Shared Post: Kelly Rae Roberts

I have been thinking often about being intentional with my time, thoughts and actions and boundaries...where I have them, where I need them, how to draw them after I have neglected to do so.  It has been an ongoing and rather uphill battle for me to learn that boundaries do not equal selfishness and that the quality of an interaction is more important than the quantity of interactions.  I read the below from the blog of one of my favorite inspirations, artist Kelly Rae Roberts.  I HIGHLY recommend her blog.  Not only do I love her creativity, I appreciate her honesty and humanity and her ability to so openly share both.

Monday, April 11, 2011 from www.kellyraeroberts.blogspot.com

thoughts on energy

(this is an older painting from last year that i reworked. really loving stamping lately. prints will be available once the shop reopens in the next couple of weeks.)

i have been thinking a lot about the energy we all encompass and what we choose to do with that energy. lately, i've been scaling back my computer time. i've noticed that there is a very real energy that i put out into the online world: social networking, blogging, emailing. some of that online energy is enjoyed and authentic (connecting) and then there are the minutes that are strung together reading miscellaneous blogs/twitter/news feeds that carry no real meaning to me or my life but yet i get sucked in anyways...you know how it goes. and then i notice that my family and my work get what is left over - the energy that feels a little depleted. i had a great conversation about this with a dear friend. it was one of those conversations that left me completely rearranged and inspired to pay more attention to where i'm putting my energy. am i filling up my time and energy with stuff that moves my life/work/inspiration forward? or am i filling up my time with stuff that drains my energy? for me, the lines of work and life are blurry. my creativity is my life which is also my business. but sometimes, especially since the birth of true, i'm feeling the pull to create more boundaries around where and how i give my energy in regards to biz and life. i want to be more discerning about it all. i want to be more intentional. and i want my family to have my best, most powerful, most fulfilled energy - not the leftovers.

i suppose this is something we all go through every now and again. we pull back. and then we dive in again. it's a constant ebb and flow. and our capacity to hold all of that energy also ebbs and flows. i used to have a huge capacity to give and work and dive in and retreat and multi-task - all while staying connected to john, work, and the things that were really important to me. and now i'm in a season of my life where my capacity is smaller, a place where my energy feels precious and limited, a place where i have to really focus on my work and my family first before getting caught up in the periphery. oh the lessons i'm learning these days and oh how i miss getting lost in the periphery!! but i like the idea of having seasons to our lives. i'm in a more deliberate, slow season of my life. and that feels better and better the more i embrace its offerings instead of working so hard to spread myself thin. ultimately, i'm learning that there is so much peace that comes to our lives when we reevaluate how we're using our own unique energies while focusing only on filling up our moments with the stuff that really matters in our lives. i'm going to practicing this concept more and more....because our energy (our hearts, our inspiration, our ability to give) really is a precious resource. i want to use mine wisely.