A couple of weeks ago, Patti Hall mentioned to me that she really missed reading my blog posts. Truth is, I’ve really missed writing them.

When I was in alone in Missoula this past winter, I started a daily meditation practice each morning as the sun rose over the mountains. My mind, free and clear from most external stress, drama, and conflict, was free to make some incredible self discoveries. Each day after my meditations, I would journal about the amazing insights I was having about my life, and my beliefs and paradigms. As I made these discoveries, I felt lighter and lighter, as if I was easily coasting along a new and clear path of my life.

When I returned to Louisville, my daily routine changed. Instead of living alone, I’m now with Kat and the kids. Although much better equipped to handle the relationship with all of them the second time around, I still have many old, ineffective habits and self-limiting beliefs that get in the way of my relationships with everyone. As I’ve tried so hard to juggle or “manage” the household, its daily tasks, and the demands of my life coaching program, I’ve slowly left behind my daily meditation practice. Occasionally I’d allow myself some time to get quiet, but when I did, it always felt to me as if  I had a huge backpack full of heavy rocks which I’d have to empty out before I could find some relief and achieve that centered relaxed state of meditation in order to make any personal spiritual progress. Every day, I’d empty the same backpack full of the same rocks that I collected, because they seemed to be in my way as I made my way along my path. If I was not meditating and emptying this backpack, I’d keep adding to it and it would get heavier and heavier, weighing me down and keeping me from moving forward at all. I’ve felt so angry that those rocks are on MY PATH, so I pick them up and put them in my bag to get them out of the way. THEY ARE SO DAMN HEAVY. I’d empty my backpack but the next day they’d be there all over again!

In the past two or three weeks, I have re-dedicated myself to the practices that brought me so much relief, comfort, and progress last winter. This morning as I meditated, I realized that I don’t have to keep picking up those rocks. I can walk around them, I can step over them, casually, relaxed and without any resentment or anger that they are there. There is no reason at all to pick them up.  No one is telling me “You have to do that, Alise.” I can just leave them as I walk along my life’s path. And I realize that if I just walk past them, they won’t keep appearing over and over again.

And I can even ditch the backpack…..