Boredom, Freedom, and Play

I’m sitting on my deck reflecting on the last three hours. My wife and son were gone and I was looking at a very spacious day as I noticed vague tiredness and a quiet “oh no” in me. There was a subtle sense that today is not gonna go as I hoped it might go. I wanted to work on my website and some other aspects of Deft Heart. So I stopped. At first, it was quiet and over a minute or so it became clear that I was feeling some boredom. I felt curious. What is this “boredom”? A thought: “A not wanting to do any ‘shoulds’”. How does this “not wanting” feel in my body? I noticed a vague sinking sensation, some darkness, heaviness behind my eyes, and some tightness in my shoulders. A thought surfaced: “I don’t want to get stuck. I’m afraid I’m going to get stuck”. There was almost a chuckle that came at that moment. It was obvious: my fear of stuckness is the stuckness. And as I accepted this sense of “I’m already stuck“, the next thought arose quite naturally: “well I don’t need to be afraid of getting stuck anymore”. And the tide of the mood shifted. In the stuckness was my freedom. It was so clear that if I’m already stuck, then there’s no reason to be afraid of getting more stuck. I’m already stuck. So all the shoulds melted away. Nothing was more important than simply the question: What DO I want to do? 

I wasn’t sure. So I sat quietly and just invited inspiration around: “what do I want to do?” There was a subtle movement towards painting. So I let myself flow with that movement and the artwork above is what fell out of this morning. The story and art might not matter to anyone else. And that is just fine with me. I learned more about me. I learned about boredom. I learned about stuckness. And I learned about freedom. And I had fun doing it :)