Determination VS Distraction

While studying with Rachel Brice in Portland we all participated in a ritual she called “One-Word Check-in” where we went around the circle and were asked to sum up how we were feeling at the start of that day in one word.  Harder than you’d think, honestly!  Give it a try now – what one word would you use to sum up today?  I found the practice an interesting one in that the first word that came to mind was rarely the one I shared with the circle.  This was not because the first thought was wrong, exactly, but that when given some time (there were about 35 of us in the circle) other words floated up to the surface and presented themselves as a more correct summation of my feelings.  At any given moment I imagine I’m feeling quite a bit of different things, though it’s not too often that I take the time to identify them all.

Some of us from Initiation have continued this practice in a Facebook group created by Andrea to facilitate our continued dance practice away from the magic of that circle.  Here’s what I posted today:

Today I feel determined...I squeezed in 45 minutes of practice time even though I had to give up my "scheduled" (with myself on my calendar) time earlier in the day...I did a short DD-Hips followed by 18 minutes of drills (18 simple moves, 1 minute each)...I took the first step towards tackling my nemesis the choo choo shimmy...I forced myself to improv and made a breakthrough...and had a productive work day to-boot. Now I'm recharging before teaching this evening by nibbling on hummus and pea pods.

The thing is, when I was thinking about this blog post this morning I thought my word for today was going to be Distracted.  Distracted is true for today, too.  I’ve done about 2 million things, many of them before 10 am, and felt myself pulled in direction after direction, not feeling like I was being terribly successful at completing things along the way.  Due to my distraction I gave up my morning dance practice as scheduled, putting out several work-fires instead, but Determined wins.  Why?  When I looked back at my day in preparation for making my check in, my successes rose to the top despite the distracted environment I lived in today. 

In the end, isn’t it what floats to the top that matters the most?