getting away from rigid thinking

I grew up in a family where there was only one right way of doing things (my mother's way), and I still fall easily into rigid thinking. Having decided to increase my long run by 1/2 mile a week, it literally never occurred to me that I could increase it by 1/2 mile some weeks and by 1 mile other weeks.

I'm trying to remember there are alternatives to that rigid thinking that says life is about trying hard to do everything right. Rather than looking for the right way to do something, I can look for flow and smoothness and creativity. I was talking to someone about my inner work and said that we need to think not in terms of getting it right but in terms of creativity. I imagine a choreographer saying: "Try this. No, that didn't work, try this." It isn't a matter of fixed right and wrong but of trying different things and feeling out what gives the most satisfying result.

We are off tomorrow for a visit to my mother, back Tuesday.