CwL Ep 154 – A story of letting go

All right. It’s story time again. And this time a story about a puzzle.

And really it’s a story about, oh, just probably not having capacity for fucking around on shit that’s not bringing joy when it’s a joy inducing exercise. So here’s the deal, right? If you don’t follow along on socials or you miss the stories, that’s okay. It’s fine. You might’ve missed though that I have this thing for puzzles. Really rediscovered a love for puzzles and have really set myself up. I’ve got the felt mat, I’ve got the little dividers that I put the different pieces in. I’ve got a system that I follow. It’s beautiful, bloody loving the puzzles. It’s a great time. And I completed one, a Japanese garden that I really, really liked, and that puzzle came as a set of two. And there was the Japanese garden, which I did first. Tough but great. And then there was a puzzle about Positano, and it was beautiful. I thought, yep, take me to Positano. I’m there. Worked away, found my edges. Building it out felt really good. And then there was just this little frustration that started to edge in, and I was doing it a lot when the Australian Open was on, no, hang on, I think that was Japanese Garden. Anyway, whatever. I started to find it very, very tricky, and I sort of just put it off. I just let it sit there for a while. I just thought, you know what? I’ll come back to it and it’ll feel fresh

The same time. I just think I got into a show, I can’t remember which show it was, and I really didn’t want to be watching the show while Sty was puzzling. So I just sort of stopped and I kept looking at, I walked past it literally every day, multiple times a day. It’s right next to our kitchen table. It’s in the little lounge room area. It’s right there. And I was like, I’ve really got to do that puzzle. I really got to finish Positano so I can move on to another puzzle. I’d sit down and I’d just feel a little bit angry, just like, no, it’s not working for me. I’d move away, come back, maybe see a piece, and I was being a bit hard on myself. Maybe just finish the puzzle. Lisa, what’s wrong with you? Do you not puzzles anymore? Oh, was this just something you were interested in for a maybe, but you won’t know until you sit down and get that done, Lisa, finish the puzzle. And then I felt forced, which makes me feel like a rebel and I won’t do it. And I just thought I was not in good space. Positano and I were not friends anymore, and I kept thinking that I had to do it in order to be able to move on. And then I realised maybe I don’t.

This thing that I really enjoy doing that gives me this beautiful space, just mental space. I just go into another place when I’m puzzling. I love it. It suddenly wasn’t feeling like that. And then it became this thing that I just had weird feelings about What? For a lovely pastime, Lisa, come on. So I ended up, after weeks, I’m talking weeks over a month probably of that thing sitting there. I decided it’s time to pack up Positano. And as soon as I decided to do that, and I purchased another puzzle, which was hilarious, if you saw that on my stories, and what I actually got was not what I ordered, but I’m doing it anyway. I suddenly feel lighter. I feel great. Good. Positano tried you and now I’m putting you away. It’s okay to fall out of love with you, pano. It’s okay. We had a good time. We didn’t make it till the end. We didn’t make it to the finish line. But you know what? I’m not making that mean anything. I love puzzling. I’m not a bad person. I’m not a failed puzzler because it just got a bit hard. I’ve done hard. I can do hard. I just don’t want to do this hard. We have that freedom. We get to choose, and it’s a goddamn puzzle.

Here I am telling a story about it. As soon as I packed it away, I thought, yeah, it was done. It was probably over long before I could acknowledge that it was over. There’s absolutely nothing wrong here. We get to move forward. We get to move forward with a new puzzle. And it’s going to be hard too. But let’s just see if this one works. If this one’s a little bit more enjoyable, I could tell you for sure. It already is, and I think we do this. I think it’s just something that we do. I don’t know, I find I do sometimes in life because I’ll feel like I owe someone some project, even some of my programmes a lot more my energy than actually exists for them. But I’ll feel bad because it’s not their fault. It’s me. And what if I actually just allowed that to be okay?

I puzzles. I mean, the amount of life lessons that I am learning through puzzling, I’ll have to make a reel about it one day. But this one for sure, like, oh, where are you forcing something? Pushing through, staying committed to something that is actually not really working for you anymore. And it means nothing to actually let that go. Is it a thought? Is it a habit? Is it whatever? It is part of your routine and we just like force of force. Same with things like exercise and the way we move our body. I will literally never understand people who do that and they don’t even enjoy it, but they just feel like that’s what they have to do. I mean, I think life’s too short. Find a way to move that you actually enjoy. I’ll find a puzzle that I actually enjoy. It’s meant to be downtime. Good times.

We make these commitments to ourselves in our heads about the most random things, and then just hold ourselves hostage to it. You cannot leave until you finish. What Incorrect doesn’t make me anything. It just makes me someone who fell out of love with a puzzle. So I thought I’d share that story in case you needed to give yourself permission to let something go, to move on, to just try something else, to not take it too seriously. Now I got more stories coming. I hope you are liking these little bite-sized stories. I like telling them they’re fun. I could tell a million, but I’m not. I am thinking about what might be helpful to hear instead of just all the most random things. But I do want to remind you that the doors to, what’s the story? My four week program about finding and telling your story and Better Stories is open right now, and we’ll be kicking off very soon. So if you want to be a part of this community of storytellers, if you want to get better at using stories to communicate, to Connect, to Teach to Sell, then I really encourage you to check it out. I created it earlier this year and the results for the first round of participants, were off the charts. I regularly cry. It’s an amazing space to be a part of. Go and check out what’s the story, and I’ll see you in the next episode with, Ooh, what’s that? Yeah, another story.