You Are Here
“More?” Bronwen asked, holding up the ziplock bag that had grown cloudy with use over the course of the week.
“Sure,” I shrugged and held out my palm, ignoring the dirt buried in its creases as she dumped more powdered Gatorade mix into it.
Then we continued to watch our friends yelling at each other over the rumpled map while licking Gatorade out of filthy hands from our perch on a downed log.
You know, being super helpful.
We were lost.
Somewhere in the Gila Wilderness in New Mexico.
It was my twenty-first birthday and I’d woken to frozen boots and a breakfast of instant oatmeal lovingly prepared by my tent-mates.
I was having the time of my life. For real.
But now we were lost.
Seriously, actually, truly lost.
And our group was breaking down over what to do about it.
The thing is, we all were in perfect agreement over where we were going.
That wasn’t the problem at all.
The problem was that none of us could agree on where we were beginning.
There’s no big, red “You Are Here” arrow on a map in the wilderness a week into a backpacking trip, after all.
As it turns out, there’s not one in our lives, either.
Most of us have at least a general idea of where we want to go in our lives.
If you ask 10 people where they’d like to be in five years, I’ll bet you get variations of a few favorite themes:
Closer relationships.
Successful professional lives.
Less stress or anxiety.
More time.
Better health.
And while I love to work with people on digging into those goals, that’s not where we ever begin.
We begin, over and over and over with the single question:
Where are you now?
Where are you now?
Do you know?
Until we were able to locate a landmark that oriented us, we stayed lost that day in New Mexico.
And not only lost, but frozen.
Not frozen like my boots. Frozen like “don’t move a muscle.”
We knew that if we just started down some random path, we could end up even more lost, further from our destination than when we’d begun.
So we were stuck until we could figure out just where we were.
If you’re feeling frozen, unsure about the right moves to get those closer relationships or that professional success or more time in your days, it may be that you don't have a clear picture about where you are right now.
You need to orient. You need some landmarks.
You need to know just what your starting point is.
I like to do 2 exercises with my clients when we begin working together. And when clients commit to seeing them through, they're almost always eye opening experiences that truly help orient them to where they're actually beginning.
1. Track your time for 1-2 weeks.
Don’t overcomplicate this. Use whatever you have.
I keep a paper planner, so I simply write down my activities as I do them throughout my day.
Some people prefer to use a time tracker like Toggl or a digital calendar like iCal or Google Calendar.
Or you can simply use a blank piece of paper.
Whatever. Again— don’t overcomplicate this.
Try to be able to at least generally account for your entire day, from the time you opened your eyes in the morning until you head to bed at night.
I know. It’s not rocket science.
But do it.
Seriously.
Where we spend our time is generally where we spend our attention, our energy.
Our lives happen in the minutes and hours that make up our days.
There are landmarks sitting right there in you calendar.
2. Journal everyday for 1-2 weeks.
Just like tracking your time, a journaling habit can be a window into where you are right now.
I encourage my clients to spend at least one week with the classic Morning Pages* practice: simply freewrite whatever comes into your brain for 2-3 pages everyday.
That’s it.
It doesn’t need to be anything. Simply write whatever comes up.
Dump it out onto the page. Keep your pen moving. Just keep going until that 2-3 pages are full.
(If you’re typing, it’s generally agreed that a page is approximately 250 words, so you’d be aiming for 500-750 words.)
After at least 1 week of this practice, look through it.
Don’t bother with the judgment crap— brain dumps and free writes aren’t meant to be literature and there’s likely to be lots of drivel and whining and other nonsense that might make you blush.
Ignore that stuff and know that it did your heart and soul good to get it onto the page.
Look for the patterns. Look for the clues.
Look for the partially hidden markers and mileposts.
They’re there. They’re trying to show you where you are.
Eventually Graham ran down a few different trails until he found something to act as our “You Are Here” arrow.
Bronwen and I heaved on our backpacks, wiped our sticky hands onto our dirty thighs and giggled at the glares cast our way for our “helpfulness.”
And two days later we were happily laying around the parking lot next to our vehicles, heatedly debating pizza versus burgers for our post adventure meal.
Our paths aren’t always straight. That's okay.
Just be sure to pull out the map every once in a while and make sure you are where you think you are.
Stay curious out there, my friends.
P.S. I’m going to be hosting a small group half-day online retreat workshop on Saturday, December 5, that I’m insanely excited about. I’ll have more info for you in the next few weeks, but sign up here if you’re interested in hearing more!
*The Morning Pages practice is part of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way...a quick google search will get you loads of additional info on her methods and ideas.
Tying on frozen boots in the Gila Wilderness circa 1999…