There are times when life just feels dull, especially if I'm stressed or exhausted or caught in routines that seem endless. I'm a mom. There are routines that. Dictate my life and my time. I work full time. There are routines that dictate my days every day. Sometimes I fall into the gray on my own, like if something hard happens. I mean, this past year has been, there's been several things that have been difficult and caused a level of grief, those feelings are complicated and hard, and when you have routines that you're. Trying to balance. It's very easy to just sort of let your eyes glaze over and just go through the motions. Other times, the gray is forced upon me, like when I'm at work and I would rather be painting or gardening, but my days are full of seemingly endless meetings. When I wanna dream about magic and future plans, and do you ever just get a thought in your head that you really want to chase and take it all the way to the end of that thought, but your brain is needed to do a task that's in front of you that maybe is not a creative task. Maybe it's a, a school task or a work task or a doctor's appointment or something that leaves no room for creativity, but your brain is just in the mood to be creative. All of these to me, are what I refer to as life and gray scale. Some of these are necessary. You're never gonna be able to avoid routines and appointments and responsibilities, but this life and gray scale isn't always just a necessity, sometimes it's a phase that passes and you know that there's something going on and you need to sort of close in on yourself and just go through the motions, and that does happen, but other times it's a signal that something needs to change. Just because things are routine doesn't mean they have to feel gray, but in all of these scenarios, huge parts of me get masked over, and that is when I get exhausted, it feels unnecessary. I have made career choices. based on income, based on all sorts of things, the path of least resistance, things outside of my inner self. And I've told myself motherhood is repetitive and mundane sometimes, which it is, but really repetition can be magical and cozy and sacred. I've learned this over time. I've relearned this. I knew this when I was a child. I knew this. I knew how to create magic. I knew how to play and be imaginative, I used to sit in my classroom when I was in fifth grade, we did a unit on the rainforest and I used to sit in my classroom and wonder why in the world the teacher was just standing at the blackboard talking about the rainforest. When she could have been having us paint pictures of trees and playing rainforest sounds, and I literally had a whole scene in my head of what the classroom could have looked like. That would've been so magical. This is where my head goes when I'm supposed to be paying attention It also happens in my friendships. I know for a fact, especially since I've had children and life has gotten particularly, busy and intense, I've hidden parts of myself from friends, especially new friends that I've made parent friends or people that I've encountered in the last 10 years. I've hidden parts of myself because I was afraid that I would be too much and they wouldn't wanna be friends with me if they really knew. All these different colors that are going on inside of me, but the truth is that really only left me with shallow relationships. The friends that I have who do see all of my colors, who I let in like that, those are the ones where the connection feels real it's fulfilling, and the friendship feels alive. These are things that I'm striving for I don't want to live in gray scale anymore, I reject the idea that I have to, I know that I am not the only one who has felt this way. Maybe for you, the gray shows up in different forms. I'm sure probably not all of you sit in a classroom and imagine rainforest scenes when you're a kid or daydream about, I don't know, then what you're gonna plant in your garden next spring. Maybe you are. At a job that you're really good at, but you're not inspired by it. Maybe it's endless laundry or dishes or a long commute. Maybe it is friendships where you play small or conversations that tend to stay surface level instead of going deep. I had a friend the other day, I went out to dinner with hers. It's a new friendship and because I am on this journey for authenticity, I have tried to be. As open to deep conversations as I possibly can and not forcing them upon her, but really trying to go in that direction at every possible turn. It turns out she's the same way, which I really value and appreciate. But we went out to dinner and she said that she has found she's had trouble finding friends in some scenarios like sports teams or other mom friends at school. And she asked one of her, I guess, acquaintances about this, like, Hey, I just can't really figure out why I can't seem to hold onto friendships. And her friend actually said to her, yeah, you tend to go deep. Like it's hard to talk to you about just normal things. You tend to just dive right into real, deep things as if that was a bad thing. I felt really sad for my friend who heard that about herself, but I felt really sad for the one who shared that feedback with her because how could that possibly be a bad thing to want to share yourself with other people to want to build a friendship that's based on more than just the weather and, I don't know, community gossip or politics or something that's seemingly surface level. That everybody's talking about, that you can have the conversation without even sharing any part of yourself at all. Those are just not the relationships I'm interested in having. And frankly, that level of small talk lately, it gives me anxiety. I don't wanna have it, I don't wanna sit there and try to think of small, innocent things to talk about. Every single one of us is human and dealing with real things, real feelings, real events. Our lives are changing in ways maybe we're not comfortable with. The world is changing in ways maybe we're not comfortable with. There are things that need to be discussed. Why are we gonna sit here and talk about nothing? Anyway, what I'm saying is I think that gray scale living looks different for everybody, but I think the feeling is the same. You feel muted and dulled and less than fully alive. I think that there are signs that you can look for if you don't already know. If this is something that is a concern of yours, maybe it's not bothering. You I work with, a lot of people that seem to be perfectly comfortable living in the gray, and maybe it's not great to them. Maybe sitting around at meetings and talking about work things really excite them. That is possible. Everybody's different. But I don't think it can possibly be all the people that I notice that seem that way. I think there are some pretty outstanding masks out there, but I think something to look for, if your focus is more on function, like if your day feels more functional than meaningful. that's something to question. I really reject the idea that we need to just make it through every day. And then make it through the next day and make it through the next day and wait for the weekend, and then make it through the soccer games and plan for vacations that are a couple of months from now, and just make it till you get to that vacation. I hate that. I don't wanna spend my years like that. I want to wake up every day and look around and appreciate everything that we see on this beautiful planet. I wanna dig in and feel all of the different. Spectrum of emotions that are available to human beings. I really just wanna ring this life experience dry before I'm done with it. if you catch yourself scrolling or zoning out or numbing, which we are all I say, we myself included guilty of doing, I think that this life can be completely overwhelming, especially now Even 15 years ago, 20 years ago, before we had smartphones, before we had access to 24 7 news. I remember like when nine 11 happened, for example, I was desperate for information. I was in college and I was sitting in front of my computer trying to just refresh the news page because there was no other place to get information, right. I was just looking on the news to try to see if a new article had been added. And yes, that was frustrating in the moment because I knew that something big was going on. But what that means is that we lived in a time when there wasn't just this onslaught of constant information coming at you from all over the world, 24 hours a day. it's natural for us to wanna stay engaged with that. But I think engaging with that is a really easy way to just completely overwhelm your system to the point where you just sort of shut down. And you feel numb, you zone out, and then you're just going through the motions. You turn gray I think a sign for me is if I am feeling particularly like my days are full of things that do not excite me and don't make me feel creative and alive, then when I hear other people talking about their passions, it makes me feel restless anxious and. Almost self-conscious because it's almost like it's gonna show that I have not been exploring my passions lately and someone's gonna find that out and I don't know, judge me for it, or, I certainly think I judge myself for that. So I notice if other people are talking about their passions and I start to feel uncomfortable, that is a signal to me like, Hey. That's nothing about them. This is about me and I need to figure out what is it that is trying to make its way out of me right now that I'm not allowing to move, when I'm in conversations that are, historically be interesting to me, but I stop asking questions out loud because I just assume no one cares about. My questions, or maybe everyone else knows better than me. I'm just not actively engaging in the conversation or actively engaging in the experience that I'm having. That's a big signal to me because I know that every single one of us Has a set of experiences a set of ideas and thoughts and feelings that matter equally. Every single person matters equally in any situation, it's incumbent upon us to speak our thoughts and ask our questions and engage directly and loudly and participate in everything because that is the only way that we are going to get better. We're gonna learn from each other. We're gonna grow. isn't that the whole point? So when I am checked out of experiences and conversations, again, I'm just going through the motions. I'm not actively engaging. That's a big signal to me. sometimes these signals can be subtle, sometimes not. But sometimes you have to look for them. You won't notice. I wanna release you from the ties and the strings of conformity. I wanna release you from this gray. I wanna release you from the notion that you have to be anything but exactly who you are. This doesn't mean there isn't work to do. This isn't a green light to be hurtful or unkind, or even overly provocative, but you can make room for yourself. You can be brave enough to share yourself with the people in your world, and you can make space for others to do the same without causing harm. I'm inviting you to deepen your relationship with yourself and with others, and with nature and the whole world around you. I'm inviting you to pay less attention to the external voices who are telling you what you should like, or what you should think, or how you should spend your time or your money, and I'm inviting you to pay more attention to your inner voice. give more weight to what you want and how you think you should be spending your resources and what your life should look like. What you think matters and what you want matters. The questions you have are really important to ask out loud the experiences you've had and the wisdom you've gained along the way are relevant to everyone, not the least of which is yourself. I sit in boardrooms and meetings all day long with other people who are speaking in the same way and who have all seemingly dimmed their light to accommodate the perceived culture or requirements of the day. And it's such a shame because I know that every single one of these people has a voice and experiences that could add so much interest to the group. So many more dimensions to the work that we're doing. Frankly, there's a reason that your energy pulls you towards the things that it does, and if you're feeling particularly interested in something, even if it seems like a totally random thing that's not related to anything else in your life. Follow it. See where it takes you. You have no idea. It might be more related than you realize. It might end up being a new hobby. It might bring you to new people that you wouldn't have met otherwise. It might take you on a new career path, even if it just results in you having new and different things to talk about in your normal circles. that's worth it in and of itself. We all have our own unique lives to live and perspectives and lenses through which we experience the world, it's so important to honor that. I think the pull of these hidden colors, there's a reason that your energy pulls you towards things that it does, you need to pay attention to that. Even if they seem random or impractical, which mine typically do, I'm all over the map, but that tug toward gardening or sketching or learning to play the piano again. Or maybe it's learning to build something or that tug towards doing math. I don't know what floats your boat. I don't think that's an accident. I think it's a signal. It speaks to the core of who you are. And that your deeper self wants to learn something new or wants to be doing something that expresses itself in a different way. it's a color that wants to come through and sometimes following it won't make any logical sense. I spent months last year learning herbal medicine, which is unrelated to anything I've ever done before, but. It filled me up in a way that I can't even describe. I feel more in touch with the earth. I feel like I have a skill that's really useful to my family and anyone else who wants to participate in it, even if my family seems a little. Skeptical when they're sick and I shove a cup of tea that's not that delicious in their hands, but it So even if it doesn't lead to a big change, it doesn't add to your career, it doesn't make you more money. It brings life back into your days. It adds dimension and it makes you more you and that matters. That's important. we should prioritize that. I want you to pause and ask yourself this. Where in your life do you feel like you have slipped into gray scale? And if you're comfortable sharing, please send me a note and tell me all about it. I would love to know about how your journey is going. You can send it to Laura at a life in color.co. Thank you for joining another episode of a Life and Color, the podcast. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you'll join us again next week. Until then, have a great week. Thanks y'all.