeling kind of way.

It’s also been the month where all those good habits I accumulated have been thrown out the window; even my weekly habit of blogging took a knock or two. I missed finishing reading a book, didn’t listen to a single talk or video that I was inspired by and shortened any exercise I tried doing to basically nothing. Besides the full moon, I also blamed this feeling on the arrival of the cold weather here and winter. Yes, winter is coming. And I’m not it’s biggest fan or a fan at all. I still believe human beings should hibernate in winter. Remind me why this isn’t an option again?

Since trying to focus on reinforcing the good habits wasn’t working, I tried taking a quick weekend away into the middle of nowhere (literally) to get away from it all. Um, that too was a fail. Not because it wasn’t relaxing (it was), and not because of other people (there was no one else around) but because my brain was refusing to become clear. It was still fuzzy, no warm. Great. Another week, no blog, no book being finished, no exercise, no morning routines of meditation completed. Can anyone just say, “Urgh” really loudly for me?

The only thing I finally could think of doing was just to stop. Stop everything I could think of. This meant, no more pressure on trying to force anything. If I woke up and didn’t feel like following through with my morning routine, I didn’t. If I didn’t feel like exercising I didn’t. If I didn’t feel like writing a blog, I didn’t. I just sat and did nothing. I didn’t punish myself with negative talk of how I’m failing. I didn’t try talk myself into doing any of this stuff. I didn’t think about other people and what they may or may not say. I didn’t think about how long it’s taken me to get into these positive habits. I didn’t think. About anything.

The strange thing about doing nothing which is so counter-intuitive is that something does start happening. Imagine someone saying, “I don’t feel like going to the gym today” and the response you hear is, “That’s okay, take a break. Be gentle and kind with yourself” as opposed to, “What? No, you need to go. Once you stop, it’s so hard to get back into it.” The difference? The former reminds you about how important being kind and gentle on yourself is, and how taking breaks is actually a positive thing in the long-term; while the latter just makes you feel bad or useless. Now, I get that it depends on the space you’re in and if your brain is clear and your mind is focused, this response may actually motivate you to get up and get going. But when your brain is fuzzy, all it really wants is some warmth. Once the sun comes out and shines brightly, the fog disappears, right?

While I wait patiently for the warmth of the sun and for the fog from my brain to disappear, I’ll embrace this doing nothing, which is actually doing something and know that those good habits aren’t gone for good, they’re just on holiday searching for the warmth of the sun.