Aligning with the Moment

Every year since 2015, Adriene Mischler of Yoga with Adriene on YouTube, spearheads a 30-day yoga program in January on her channel. For example, one of her 30 Days of Yoga playlists focused on the concept of Breath. Another on Move. This year, the theme is Center. And, Day 22's theme was "Align."

As I was working on aligning my spine, my head over heart, and listening to Adriene talking about aligning with the present moment and "to align with what is," my mind wandered a little to the conversations we've been having about feeling sluggish, or unmotivated, or not particularly crafty.

Sure, there are lots of suggestions about how to get back to making. Stash organizing. Just picking up the needles, hook, spindle, or heddle and doing. Reading through patterns. Finishing projects that are holding us back...

Those things don't work for me. They're nice suggestions, but if you are like me, then that's all they are. They don't actually motivate me to jump back in.

And, if I look at the pile of UFOs I keep meaning to work on, that actually makes it worse, and no amount of organizing them, closing my eyes and picking a project to work on, or writing of To Do lists will convince me to get going.

What did encourage me was stopping and checking in with myself like I've been doing every day on the yoga mat. When I chose to align the current moment with what I was feeling, what I wanted to do, I realized that the big projects that aren't done yet will still be there in a week, a month, even a year if I feel like it--and that's okay. But what I'm feeling right now is that I wanted to do a small project or two. I felt like casting on something new. Not something big or that requires three or four or more pages of pattern to finish. Just something small. That's where I am right now, and that's okay.

You all know I'm not a monogamous maker. I never have been. Doing one thing at a time drives me up the wall. I wasn't trained that way. I read multiple books at a time. I multitask constantly. I can't even only do one job. I crave the variety and the movement because otherwise my mind becomes too idle and bored.

So I'm honoring that. Last night I knit a little on the Morning Rituals pullover, but today I started a hat. Tonight I might work on a cowl. And that kind of hopping around aligns with who I am and where my mind is, which is okay.