Your way is the right way.

I had a great day yesterday. I collected seaweed at the beach to put on the garden to grow the spuds. I’v been talking about doing it for a few years but never did – so it feels great to have done it. I can still remember when I moved to Ireland 20 years ago and someone invited me for dinner and gave me some of their home grown potatoes, which they’d fertilised with seaweed – the taste was divine!!! My taste buds still go mad when I think of them.

Anyway, I had an insight about when I was doing it,  I thought I’d share. I was collecting the seaweed with my friend JP, who’s a farmer and much more used to heaving heavy  bags  around than I am. We had great fun bagging up the seaweed and had about 30 bags filled. To get the best, we were doing it at low tide, and were quite a way from where the car was parked.

JP and our seaweed collection

When it came to carrying the bags back up to the car, I could feel my heart sink, as it looked a long way and the bags were heavy. I realised that what felt much better to me was to do it in 3 stages – to take them all up to the tide line, then up to take then all up to the rocks and then up to the car. I felt a sense of achievement each time i got all the bags to each place, I knew I could manage it and none of it felt overwhelming. JP was happy to move the bags in the same way, so we did it together in three stages, chatting as we went, and the time flew.

Someone else might have found that way laborious and felt that it made it much more prolonged and felt really frustrated with it. They’d have preferred to do it all in one go. And I know that it will always feel much more relaxing to me to be with someone who is doing things their way.

Someone else might have come up with a way of doing it that I haven’t even thought of. I might have watched them and thought I’d give their way a try and have found that I prefer it to my own way.

None of it matters – as long as you are doing things the way that feels best to you. We each have our own way and different things that are challenging. Going at your own pace and doing things in your way – being true to yourself, is the most important thing. When you know that you are being yourself, and not someone else’s version of you, or trying to fit into other people’s rhythm, everything gets  much easier.

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