Distractions are just distractions.

They happen.

Sometimes it’s a little thing like the fattest squirrel I’ve ever seen tightrope walking across my fence prompting me to stop my pen mid-sentence to stare at it and wonder …

• How did that squirrel get so fat?

• Where does it sleep?

• What does it do when it snows?

These Very Important Squirrel Questions are just distractions. I realize this and I go back to writing. Finish my sentence. Finish my three Morning Pages and go about my day. No big deal.

Sometimes distractions are a big deal. Starting a new job. Shepherding your child as he navigates a new school. The busyness of life happening all around you.

And you ignore your blog for an entire year.

Again.

Distractions are just distractions.

They happen.

The power comes in becoming aware when you are distracted. (Squirrel!)

And here’s the important part … returning.

The power and the ultimate peace lie in the returning.

So you got distracted? So what?

Return.

Return again and again. And again if you have to. Don’t stop returning. It’s the only way to get where you are going, where you need to be.

So here I am. 

Returning.

Again.

Hello! I’m Courtney.

I write this blog and I teach an art-journal process called Cosmic Smashbook. And I do a bunch of other stuff too. I’d like to write about it here, about all of it. But my life gets busy and I get distracted easily.

And, if we are being truly honest, sometimes I think maybe it’s kind of dumb to want to do this in the first place. Whatever I have to say doesn’t seem all that important. So I don’t say it and then I think, well that’s fine because I don’t think anybody will read it anyway.

(But, hey, you’re here and you just read this! Thank you! 💙)

Guess what?

All of that self-doubt and procrastination and talking yourself out of doing something you really, really want to do? 

Like the fluffy fat squirrel on my fence, those are distractions too.

Distractions are just distractions.

The power comes in returning.

What are you returning to this year?

I’m also seriously considering returning to the ultimate distraction: social media. I took a break from Instagram that lasted over a year. (And to be honest, I don’t really miss it!) But I do have some interesting things in the works this year and it is a great way to communicate with people.

So that was a really awkward way to say Follow Me! 😀