I am very lucky to learn a lot of really cool stuff throughout my career, from my many Teachers of Transformation.
One of the most powerful things I have learnt to date has been the concept of creating a new context for a given situation.
It reminds me also in a lot of ways of a blog on a BFF’s blog “Raising Flowers and Skids” called “Starting Over”.
Creating a New Context goes something like this:
You have a set idea in your mind and a certain way of being
This way of being is not working for you
You start over and attach to the idea or thing a new context
You live into this new context
It sounds all very simple but in reality it is quite complex. It sounds really complex but really it’s all very simple. It’s a bit of both I guess.
Here’s an example:
We moved last March to our new cottage and struggled very, very much with this move as we left behind a cottage that has been in hubby’s family for generations and a whole bunch of beautiful memories and family relationships. We struggled immensely with this transition.. It felt like it tore our hearts in pieces.
We had to let go of what the expectations of the old cottage were to us and create new expectations to live into.
We couldn’t allow our old cottage to rule our new cottage.
We needed to align as a couple and a family to create what the new cottage would be to us. All together.
And so we did…little by little.
At first this was terribly hard (and boring too to sit in your brand new cottage and pull out a pen and paper and write).
But it needed to be done…. desperately.
Three months now since we did this and we are definitely headed in the right direction.
We are living out the context that we created.
Here it is below:
1-Weather doesn’t matter at this cottage (recognize this from my blog title??). This one was a BIG one for us. At the old cottage we let rain and sun dictate our days. We found excuses to complain...At this cottage- No Way! We have already had plenty of days where it has poured rain and we have had a blast. It’s a while new mindset for us and a whole new way to look at things. It has changed our life in big ways.
2-It’s a place of intimacy and connectedness. We bring our Best Selves to Trent
3-Active Connection with our children. We decided there that we would connect with our kids through activity and learning. We golf with them, we bike with them, we water-ski with them, we wakeboard with them. We cook with them, we play miniput with them, we toboggan with them. We ski with them. We fish with them .We are active (when we are not just lying around the other 75% of the time trying to escape from them!)
It is also a place of teaching. My hubby will show them everything that he learnt from his own late Dad. Our deal is that all of them will learn to put up a gazebo, take down a dock, learn electricity, learn plumbing, learn to vacuum, learn to cook a pot-roast, learn to clean toilets, learn to mow the law, put a bail bed away, turn a dehumidifier on, clean a paddleboat, store kayaks for the winter.
It’s a place of doing. And man alive we need the help so kind of a win situation!
So we are living into this context of the new cottage and it is all going very well. It is perfect and always peachy? It certainly is not. Do we always get our new context right? We do not. Do we try our best? We do. Are we deliberate in what we wish for? Absolutely. We are much further ahead now than we were three months ago and this new context reminds us of what this cottage means to us at its very core. It means everything to us really. It’s our heaven on earth. Put there to keep us sane.
So I will keep you posted on this , as creating context is a work in progress and the writing of this post reminds me of the importance of doing this in other areas of my life.
Creating a New Context? Man..this is a Powerful one. It’s a keeper for sure.
