I have been in the same time zone for a few weeks now. It’s been great. For some educational consultants, travel slows down this month. Schools are getting ready to finish up, celebrate graduation, get hiring done. The break has offered me time to breathe, get healthy, and write a book. (FYI: Having Hard Conversations ‘2.0’ is in process!)
And while I write, I also avoid writing. I do my best spring-cleaning when I procrastinate. I have cleaned out my bookshelves, my files, my closet. Been to the tailor, the shoe repair guy, and Good Will. I have purchased a new doormat, detailed my car and have spruced up my plants – all succulents in this time of the California drought, of course. I am working out daily – watch out when I am putting my bag in the overhead bin – I am getting hella strong! I am flossing and taking my vitamins. Sleeping well and seeing sunsets.
Doing the ‘norm’ when it comes to cleaning – clean closets, clean sheets, and clean teeth is easy. Deep cleaning is far more uncomfortable. Like cleaning up your relationships with self and others. I have the gift of time and the emotional space to ask some ‘deep clean’ questions:
- Where am I living with regrets in my life? What action can I take to get ‘complete’?
- What do I need to take action on sooner than later?
- Is there someone whom I am not facing head-on?
- Is there anyone who I am putting off or not dealing with?
- Who do I fear running into on the street? At a party? At the airport? At a conference? Can I get beyond this fear? How?
- Have I cleaned up ‘messes’ in my family life?
- Have I made peace with past significant others?
These are great questions educators should gift themselves time to ask as they are finishing up the school year. As I watch colleagues move on from one position to another, from one district to another, I wonder if or how they can and are ‘finishing well.’ We can take our pictures off the walls, leave the appropriate binders on the shelf, and make sure all the files are left for the next person. BUT, honestly, that is the least of it. Trying stay clean up in the present before you move to the future is not easy, but so much easier in the long run than cleaning up when things have gotten gritty and icky and take lots of scrubbing. Believe me, I am emotionally pink from the internal exfoliation. But now new skin is surfacing, and I am hopeful. Happy scrubbing.
If you have any questions, comments or topic suggestions, please feel free to call me, 650-868-1916 and we can Face Time, Skype me at jenniferabrams, or email me at jennifer@jenniferabrams.com and we can set up a time to talk voice to voice. I look forward to hearing from you!
*Jennifer Abrams, “Deep Cleaning", May 1, 2015,https://jenniferabrams.com/deep-cleaning/
Photo by Benjamin Elliott on Unsplash
