How do we show up to familiar places?

“I want to tell you two things. I’m happy to sing for you tonight. And even though I’ve sung these songs a million times, I sing them as if it were the first time”. That line from Graham Nash during his concert in Amsterdam stayed with me. At home, at work, we often repeat the same tasks, the same conversations, over and over again. How do we show up in these familiar places? How do we show up to familiar work? Can we love what we do enough to give it new life each time?

Routine is helpful of course, it gives a sense of control and predictability, it offers patterns of efficiency. It helps contain anxiety, especially anxiety that arises from complex emotionally charged tasks like caring, leading or performing. Over time, however, the same routines can become rigid defenses, protecting from anxiety but also from learning, from emotional contact and passionate engagement.

The pull of routine is ever present, no one can sustain relentless intensity! The invitation from Graham Nash that evening was to notice the drift, to bring our attention to it and to reclaim presence. It is about choosing consciously these defining times to give ourselves fully, to inhabit the experience as uniquely our own, even in what feels familiar.