What a beautiful day! I just saw the first roadrunner of spring (it’s a Texas thing). Spring is here and another Earth cycle around the Sun begins again. Winter has subsided and nature’s rest break is over.

But we humans have different cycles. We have daily, weekly, monthly and yearly cycles depending on physical, mental and financial needs. What happens when those cycles are interrupted? What takes place when life happens and our expectations are overpowered? How do you react?

For me personally, sometimes it’s easy to get back on track and sometimes it’s not. For example, I just got back from a 4-day weekend. I expected to jump right back into work. I ate well, slept well and had a great time on my vacation yet I couldn’t get restarted yesterday. I did the bare minimum of communication and that was it. I felt such resistance and fear, that I was practically immobilized.

I felt guilty. I felt ashamed. And yet, I didn’t even know why. It didn’t make sense. Everything was in place to proceed. Yes, I have a daunting task to let enough people know about my book so as to build sales. But that didn’t stop me last week or the week before.

This has happened to me before and I’m sure it will happen again. Something happens that produces guilt or shame in me and I come to a stop. The key is working through these feelings as soon as possible. How does one do that?

Did I feel guilty about taking some time off? Probably. Did I feel ashamed that I left a large sum in the hotel safe where I stayed? Definitely (yes I went to Las Vegas and yes, I’m getting the money back). Or did I need another day of rest? Who doesn’t?

The Universe introduces a myriad of ways to get us to learn about ourselves. Sometimes it’s by forcing us to rest. Sometimes it’s by introducing situations that bring up difficult to deal with feelings. And usually that conflicts with our expectations of what we want. Challenges come up all the time and our diets, exercise programs, work and play get interrupted. For me to get re-centered, it took dealing with my feelings, reflected on all I had to grateful about, forgiving myself and doing some yoga and meditation yesterday. It worked and today, I begin again.