Snags and Rugs

I often talk and teach about “Busting our Snags.”

What are our Snags? Our Snags are the little parts of our lives that bug us. They bug us possibly often and regularly - yet they don’t bug us enough for us to do something about them.

We know we are dealing with a Snag when we hear ourselves think along these lines:

• “It’s really not that big of a deal.”
  
• “This should not bother me this much.”
  
• “It’s not the end of the world.”
  
• “I can deal with this.”
  
• “It’s not worth dealing with.”
  
• “I just won’t give it much attention.”
  
  

And so, we tolerate, tolerate, tolerate. And we forget how simple it might be to just address them, fix them, remove them from our lives.

In forgetting, in choosing to do nothing, we sometimes betray ourselves.
And we get more annoyed.
Until one day, someone spills the milk and we lose our s***.

I like to pay attention to these Snags and as much as possible, to Bust them.
I feel that in doing so, I keep my reserves for the situations that really need them.

Here for a little over a month now, my bathroom has been a Snag in an otherwise pretty darn enchanting life.
Yet, it has taken me four weeks to remember that that’s all it is: a Snag. And therefore fixable.

The bathroom is small. I am okay with small.
The water in the shower is only cold or scalding hot (I think we are working on that)
But also, the floor has felt a little dirty to me, no matter how much I have scrubbed it.

Over the last few weeks, I have done all of the usual Snag Denying Behavior:

• “It’s really not that big of a deal.”
  
• “This should not bother me this much.”
  
• “It’s not the end of the world.”
  
• “I can deal with this.”
  
• “It’s not worth dealing with.”
  
• “I just won’t give it much attention.”

Until finally two days ago I came to my senses (I had not showered in three days) and decided that I was indeed dealing with a Snag - and that it was time to have a conversation with it.

I sat down with myself, away from all the “at least you have running water and a toilet, what are you complaining about?” voices, and took a good objective look at what was going on.

The floor.
The floor of the bathroom and the floor of the shower.
Concrete. In my opinion, ugly-never-to-look-clean concrete.

So I went into Snag Busting conversation.
Ok. What will make it feel clean, possibly pretty?
A good coat of shiny paint.
Ok. We can do that.

Three hours later, I am waiting for the shiny floor to dry. It is clean, it is smooth, it is lovely. For $15, I can actually see myself spending time in this room and liking it.

In the morning, quite thrilled with the direction things are moving (from avoiding my bathroom to starting to enjoy it), I decided to add yet a little more love and head out to buy a small rug from the man down the street.
I make my way there and ask for the smallest rug they have. Xavier and Armando show me their beautiful, colorful rugs. And they are all too big.

And this is when what has made me fall in love with Mexico shows up bright and beautiful, once more:
Armando asks me what size I need. I open my arms to show him the approximate size, knowing that he does not have anything that size on his table.

To which he says: I’ll just cut it.

He’ll just cut it…

These are beautiful, wool, hand made rugs. With fringes on each end. I’m not seeing how one can “just cut it.”
He asks me at which stripe I would like to rug to end. I show him. He tells me to come back in 15 minutes and he will have made TWO rugs out of this one.

Which he does. Which blows my mind. Which reminds me once again how much I LOVE the “can-do” energy that surrounds me, over here.

Talk about a win-win, a sweet spot.

Here’s to Busting the Snags in our lives so that we may enjoy it even more fully. Relaxed and supported.
And here’s to being easy, creative, and always ready to find the sweet spot.