I Missed a Day!

I’m so disappointed with myself; I actually missed a day in my 40 Days to Delight in Myself Lent challenge. Yesterday I actually ended up going to bed without crossing anything off the list. Just wednesday I had been counting back congratulating myself on getting so far into the challenge (nearly half-way – 15 days) then this.

Those of you who remember my challenge to myself this fall to go for a thirty minute walk for eight days in a row, will probably remember that I simply suck at doing something on a daily basis. I go in small spurts, and then, inevitably, I miss a day. I know this is my nature, but I’m still upset with myself for missing yesterday.

So, today I was trying to figure out what to do about it. Do I just resign myself to it? In the past I would have used this opportunity to miss today too until I finally gave up entirely from all this “missing.” Is it Forty Days if I missed a day – I mean, can I even do the challenge properly from now on?

I could of course double-up; I could do two things off my list today and call it forty things accomplished. Or, I could sift through my day yesterday and pick something I did do, something that comes close to being on the list, or the spirit of the list, and call it the thing done. But then, would that meet the purpose of the challenge? Is the purpose of the challenge to have done forty things off a body/self-indulgence list or to have made a conscious effort to be in my body and with my body through this time of Lent?

The truth is, I didn’t miss yesterday because I was forgetful or un-present, I missed yesterday because I was stressed out and unhappy. Somethings I had been hoping would shake out didn’t (I knew they wouldn’t but I was holding out hope) and yesterday was the first day I had to face the reality of a new budget. I’ve known this was coming, but the whole truth of how sparse the next few months will be was a little difficult for me to bear. Plus, it means a bunch of things on my list (swim at the spa, buy …) will have to come off the list and be replaced with non-expenditure focused things (sigh, and I really need a haircut).

I picked a thing off the list to do, but I didn’t have the focus, the concentration, to set my intent into it. Frankly, I didn’t want to be in my body yesterday, it was sad – and so was I – and I just wanted to be too busy to notice. Which meant no intentionality, which meant no embodiment, which meant a missed day.

I didn’t consciously make the choice to skip, but I didn’t consciously choose to make sure I that I didn’t skip either. (This reminds me of this old post from my walking challenge.) And now the day is missed and I need to decide what to do.

Which means I need to come back around to The Heart of the Challenge, back to why I felt motivated to do this in the first place. If I go back there I find Blisschick saying:

emphasis mine

From that perspective, looking forward to now, it seems obvious that the right choice is to acknowledge my slip, and to acknowledge why it happened and then with unlimited love for myself move on. After all, it’s really all about 40 Days of Loving Myself, not about 40 Days of Getting It Perfect.

Sometimes our own growth is so infinitesimally small that we don’t notice it; we haven’t yet had the opportunity to prove the growth to ourselves. A year ago I would have failed all my challenges to myself because I would have quit (in various degrees of tantrum) as soon as I “missed a day.” Almost six months ago it took me more than a month to finish an eight day challenge – but at least I finished, I told myself. Today, I still missed my mark, but I’m brushing myself off and keeping going without batting an eyelash (today’s list item: Have my favourite meal – Sausage-ghetti – plus I don’t have to share!).

Over to You:
What do you do when you mess up? When you have a bad day? Are you doing things differently now than you would have a year ago? How are you growing in infinitesimal ways? Can you also see progress in your messes? What can you do to offer yourself some unlimited self-love next time you flop?

One More Thing: I wanted to thank all you amazing people who took the time to help me out and fill in my survey all of your input is hugely helpful in giving me direction. But, there could only be one winner of the Amazon Gift Certificate, and that is: Kylie! Congrats Kylie. And if you’re smacking your forehead right now because you meant to fill the survey in… while, the draw is over, but I’m still 3 answers shy of my goal and would be happy to give you my eternal gratitude as a gift!