my one word prompt {9.23}

I got my banners backwards this week! Monday and Friday should’ve been flip-flopped; One Worders might have noticed that. (Woops.) All straightened out now.

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My ASK ’23 prompts have served me well so far this year.

But…!

I have to laugh as we start September.

In Monday’s check-in, you may remember, I said …I’m up for something a little more fun. Yet every time I try to articulate it, I come up short!

I’m laughing with myself about that. The effort to muster up some fun. I suspect my brother’s chuckling here, remembering chats we’ve had on the subjectivity of fun. How our ideas of fun may be total sleepers for some — while for us, their ideas of fun are a nightmare!

Part of it, too, is I’m feeling fuzzy: Morning wake-up looks like fall (E.’s up early for swim team, though school doesn’t start ’til next week); bedtimes are still…very much summer.

And, there’s been a still small voice in my head saying …It’s more than that, your question. More than just ‘What’s fun?‘ You already know your answer to that.

When I stop long enough to listen, I hear that it reignites my March prompt, What if…? In March I paid attention to a limitless range of questions: What if I swung on a flying trapeze? What if I took a 20-minute nap right now? (March post, here.) And by the end of the month I could see a culmination of themes: Confidence, Permission, Risk, Reaching, and New Narratives.

It was a month well spent. And? A topic that deserves more time, because it was just coming together at the end.

I’m thinking of September not as a remedial prompt. But more of a sequel. So now —

I'm paying attention to the not so still small voice in my head. The one that gives unsolicited answers. Sometimes simply unhelpful ones. Maybe occasional insight. (A spiritual director suggested calling this voice by my own middle name...it might be a part of me, and it wants to be acknowledged, but it doesn't get to come first!)

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I realized, when I sat down to write today, that the hurdle with articulating this prompt is that it’s borderline embarrassing! Because I’m not talking Big, here. Like what’s holding me back from running for office. Or from pulling the kids out of school to sail the sea for a year. (Both sound like nightmares to me, by the way.)

No, no. I’m talking Little. Little stuff. Sometimes really little. (So little I’m not typing examples here.) But they tend to build up. Get louder. Waste or fritter away our energy.

I need to keep listening. Learn more. ASK differently. This time:

What's stopping me from  _____ ?                                         What's holding me back from _____ ?

(It sounds like I forgot all about fun, doesn’t it? But I promise I didn’t. It’s all tied together.)

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*Sigh.*

Thanks for sticking with me for these laborious 534 words. It feels like a bit of a muddle! Because our words are a muddle sometimes. (Often that leads to our best work of all.) (We’ll see.)

Meanwhile, I wish you a Happy September! Enjoy the long Labor Day weekend, US readers. And I’ll see you next week. xo