Shedding habits which no longer serve us.

it’s about to fall…

This originally started as a blog post about the health benefits of raking leaves.

When the idea came to me I grew overly filled with zeal as, back in the ATX, I had no such leaf raking opportunities.

It had been 20+ years  since I’d last scraped up the fall stuffs (LONG before I carved my healthy path) and it kinda rocked!

I raked.

I blogged along in my head.

It would have been an awesome PLAYout post.

Mid-rake, however, I stopped & considered our emerging pile of leaves.  I looked long & hard and pondered how they’d fallen from the trees.

The easy manner in which they’d been shed because they werent necessary in the impending, dormant, winter season.

The leaves served their purpose (they’d nourished the tree) & now it was time for the tree let them go.

It sparked me to reflect on my mission for this year and my recent realization my new “habit” (focusing on never looking back) of no longer worked for me.

Its season had ended and, without realizing, Id shed the habit leaf in order to look back & see what I could learn from ‘chapters previously written.’

leaves no mo’ needed.

Id let go easily—for once as in the old joke I made like a tree—as I knew intuitively holding on to the habit wouldnt serve me.

I may, again, need to instate the only looking forward–but not right now.

This was all in the same way my OAKtown trees will need leaves again next year for food—but dont hold tightly to them *today* just in case.

These looooong internal musings sparked a conversation with the Tornado (after she finished her chorus of MOM! MOM?! WE’RE DONE! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?!)

I shared with her how I dont make New Year’s resolutions.

We talked about habits we have & chatted about how good habits which “served” us when we were in Texas may not work as well here in Oakland.

I shared–in a way she could grasp–my thoughts on the leaves & how the tree ‘let go’ so easily.

I asked her if she could think of a good habit which once served helped her a lot yet it might be time to shed stop doing it for a while.

I have lots I want to do, Mama. There is lots of fun stuff in October.  I want to hurry not go slow and focus so I can do everything.

As she shared that I watched more leaves fall from our trees.

Quickly.

Easily.

No paralysis by OVERanalysis.

And with that I toss the question to you and ask you answer without over-analysis & share your immediate response:

What (fingerquote) good (unFQ) habit which once served you is it time to shed this fall?

I cant believe Im the first to make this parallel between leaves and habits.  There’s no citation above as I couldnt find a ‘source’ from googling.

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