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Good evening!

Yes! Yes! Yes! – Seems like I have been saying that a lot lately. Yes I will do that writing course; yes I will sign up for the Writers Alliance of Newfoundland; yes I will join the team; yes I will take on that new role; yes, I will take on the accountability of one new blog post a week; oh look shiny object – yes I will sign up for Seth Godin’s The Podcast Fellowship to learn to become a podcaster.

Wow! That was a big yes. And I jumped in deep – real deep those first two weeks. And like the rest of my life, I seemed to do it to the extreme – less and less sleep each night, a high level of engagement, pushing everything else to the side – fun and exciting. After two weeks of high engagement I even got asked to join a group of student leaders in this 449 student course – an offer extended to only about 2% of the student body. So now, if you did not know it already I am a @remarkable. No, not an Incredible – but still pretty cool.

The problem is with all these yes’s and especially the last one is that I am self-employed. Self-employed and building a vacation property management company and only last week wrote about the importance of repairing my nets during this off season in this business. Repairing my nets would mean spending time creating the structures that will turn the upcoming tourism season into a fantastic year for myself and my clients. Yet here I was catching another wind gust.

After two weeks of high excitement and lack of sleep, I crashed. That is the problem with kites – left to there own devices they can get into trouble like that – crashing into power lines; blowing off course.

Fortunately for me – I am not a kite who flies on his own. I am tied into many communities where I can ensure that I get back on course. And while I still end up doing some things in an addictive way, the truth is that I am also in recovery – it is the most important thing in my life. In recovery, I am learning that I can say yes to many things and no to others – have healthy boundaries and live a rich fulfilling life while still maintaining balance.

One of the best ways to deal with the anxieties caused when you get involved in too much or perhaps when you are overwhelmed with other things in your life – is to share. 

Last Thursday I had the opportunity to do that in a zoom call with other @Remarkables, our course leader, Alex DiPalma and the one and only Seth Godin. During the q&a session I said, “I am feeling stressed, overwhelmed and shutting down“. Seth replied, “how generous it is for you to say that – and imagine if you are feeling that how others must be feeling”. His tip, advice for moving forward was to move forward even if it was just a little bit at a time. 

It was not the only place I shared this feeling of anxiety, of feeling stopped and shutdown. I shared and I listened to others share their wisdom about how they dealt with those feelings. I slept and got back on track in terms of my other healthy habits.

On Friday, my string got untangled and now with the right controller in charge, I am flying high again – enjoying the wind; dipping and spinning, playing full out and most importantly getting things accomplished.

On Monday, my creativity returned and I wrote a new poem. And now I am here again to share. This is not something I wanted to do. Like everybody else I love to share my wins, my attractive selfies, my best kite self. Yet I am committed to much more than that. So here I am sharing about my hitting the proverbial power line.

But I did not get electrocuted. Look up – I am gaining height again!!

Have a great week.

Don’t be afraid to share when feeling stopped!

Gordon