Good morning from Milano. What’s on my mind this morning is something that came to me when I woke up. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I have been training myself to linger in bed a little bit longer in the morning. I’m one of those people who loves to jump out of bed and get going. However, I do think it’s very important that we pay attention to liminal space, when we’re between the dream world and the waking world, in particular. It’s a time that’s ripe with insights, when many thoughts can pop into your head

Anyway, I woke up to a very long message from one of my friends, and because I was in that liminal  space, a lot of insight came to me as she was speaking. I decided to record my response to her immediately because when I get these messages, if I don’t respond right away, I either have to go back listen to them a second time, or I totally forget the juicy insights that came up as I was listening the first time.

So I recorded the message back to her and then, as I was getting ready to sit for my morning time, I was listening to my own long response to and as I was listening, what came to me was that it may be something I should share on Dear Constance. So, share, I shall.

Anyway, at one point in my long response to my friend, I heard myself say something like one of the most important things that I’m getting out of this experience I’m having is… (side note: if you’ve stumbled upon this, I left New York city for five months and I’ve been gone for three months…sometimes I call it an experiment, sometimes an adventure, and  the through line is that the plan is to have no plan). Anyway, back to my message. I heard myself saying that one of the most important things that I’ve learned from this is that I feel like I’m developing some sort of muscle memory that will serve me in the future.

I’m one of those people. I used to roll my eyes – and on some level I still do – when I hear the word digital nomad. I used to say, Oh my God, I would never do that. I have absolutely no interest in wandering. Yet here I am. I’m sure in the eyes of most people I’m wandering. In fact, I think I’ve used the language I’m waiting to see where the wind blows me.

There are two things I would say about this. As I already said, one is that I feel like I’m developing some sort of muscle memory. I think it’s related to adaptability, but it’s also related to the realization and deep knowingness that I will always find my peace, my groundedness, and my stability in any of a number of different circumstances. I think this realization is either something that I really needed to learn (as in I was resisting it), or perhaps it’s something I’m developing muscle memory around, which may serve me at some point in the future.

So yeah, I’ve surrendered to this idea that I don’t know what will come out of these five month – what wisdom and insights I’ll gain, and I don’t know that it really matters right now – but I do sense that I’m developing muscle memory in a lot of different areas.

It’s got me thinking this morning a little bit about what other areas of my life might I want to work on muscle memory. It’s funny, as banal as it may seem, I’m one of those people that strongly resists stretching. Yep. I know that stretching is important. I know that as you age, if you are a stretcher, you’re generally going to feel better. And yet I resist it. So, I was thinking perhaps the term muscle memory is a different way – a softer way – of thinking of how one might go about developing a new habit.

What other areas of my life might I want to work on developing some muscle memory? Right off the bat what comes to my mind is writing more consistently, stretching and longer stints of quiet time. So that’s what I’m noodling this morning. I’ll leave you with that until next time from my heart to yours.