And on that note...

Nothing quite like jumping from a post on visualizing your life, to life taking over! My apologies if you've popped over here looking for me, only to find stuff you've read a hundred times and really didn't need to see again.

I was going to start back up with a post on inspiration and goals--you know, just why DO we do this NYR thing--but a shock yesterday compels me to do something different.

A friend died.

That sort of thing, especially when it's unexpected, tends to throw what I believe about the eternal cycle into sharp relief against the physical reality of life in this plane. Do I believe his spirit is out there (somewhere...forgive me for not being particularly eloquent, I'm still a little in shock) and that he will re-incarnate at a time and place of his soul's choosing? Or absorb into the great Everything, and go on that way? Yeah, I do. And the fact that this person whom I'm used to seeing five days a week (I worked with him) suddenly isn't there any more doesn't change that.

But there's the physical reality. He's unlikely to haunt me, so I don't expect to see him in this human reality again. Did we have any unfinished business? Was I kind enough? Did I smile and laugh at his jokes when he needed me to? Was I consistently myself, did I do irreparable harm? I'm not saying I had any real reason to be concerned about these things, but this did cross my mind: that if these are the questions we ask when a friend passes, then these are the questions that should be foremost in our lives.

A new way to visualize

Can you imagine the life of your dreams? Even if you're already living it (or most of it).

I've found that two "obstacles" emerge when I've asked this question in classes. First, people will say they can't visualize. Interestingly, I've gotten this response fewer times as the years go by, so either people are more used to visualizing or they're afraid to say they can't. But of course, 99.9% of us can visualize (that's not a real statistic, don't try to look it up); we do it all the time--when we go to a movie and complain it wasn't like the book; when we give someone directions...etc.

Picturing is easy.

The second obstacle--and I think the more important one--is being unable to get past the picture into the feeling. If you've never been successful, how do you know how success feels? If you've never been loved (or think you may have the wrong idea about what it means), how do you know what it feels like to be in a healthy relationship? To have the job, the car, the mundane trappings (interesting word, that) of your dreams? For that matter, the spiritual life?

Try this: imagine the intangible characteristics of that life. My ideal life--my sane life--has these characteristics: I am independent, secure, creative, joyful, fearless (except snakes; I don't mind holding on to some phobias, really. And airplanes. They are for going places in, not jumping out of. For me. You, you can do that differently.). And so on.

So when you imagine your dream home, don't just put the picture in your head. Put the characteristics of what that space brings to your life into the picture as well. In my dream home, I have room for books, and yoga, and a kitchen for creating healthy meals, and....and so on. Beyond what I really want the house to look like (I have a fondness for Arts and Crafts architecture, Mission and Shaker furniture, and hand thrown pottery, but not in excess), I want a home that inspires me to creative heights, with lots of light and the room for books is important because it keeps me focused on learning and writing and doing instead of on the clutter of stacking books on the floor or packing them away in closets (that's probably bad feng shui, too). And a bright and shiny kitchen so I'll spend time in it and enjoy it ... I love feeling creative when I cook.

Want a new car? Why? For safe and reliable transportation to work? To take meandering Sunday drives to explore and feed your adventurous spirit?

The question isn't just "what does my life look like," but "what does my life feel like?"

The things we do

I was talking last week to a friend about my plans for a mini-garden, and he shared with me what his wife had done around their house--and how the garden drew in birds and butterflies (an unintended consequence). He closed with "can you imagine if everyone in the world planted a real garden?"

The last couple of novels I've been indulging in have been of the "this is the only person who can save the world" type. Combined with the question above, this week's influences led me to this question of my own: can you imagine if everyone in the world acted as though the balance of good and evil rested on their shoulders?

I don't mean in a guilt-inducing way, of course. But on the general premise that we ought to be as awake and aware in our lives as possible, what if we treated our lives as the deciding factor in how it all turns out? If I, and I alone, were the tipping point in spiritual evolution, in mundane and spiritual sanity. If everything I did had an impact I could measure.

The World We Dream

"When you look at the world we humans have created you may conclude that it was created by sleeping people, because awake, aware, conscious people would manifest a very different world. We have entered one of the most important periods in human history...We have the opportunity to lift ourselves to new levels of consciousness." -- John Perkins, founder of DreamChange (http://www.dreamchange.org/).

Reading: The World is as You Dream It, by John Perkins. Interesting, interesting man.

New plans and no plans

It occurred to me this morning that the new house has a closed in porch that faces east (as well as one that faces south, and one that faces north--it's a very porch-y house), which may mean that I can grow more than herbs and sprouts. I'm thinking things like heirloom strains of tomatoes, beans, and other fruits/veggies--just a pot or two of each, nothing past my ability to keep up with. And if I stagger the planting, I may be able to create a mini garden that lasts for months.

I was just reading about the "doomsday" seed vault in Norway--a structure that houses seeds in an ultra-secure, very cold (zero degrees) environment. The same book mentioned the loss of diversity in food crops over the past 100 years. A friend recently mentioned an article she'd read on recovery (after athletic events) that suggested our bodies are stronger, healthier, and more adaptable/resilient when we eat a wider variety of foods. I'm also thinking that even in pots, a small garden can not only broaden the array of foods I eat, but also give me more "local" foods (I assume it counts as local if you grow them yourself!), and possibly even give me more interesting and tasty foods without raising my grocery bill (heirloom seeds, pots, soil...not necessary cheap). I'm not much of a gardener, but it's worth a try, right?

So those are my new plans. My no plans? It's a busy day--helping a friend with some editing, doing a card reading, meditation circle (after WEEKS of being absent) ... but it is absolutely gorgeous outside--the kind of weather that makes you grateful for things you don't even know about, so C and I may bag some of the editing and hang out at the park. Absorb some sun and air and green ... worship at the altar of life.

Fiscal Sanity: putting your money where your mouth is

Do you spend according to your values?

For me, this is a hard one--my perceived needs and resources don't always match up to what I know, deep down, is the right way for me to live. Depending on what your stated values are, what your "fiscal sanity" is, I think it's possible to run smack up against real life and have to compromise.

Good thing "all things in moderation" is one of my values.

I've mentioned local food before--eating local is one way that certain values of mine can definitely play out. But around here? Hard to manage, at least with any ease. One farmers market that features local "stuff" runs on a weeknight, one I'm already too busy on. CSAs, frankly, are beyond my budget--and there's the real rub. Sometimes, doing the right thing requires resources we don't really have. Garden? Not possible, at least not right now. One thing I'm looking forward to after I move next month is that I'll be in a place with more light, which means I can at least grow herbs and make my own sprouts.

Commuting to work. I don't think my hometown is the worst example of public transportation, but it might be close. Buses can take hours to commute by, but since I work less than ten miles from where I live, my impact isn't as bad as it could be...but it isn't zero.

Then there's debt, a topic I've definitely brought up before. I want to be debt free so badly I can taste it...but how to manage that is another matter. With the high cost of housing and transportation, and the high cost of eating right, paying for my past experiences (a nicer word than mistakes, don't you think?) is taking much longer than I'd like. Still, except for student loans, it's likely I'll be debt free in a few years. Sooner would be better.

So there's the question of the day: knowing what you know about your life, your values, your style of sanity, how does your financial picture stack up, and how can you improve it?

Our wisdom

Why do we have such a difficult time accepting wisdom? Leave a teaching around long enough, to be found by enough people, and it's accepted (almost) without question. But uncover or voice it for the first time and we often seem in a hurry to bury it in a pit someplace until it's dusty enough to trust.

I quote other people a lot. Not that I don't think of these things myself, but I generally feel like if it's just coming from me, maybe it isn't all that wise. Or take the Desiderata. I read someplace that it was written in the last century (the 20th, of course) and that its author made up the story about finding this centuries-old document. And yet, the words are beautiful and the teachings even more so.

I wonder what would happen if we all accepted ourselves as innately wise, as teachers as well as students.

The rest of the Secret

In Wicca, they teach that the greatest mystery of all is there is no mystery.

There is only discovery, being, (sometimes) doing. The trick is to keep those in balance. We get so busy "doing" we forget to be, and we get so busy discovering (usually intellectually) we forget to "do."

The rest of the Secret is this: thought must be followed by action. It won't -- most of the time, at least -- manifest on its own. Thought leading to intention (which is will applied to imagination) followed by observation (of opportunity, for example) will inevitably lead to action, and thus to manifestation. You can affirm all you want that you'll win the lottery, but if you don't buy a ticket....

It's like the old joke about the very pious man who got caught in a massive flood, and as the waters climbed higher, so did he, until at last he was sitting on the roof, affirming his faith in God. Two men in a boat came by, then another, then a helicopter, and to each he responded "go, help others, God will save me." Finally he was swept away by the waters and drowned. When he reached the Pearly Gates, he asked God, "why didn't you save me? I trusted, believed in you, affirmed my faith."

God's response? "I sent you two boats and a helicopter. What more did you want?"

The Secret

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe. St. Augustine

Course correction?

This is a test. It is only a test....

Every so often it seems like you make a proclamation to the Universe about your intentions, and the response is something like "yes, but do you really mean that?" You can tell this is the response, because every attachment you have regarding the subject in question will then be tugged on to see if it actually comes loose, or if you're holding on tightly. Sometimes, of course, the holding-on part is what you're looking for. That's discipline, right? Sticking to your course despite questions, challenges, obligations, and so forth, that can derail you and send you off in a different direction.

Sometimes, it's the letting-go that's the hard part.

Learning to trust that everything you need will be there can be difficult. Especially when you see the intended outcome so clearly that it's doubly frustrating when you can't see the path that gets you there. At those times, the "yes, but do you really mean that?" test can be a doozy--every fear you ever had about the goal, not to mention every fear you have about trusting anyone, least of all the amorphous force we call Spirit, reaches up and smacks you on the forehead, proclaiming you an idiot for going down this path.

It's not faith to step out onto a path you're certain of. Faith is taking the step and trusting the fog to lift.

Physical Sanity (aka Birthday goals, day 2)

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Michael Pollan (In Defense of Food)

One of the precepts Michael Pollan sets forth in the book In Defense of Food is that we shouldn't eat anything our grandmothers wouldn't recognize as food. Michael Pollan may be a few years older than I am, or maybe his grandmothers did more cooking. But the principle makes sense to me.

Over the past several months, I've severely stripped down my diet to a pretty simple one. Just call me the queen of veggies and fish. I rarely eat red meat of any kind, any more, so when I was going through loose pages of recipes downloaded from the internet or torn from magazines or photocopied from library books, I started ditching the ones that had any mammals involved. I figured if I just HAD to make shephard's pie again, I could find the recipe somewhere else. I'll probably switch TVP for the ground beef anyway. Finding out you're about an inch away from doing permanent damage to your body is nothing if not motivating. Forget the adage that "nothing tastes as good as thin feels" and try "nothing is worth going to the hospital for."

It's not like I didn't already know everything I needed to know about how to treat this physical form. I let other people's priorities get in my way, though. I let being busy be an excuse to eat crappy food in the fastest possible way. Does that mean I don't do convenience food anymore? No--sometimes I really am too busy to cook. But McDonald's drive-thru is definitely out. Instead, it's a bundled salad from Publix in an emergency, or (twice in the last six months) chicken tenders and fruit from a chicken place. And I try to make it ONLY an emergency thing--like I'm out all day with no time to heat something up. Used to be I did better at eating fruit than vegetables. Now I feel it if I get fewer than seven veggies a day--usually I get about nine, and one to two servings of orchard fruit or berries. Almost no sugar.

But I do try to keep my head about it. Extremes are so much easier than moderation. So if the urge is overwhelming to have a friend's homemade chocolate chip cookies, I do. Have one. In public. None of it comes home. And I pass it up when it doesn't count. Lunch yesterday was a meeting/catered deal. I ate the chicken and veggies and told the server to not even bring me the dessert. Yes, it looked good (judging from other people's plates) but really, nothing is that good.

I'm trying more and more to embrace Pollan's suggestion. I doubt I'll ever again be a strict vegetarian (I've done it a few times), but I like the feeling of not being driven by cravings, and I find that the more veggies I eat, the more likely it is that I'll be dying for chocolate only about one week out of the month...works for me.

Fresh foods, healthy exercise (walking, yoga, core strengthening) = treating my body sanely instead of insanely. And it makes the outside life match the inside life a little more.

Fiscal Sanity

Here's the goal: financial independence, which to me means the ability to do what I want, when I want, how I want. I discovered a couple of years ago that in a sense, money=power (to me, at least). Not in a power-grab way, but in that when I have plenty of money, I feel like I have options. So I worry less (probably a holdover from a tight-money childhood), and in general things go better. One of my real challenges, though, has been in not spending everything I have due to a perceived lack of "stuff."

I think, though, over the past year, I've changed a lot in terms of how I see that "stuff" and how much is enough of it. Books, though, will probably continue to be my failing....at least from a "don't buy that" perspective. So I've built into my upcoming budget a certain weekly amount for fun that includes books, movies (not that I go to many of those. In fact, I've got a pair of tickets a friend gave me a year ago that I still haven't used).

Looking at my budget through the end of the year, though, I see that while I can certainly pay the bills on time (as long as I stay in my budget and don't think this week's extra cash is really extra instead of committed to something happening two weeks away), accelerating the getting-out-of-debt goal is going to be a challenge. I've set myself a schedule of sorts for accumulating money. It looks something like this: I don't have to pay rent in November (I've been given the opportunity to use this month as a "get ahead" month, because I'm used to paying rent weekly and starting with January--or maybe December--I'll need to go back to paying it at the first of the month.) so I'll build the bank account to pay the November bills (which include two overdue October bills--both of which will actually be paid this Friday), then December's rent and bills, then January and February the same. I figure, if I get that much ahead, I'll be able to pay off one of the smaller debts without worrying that I'm going to put myself short on the rent.

Setting aside my own skepticism re my ability to set aside a month's worth of anything, much less three. Right now, I'm looking at the budget and I can see that at the end of November, based on standard income and outgo, I have enough to pay the December rent if it's the half-month that I assume it will be, and have a touch left in the bank. The challenge then, is that starting in December, I'm about a week's pay ahead on actual "got to pay it now" principles (and this is actually a HUGE improvement), but I'd like to be a month ahead already, because that would be evidence that I'm bringing in enough more than I'm spending to actually make some headway.

More income and less outgo are going to be required. Fortunately I'm spending the better part of the weekend working--some card reading gigs thanks to a wonderful friend who's giving me the opportunity to work with her again, and working in a friend's metaphysical shop on Saturday, filling in for an absent assistant. This is all good and will probably put half of December's bills in the bank by the end of November. A couple of the expenses I've anticipated for November will be at least partially reimbursed. Also good. Crossing my fingers I haven't forgotten anything. Friends and family will be getting my love and maybe a short story for Yule gifts. No cookies this year, probably, or anything else material while I pay attention to other priorities. There is some additional extra income coming along, just not sure the amount or the exact days, but it's already committed thanks to the handy list I've made of financial priorities for this next year. Hopefully by the end of December, these extras will actually have me up to that point where I'm paying next month's bills out of this month's money.

I did a lot over the past twelve months to bring my outer life in alignment with my inner life. The next twelve will bring even more into alignment, so if nothing else, I'll enjoy looking back a year from now to see how things have changed.

More on what I'm doing here....

I've been thinking today about several of the blogs I sporadically follow. Incurably curious as I am, I find the Internet to be endlessly fascinating in the amount of information it's possible to access, so "sporadically" is pretty typical of my browsing habits....so maybe I'm hitting the wrong sites, but here's what I noticed: 99.9% (or maybe 100%--I certainly can't think of any exceptions now) of the blogs and websites I see are very focused. Money. Weight loss. Goal achieving. Simplicity. Spirituality.

I want all these things. Health. Fitness (physical and financial). A spirit-based life. And so on. Having chosen to communicate publicly about the journey, is there a reason I should limit myself to one aspect of it? Is it confusing to talk about the challenges and victories of all of it? And if not, why isn't anyone doing it? Or am I just missing something?

Or is there a way to organize the discussion so it makes some sense to someone besides me (and thus becomes more than a navel-gazing exercise)? Do I blog Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday on spiritual matters; Tuesday on financial sanity; Thursday on physical sanity; Saturday on all of it coming together? (Hey, actually, maybe that works....). Because that's the thing--I didn't start the blog to just randomly blather on about my life--I started it to hold myself accountable to myself, and maybe interact with some other people practicing their own style of sanity. And if ALL I focus on is meditation, and not on the growth I experience in other areas; or if ALL I focus on is my health, or ALL I focus on are my finances....at any point I'm focusing on only a portion of what conscious sanity/conscious living is--because to me (yours may be different) sanity comes from integrating all these parts of my life into a conscious whole.

Juggling, goals, and other "stuff"

Work, life...I let my priorities shift several times this year, including this past week. Actually, including several times this past month. Then some things came up that gave me reason to think--hard--about what I'm doing here. They're all kind of twisted together, so bear with me while I unwind them a bit.

I just finished reading Seth Godin's Tribes, a book about taking what you're passionate about, and leading. I read a quote somewhere recently from someone I can't remember (my apologies to the originator) that went something like: Imagine that everyone in the world was following your lead. Would you like where you were leading them? Answer: not really.

I also just finished (today) reading Colin Beavan's No Impact Man. Boy, do I recommend this book. Beavan set out to see if a) he could live his stated values and b) make a difference as an individual. Which led me to the second question: do I live my stated (if only to myself) values? Yes. And no. And sometimes. Which is problematic, because it seems to imply that my overriding REAL value is convenience. Or reaction. Sort of like saying that when the going gets tough, the tough find a new distraction.

Thinking about the ways my budgeting is going to have to change in about 6 weeks led me to reinvestigate the frugality movement, which I'd been exploring in tandem with the idea of conscious living (and what I then termed conscious sanity). I'd been distracted from that due to my health imbalances last spring, which gave me some more immediate priorities to deal with for a few months. One of my stated values is being independent--including financial independence. Am I living that? Uh, no. In fact, on a scale of 1 - 10, my financial awareness is about a 10, my demonstrated financial competence is around a -10.

Thinking about budgeting includes thinking about health. One of my big weekly expenses is groceries. I spend more on groceries as a single woman than some people budget for a family of four. The question here is whether that's actually unreasonable. I eat low carb, mostly fresh. I've stopped eating organic, though. I don't (yet?) eat locavore, because the closest place to look for local foods is a ten mile drive away, which doesn't defeat the purpose, but it does complicate the execution. One of my stated values is eating healthily, organically, low-impact. Do I live that? Sort of. One way this complicates my life, though, is that it's an expensive way to eat. Granted, there are places I can cut back or change the specifics, and it's probably time to revisit the menu. Actually, moving in December may help, since I'll once more have a kitchen to myself and can break out the crockpot, grow some fresh herbs, and sprout. Maybe experiment with some other things. I'll have room to cure soap again, too! (I love making cold-processed soap...that's the stuff using lye. Can't do it in a crowded living space with kids and cats.)

More on health...and leading into spirit. I'd like a higher level of fitness. Like, comparing a mountain top to flatlands higher. (Literally--I've promised myself a Yule gift of rock climbing lessons at a local climbing gym because I've lost enough weight that it's probably safe. I love hiking and climbing and canoeing and all sorts of outdoor activities that are a) challenging in Florida--note an almost paralyzing fear of most reptiles, for one thing and b) much harder to do at the weight I've been carrying. Speaking of weight...I've lost 45 pounds. I need to do this a couple more times. Now you know. I keep getting stuck because losing weight is relatively boring--I'm now eating "right" (mostly) and I walk frequently, and the rest is time (getting up early enough to go to the gym) and adjusting the food to account for lower calorie requirements and keeping it interesting enough to stick to it when the emotional crap hits and I want chocolate. My stated value? Being healthy and having a strong, flexible body. Rate this around a 2. Used to be worse.

Spirit: I meditate. Not as often or as long as I'd like. I do yoga. Ditto. I don't spend the time doing the kinds of folk-magick-y and shamanistic practices I enjoy because...well, mostly because I get distracted.  Teaching others about them seems to be an inevitable outcome of my practice, although I don't try for the teaching thing. Mostly, people ask and I try to answer. Living this value of an inspired and spirit-filled life? I rate myself somewhere around a one, but that might be me being too hard on myself--I recognize that. But ....

Writing career: wow, I get swamped by the everyday just getting by. And I hate that. I'm in the middle of edits for my "latest"--unsubmitted, as yet--short story. I'm in the middle of revisions for my first--unsubmitted, as yet--novel. I have the next four novels lined up in my head. And the last few months I'm more likely to spend my evening playing Bubble Shooter than writing. Not proud of that, by the way.

I'm playing with the thought of putting some goal bars -- especially as related to getting debt free and self-sufficient, and getting healthy -- in the side bar. What stops me? Okay, here's the stupidest reason of all. People I know read this blog. I mind much less looking like a fool to absolute strangers.

So that's the grand confession--of sorts. Factor number whatever in this coming up is: Saturday's my birthday. Kind of brings up that "what did I do last year" and "what will I do next year" thing. So I think I'll at least post some fast-fact details between now and then, with a short list of big things I'd like to achieve in my pursuit to live a consciously sane life.

Be present

"...happy people...don't make taking care of themselves or taking care of their families something they have to get over with so they can get to the good stuff. Instead, they insist that this moment, whatever it is, is the good stuff." Colin Beavan, No Impact Man

"We're too busy becoming...to be." Dreamtrybe

And finally, off the top of my head, from Seth Godin's blog yesterday "Sometimes, the work is the work and the goal isn't to top what you did yesterday. Doing justice to the work is your task, not setting a world record."

I wonder how much time is wasted rushing through to get to "the good stuff." I don't mean as in "a stitch in time saves nine" time wasting, I mean as in...this is my life. Every moment, I'm living my life. How much of my own life do I miss trying to get somewhere else?

Surrender

"You don't have to want to; you just have to be willing." Cheri Huber, on the habit of sitting (zazen).

I'm trying that with surrender. I must like being in control (or thinking I am) because it's sure difficult for me to let go and let someone/thing bigger than me be in charge.

"Thy will be done." What a supreme act of faith that is. To say to Source, you know, I've been trying, and it's working, but only a little, so how about if I shut up and listen this time. You tell me what's really going on, and I'll bring myself into alignment with that.

In other words, surrender. Go with the flow. I don't think it's the same as becoming a victim of fate, although certainly it seems that way in some people. "It was God's will that the car hit me." Well, maybe, but did you consider she might have rather you stayed in the crosswalk and looked both ways before you went for it?

On the other hand, I've been there--often--when it felt like Source was dropping bricks on my head to get my attention--that no matter what I did, it wasn't enough. And at some point, I think you have to ask yourself whether you took a wrong turn someplace. Downstream--with the flow--is a lot easier than upstream.

So I'm looking at some more things in my life and thinking that while they seemed like a good idea at the time, maybe it's time to ask someone bigger than me what they think.

I'm listening.

General silliness

I"m not feeling very spiritual today. Frantic, stressed...more accurate descriptions right now. Caught in the whirlwind of trying to get everything done that needs to be done (never mind what I want to be done), even feeling anxious about needing to find time to read! I have a stack of reasearch books, a stack of non-fiction that looked interesting, several books on spiritual growth and a half dozen or so novels I'd like to find time to relax with.

If I had time to think about it, I'd think it was the silliest problem I'd ever heard about. The reading. Not the rest of it, "it" in this case just being a lot of stuff going on that spiritually and mentally I know the remnants of some shifting patterns, but emotionally is one big test in trusting the universe.

So I haven't wanted to post, because somewhere along the line I created the idea that reallly, why bother if you're not going to be perfect every day? You know, like everyone else is. Of course I'm not perfect, but more importantly, I'd forgotten that the whole point is to bring attention to the changes in my life I'm making, the manifestation of the change in focus. It's not like I woke up one morning to this new world full of spirit and well-being that I'd never known existed--I've spent decades wondering why the hell I wasn't getting my act together and incorporating all the things I knew into a lifestyle that worked for me (the old one clearly wasn't working). Not that it's an excuse, falling back into old habits of pessimism and worry and looking for the easy way out (darn that magick wand for not working the way they promised). But it is a reminder.

This morning on the cushion, my brain wouldn't shut up. It might have been the shortest meditation on record. Some of the things pushing at the edges of my consciousness are steps I'm not quite ready to take, but one thing I realized (and this time I mean it): if I keep trying what I already know doesn't work, that's just stupid. And what's the line I heard recently? "Don't get stuck on stupid"? So it seems kind of silly to worry about making the changes that I know will work, just because a part of me is still worried about whether I'm living up to other people's expectations instead of my own.

Live to be criticized?

Here's an interesting bit from Seth Godin's latest book, Tribes. Tribes is a book on leadership, and on page 48, Seth says this:

"The lesson here is this: if I had written a boring book, there'd be no criticism. No conversation. The products and services that get talked about are the ones worth talking about....[ask yourself] 'If I get criticized for this, will I suffer any measurable impact? ....' If the only side effect of the criticism is that you will feel bad about the criticism, then you have to copare that bad feeling with the benefits you'll get from actually doing something worth doing....Feeling bad wears off."

If we spend our time worrying about what other people think about what we're doing, instead of doing what we're passionate about, we lose the chance (or at least delay the chance) to do something amazing. Write the novel of your heart (write it well, of course--we're not talking about the kind of criticism that comes with doing things poorly, I think), write an opera. Create art, poetry, an organization that feeds the hungry and clothes the poor. The people who 'get it' are the ones you want to have 'get it', but there won't be anything worth getting if you don't move.

It feels good

A friend made this suggestion the other day: preface positive statements with "It feels so good to...."

It feels so good to have everything I need.
It feels so good to live the life of my dreams.

This week...it feels so good to drive a perfectly functioning car. It feels so good to be centered.

If it's true that we attract according to the vibrations we're putting out, then positive statements as often as possible would seem to be the thing to do. We get "stuck," though, when we are focused on the negatives of our situation: fear that the car is going to break down. Fear that it's taking too long to do what needs to be done. Fear that we'll never accomplish....

When we can remember that it feels good to (name something), we move the energy the right direction. We've all had those moments--no matter how we feel now, there's been that time when we had enough money, enough time, enough energy, enough love, enough passion...it feels good to remember feeling good.

Word for the day: breathe

"When you're ass-deep in alligators, it's hard to remember you came to drain the swamp."

Meditation, and something my mom doesn't know about me

My mother reads pretty much anything I write for public consumption, so it will probably surprise her to see this. Don't worry, mom, it's good.

When I was a kid, maybe six or seven years old, we lived in a house on a busy highway--or as busy as a highway can be in rural Missouri. And we had early bedtimes. So it wasn't unheard of to be hitting the sack while there was still a busy world outside--and light, too, at least in summer.

It was here that I first learned to meditate. Unlike early bedtimes, meditation was unheard of, but that didn't stop me. Not that I knew that was what I was doing--I was just trying to fall asleep. In the process, I created a technique I use to this day to center myself, slow my mind, and focus, even when I don't "have time" to meditate.

Notice how quiet it is where you are. No, the computer humming doesn't count. Move closer. There is a zone of stillness reaching out from your skin. It might be only a couple of inches, but it's there--not just silence, but stillness. Now, make it bigger, maybe three inches. Now, six.

In the midst of a hectic day, you can recognize the zone of stillness that is around you at all times, and use that focus to quiet the chatter, the better to listen to what's really important.

Meditation cycles

Last night, someone raised an interesting question about the thoughts that come up during meditation. In essence, he wanted to know what thoughts are worth pursuing, or do we dismiss them all as chatter.

Meditation is a cycle. We breathe, clearing the mind, so that the parts of ourselves we've been hiding can surface. Insight meditation (vipassana) is where/how we explore those hidden parts...clearing them, and then we return to a clear center.

This meditation thing

Random moment: it's raining, with thunder. It's a beautiful sound. Kind of makes up for the 100-degree-plus heat index we've been enjoying this week. And yes, it's October.

Which brings me to my point. Sitting in meditation tonight, I would just begin to relax into the moment, appreciating the music, slowing my breath and my thoughts, and...boom. No, not the thunder. The mental chatter. Random thoughts with less than no meaning. Even though I know this is what it's about, it ticks me off. Years of meditation practice, and I can't sit through a 45-minute meditation with a quiet mind. Never mind that most of the time, I do. Most of the time, I use the time to explore what needs exploring, without covering it up. I breathe, or I delve--whatever is needed. Tonight, my anxiety level is higher than it should be--backlash from the good space I've been standing in while everything is shifting.

I'm not perfect. I guess I needed the reminder.

Coincidentally, our pre-meditation circle question from Karen was--how do you deal with the monkey mind? I breathe, I said. Or I focus on how quiet it is in the space around my body. And that's what I did tonight. Kept coming back to it, to the conscious breath, to the quiet, away from the "what if" and "what's next" flooding my mind. In a sense, this was monkey mind at its finest--not so much random (like the "did I turn off the stove" questions) as it was a parade of things that I'm anxious about. There's a lot going on, and I've been spending enough time worrying in waking life that you'd think I could give it up for an hour.

And I'm reminded again of Pema Chodron's remark that we do not meditate in order to be good at meditating. We meditate to become more aware in our lives.

“There’s nowhere to go on this path. There’s nothing to accomplish. The moment you move into your heart of compassion, you are there. And you don’t have to be a perfect person to do that. You can simply be present to whatever you are, moment by moment by moment. You don’t have to understand, you don’t have to be bright or clever, you don’t have to know a single thing about Buddhism. Whatever happens, embrace it in compassion, and let go of everything else.” Cheri Huber, in Sara Jenkins' "This Side of Nirvana."

This is the 'greater vehicle' of Buddhist tradition--the realization that meditation, daily life....it's all one thing. We don't have to move into a monastery to meditate. It's right in front of us--everything in life is better for being brought up into the meditation room, even the worries. Even the chatter.

Sometimes, it's good to get a reminder of that.

Directionals...

Sometimes, the energy just flies. We're suddenly in the right place at the right time with the right people, and either things start falling into place, or the messages are coming so fast and furious, we can't ignore them.

I try to think of them--the messages--as nudges from the universe, keeping me in the right direction. When we are aware, we're more aware of the events in our life as messages, instead of just random occurrences and "oh, isn't that weird" moments. The people who can help us (or whom we can help), the places we should be or the things we should be doing. At some point, even trying to be unaware becomes impossible--even if it isn't entirely clear what steps to take next.

Today's universal "to do" list seems to include the following possibilities: free-lance editing for fiction writers (this is one message I'm getting a lot--just trying to work out the "who would pay me for this" part), recording meditations and guided journeys for CD or download, writing metaphysical romance...okay, that one strikes me as strange, but people keep telling me they'd buy that book. I think I 'sold' five copies today alone.

Looking now for the "how to" messages that will move me forward in one direction or another, staying open and allowing (instead of my fear of "but who would pay me for that" closing me down).

Synchronicity part 'oh my god and goddess'

Today I ran into someone in a very crowded room (Southern Women's Show) doing something very interesting (energy work). The hemi-sync CDs caught my eye, since my favorite journeying CD is The Shaman's Heart. So I stopped to talk, ran into this guy, chatted a few seconds (a very few) and went on my way.

Tonight when I got home, I pulled out his business card and looked up the website of his organization. Went to the "about us" information and ... found that he and his partner in the organization are both members of a group I belong to. I've heard her name a dozen times, seen some emails from her, probably have seen some emails from him without noticing the name (since I'd never met either in person, but her name had come up in some discussions).  And here we were. Crowded room. Chance turn down the right aisle. Wow.

Going with the synchronicity on this one. No idea why we needed to meet, or what will come of it. I've been putting the energy out there to meet more people doing the same type of energy work that I'm doing, and the same journeying work. Rarely do I meet anyone who's doing both, so that alone is tres cool. I love it when a step in the right direction pops up in front of me.

Letting go ... again.

If you can't be replaced you can't be promoted.

If you hold on to who you were/are, you can't become what you're meant to be. Or, as I saw TWICE this week (in various ways): from Joe Dispenza: "Only when you are able to break the habit ofbeing yourself can a new self emerge." and from Wayne Dyer: (paraphrased) "If you hold on to what you've always done and been, you're arguing against your own personal growth."

Huh. When you put it that way...

It is, in a nutshell, one of my two greatest challenges. I am not so good at the letting go thing. I guess what I'm really looking for is the new to replace the old in such a way that I don't even notice the old is gone. Too bad it doesn't actually work that way.

On the other hand, it's all well and good to say I need to let go of the person I used to be (and knowing I'm really not that person...none of us are. Sometimes growth happens whether we plan it or not. We learn, we do, we experience, and it all change us.). It's a whole 'nother thing to actually consciously let go of things I'm unconsciously holding onto. Pizza, for example. Actually a good example, because it's possible that pizza is my most favorite food. And I don't eat it any more. But of all the stupid, stupid things...sometimes it pisses me off that I can't. Yes, it was a choice...more or less. The other option is so far worse that it wasn't much of a choice. Letting go of relationships/friendships/family ties...oh, those can hurt, even when you know you're doing the right thing. Especially--and I've seen friends go through exactly this--when you quit being the person everyone can rely on so that you can become the person YOU can rely on.

Sometimes personal growth hurts. But think of it like the hurt of a massage...it's gonna feel SOOOOO good later.

Making out with life

There are days, I told a friend recently, when all you really want is for someone to kiss it and make it all better.

Wonder if that would work?

Several months ago, Danielle LaPorte posted "French kiss life," which struck me as a great idea. Of course, there are those French kisses that seemed like a good idea at the time, but turned out...icky. I suppose the same could be said of French kissing life.

But on the other hand, it could turn out to be a turn-on like you'd have never imagined if you'd stuck to just pecking it on the cheek and suggesting it have a good day.

Back to those shifting sands...

"Discipline is remembering what you want." Great reminder. I might add that discipline is what keeps us on our feet when remembering what we want is NOT the first thing we're remembering.

Meditation and prayer are among the tools we use to build the base to remember from. When life doesn't go according to plan--or we can't see how life is fitting into our plan--the focus and flexibility we've built by sitting on the cushion keeps us grounded and remembering not our goals, or "what we want," but remembering our authentic self--that part of us that is beyond ego, beyond fear.

Disclaimer: I really don't care for the word 'authentic'--I think it's way overused, but in this case, it fits. Our authentic self is the Self that we reach for--the bigger Self, connected to all the other Selfs (spelling deliberate)--when we get rid of the clutter and judgment and interpretation that is often present in our thoughts.

It's easy to remember that Self when we're on the cushion. It's easy to pray and give thanks when things are going according to plan. I highly recommend it. It's good practice. Becauses when the ground moves under your feet, that's the time to remember...what you want, not what you're afraid of.

Practice what you preach

Today was Gandhi's birthday. Lots of messages flying quoting his most famous (perhaps) comment that "you must be the change you wish to see in the world."

I once read the story of where that line came from--I've no idea of its truth, but I don't think that matters. The story goes that a woman came to Gandhi one day with her son and asked Gandhi for his help in getting the boy to stop eating sweets. Gandhi gave her a date to return and sent them away with no explanation or advice. When she came back, Gandhi spoke to the boy and then to the mother, who asked him why he couldn't have had the conversation with her son at the first visit. Gandhi told her that he could not tell the boy to stop eating sweets until he, himself, had given them up. So he'd sent her away so he could do first what he was going to tell the boy he should do. "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

We often hear it as "practice what you preach" and "walk the walk, not just talk the talk." My dad used to tell us when we were kids, "if you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem."

I used to tell my students regarding the 'law of three' that the reason we watch our actions isn't because of some karmic threat. It's because we recognize that our behavior creates the world we live in. Certainly not singlehandedly, but in our collective action. If you want to live in a world full of creativity, be creative. If you aren't, then you are acting to create a world you don't want. Want to live in a world full of love and joy and respect and prosperity? Put your actions toward those things. Want to live in a world where everyone gets what they want materially? Go for what you want materially. Dollar trumps? Live for the almighty dollar.

You may not change the world overnight, but you'll be helping it along. And you won't be fighting your own desires to do it. Be the change you wish to see. It's the only way to create it.

Gratitude

From Michael Beckwith's book Spiritual Liberation (paraphrased): enlightened people are grateful for things most people take for granted.

I've always had difficulty with the "gratitude lists" -- and other suggestions -- although I've no problem with the idea of gratitude. But it often seems contrived. Do I really need to make a written list of things I'm grateful for?

Sometimes.

Sometimes life just kicks you in the ass, and while you're busy running from the pain, it's easy to focus on the 'oh crap' part of it all. Hard, hard, HARD to think of things to be grateful for if you've lost your job, a loved one, a court fight, or your mind from stress. Hard enough under lesser stressors -- looking back over the past 18 months, I've experienced a half dozen or so events that are considered major stressors, although at the time (and even now) I felt like it wasn't any one event so much as it was that I felt like a cosmic punching bag--I'd get up, and here comes the next blow. Hard, hard, hard to focus away from the crap and onto the bigger story. Plus, I'm very good at focusing to the point of obsession.

Enter gratitude. Silly or not, the act of consciously listing things I'm grateful for is one of the tools I use to pull myself out of any given funk. It's not the list, it's the consciousness. And I find that when I focus on what I'm grateful for, I'm aware of more in general. It's kind of like a walking, talking, conscious meditation.

Random wisdom

From the book Soul Retrieval, by Sandra Ingerman:

When we are fully home, a more realistic attitude about people around us seems to emerge. Some individuals feel it's easier to accept other people, maybe because now they can accept themselves. For others, a "reality check" might show that a relationship with a certain person is abusive and needs to end. Whatever the issue, many people find that the ways they relate to others do change.

Heart-held

Wow. A couple of things I just ran across -- one, Gwen Bell's post today on moving toward the heart of your work; two, a link from @zen_habits to a post at mnmlist.com on letting go of goals...there are days when things like this come spinning into your life and it's easier to grasp that they are important than it is to realize exactly what the importance is.

Except that there are lots of synchronicities whirling into my personal space right now that seem to simultaneously encourage me to let go of ...well, everything (yeah, today's Buddhism 101 reminder...I am SO not good at letting go), and open up to new possibilities that right now I can't quite put into words. Just...impressions. Of the importance of being whole (note: I love my day job, it's lots of fun, and I don't intend to leave it unless something much bigger comes along first, so I'm really looking at something that's in addition to...an expansion of my life energy) in what we say and do, including the stuff we do for pay and being able to be paid to exist (check out Jonathan Mead's The Zero Hour Workweek) (note: when I wrote this, the link wasn't working, but hopefully is soon--if I find a corrected link, I'll change it.).

Rumi running through my mind: let the beauty we love be what we do. There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

My epiphany the other day was how much I love telling stories--not just the ones I write, but everyone's. I love making a good story better, or brainstorming one from the beginning. Finding the story that resonates through the "facts," imagining the bigger story behind the obvious. Not necessarily spirtual, by the way--I love just as much looking at a newspaper story and creating a novel out of it! It's like taking a puzzel and putting the pieces together...

If telling a story is the heart of me, the heart of what I do, can my "zero hour workweek" be achieved through my writing? Is there an opportunity heading my way to do editing or story development? Is there a less mundane opportunity to be had creating spiritual stories or developing visions?

Resonance

What resonates with you? Who resonates with you? What and who in your life has an energy that you can lean into as though it's a second skin?

Understand that resonance isn't the same as feeling good--it's more than that. There's a comfort level with resonance that makes the thing/person an extension of you. It's about an energy that vibrates both of you up a level or so. It's about energy that makes you shine brighter, more spiritually (even on a mundane level) ... and with which you do the same. It's interactive, not taking or giving, but sharing.

You want more of this in your life.

Meditation notes

I love the meditation circle that meets at Spiral Circle most Saturday nights (clarification: I love it always, it meets most Saturdays). It's a nice change of pace to go into a space prepared by someone else, meditate to music (usually at-home meditations are silent) chosen by someone else, and in a group of people who are 90% familiar to me, with some new energy added most weeks.

The faciliators have an absolute knack for choosing music that blows my mind, although I rarely remember to ask them what it was. There's been a lot of "space music" feeling to it lately (at least that's what it sounds like to me--very electronic-y, airy feeling) and it inevitably drops me into a space I hadn't planned to visit. I imagine it's a lot like using psychedelics (I never have), but without the side-effects. Last night, for example, I got to meditate/communicate in a blue-green waterfall that was like being surrounded by this mist of...well, that's about as far as the description goes. Absolute clarity in vision, answers to my questions (okay, so Spirit was doing this "all will be well" thing for most of them, but it worked), and a wonderful feeling of calm after a somewhat stressful week--it felt so good to relax into the experience. Since external stress is staying pretty ramped up right now, I may start meditating to music at home as well, see what effect that has.

Tyler's Trek

Yes, it's 5:30. A.M. Yes, I'm a morning person, but not this morning...I can count on one hand the number of hours of sleep last night. No thumbs, fingers left over.

Yes, there's a bigger story.

Today is the Miracle Miles Run (I'm walking. Wait 'til next year, though.) to benefit the NICU at Winnie Palmer Hospital in Orlando. Arrive by 6:45 to start walking @7:10 for the 5k. Raise money for tiny miracles so they can grow up to be big miracles. I'm doing this because a year and a half ago, my friend Tracy went into labor in January--instead of April, as originally scheduled.

Her son, Tyler, spent the first eight weeks of his life in NICU, with Tracy and her husband making daily visits, until Tyler was big enough and developed enough to come home. Today, he's an active(!) toddler, completely caught up developmentally, and absolutely adorable to boot. When Tracy found out about the Miracle Miles run several months ago, she set herself a fundraising goal and a running goal, and took off, bringing several of us along with her (not that we needed convincing).

I can't think clearly enough at the moment to find the link to her webpage (it has video), but if you Google Tyler's Trek and then look for "guest blogger Tracy Jones" on the Lara Dien blog (my writing blog), you can find both the post she wrote for me, and a link to her site. Watching Tyler grow from just two pounds and change (and he's considered big by NICU standards!) to where he is today is just amazing. I asked Tracy yesterday if she had to use just one word--and the word could not be "Tyler"--to describe why she's running today, her reply was immediate.

Miracles.

Tell a bigger story

If your life seems closed down, shuttered, in a rut, going nowhere, lacking meaning, maybe it's time to consider a bigger story.

One challenge many writers face is the harsh realization that you've written yourself into a corner. This is a lot like painting yourself into a corner, where the options are wait until the paint dries, or leave a fresh set of footprints all over your nice new floor. Both are good options, when used appropriately.

In life, sometimes we drift into a pattern that made sense at the time, but now we're...stuck. The story seems caught somewhere in the middle of the forest, with trial after trial and wicked old Baba Yaga just waiting to pounce on you, or worse, you're Rapunzel in the tower waiting...(in our case, the handsome prince is a metaphor for whatever it is that you're waiting for). But what if Rapunzel climbed down her own hair, instead of lowering it for her jailer or her rescuer? What if Snow White looked at the apple and said, huh, think I'll peel this and make an apple pie? What if I did something no one--not even I--expect me to do?

What if I make my life story bigger than me? Walk in a breast cancer walk? Write a poem and recite it at a poetry jam...just to say I did? Made a bucket list (aka life list) and committed myself to marking things off it, one at a time? Learned how to teach someone to read? Ladled out rice and beans at a soup kitchen?

What if I found a way that speaks to me (it's no good if you try to push yourself into someone else's idea of it--that's just exhausting) by which no matter what I do, I see how it's part of the broader community, the bigger story...what if I decided that being a cog in the machine was just okay...because every machine needs its cogs.

What if?

Seek, and ye shall find

In the last week I've run into three different mentions of freelance editing (for individuals). Last week, a man in the writers' group I meet with mentioned that he'd met someone who'd just paid over $2000 to have his novel professionally edited (ah, there's my sticking point--does it count if I'm a published writer whose editor is thrilled at how little editing she has to do?). Two days ago, a friend I haven't talked to in several months saw an ad on craigslist looking for an editor...and thought to get in touch with me (in general, not to pass on the information, but still...). Yesterday, flipping through a regional green/alternative wellness/etc magazine someone gave me a couple of weeks ago, I saw an ad for a woman who does that sort of editing.

I'm in a space where it's hard for me to interpret anything as a sign (although winning the lottery would be a good one!), but still...the definition of synchronicity is meaningful coincidence....

Ask, and it shall be given

Charles deLint wrote a book several years ago that comes to mind every time I think about using the internet as a power source. The book was Spirits in the Wires, and it has nothing to do with what I'm about to do, but still...my overwhelming memory of the book is the living, breathing, reality of that spirit world.

I guess I'm thinking of it right now as an electronic prayer flag.

There's a lot going on--for everyone--and things are shifting, the old giving way for the new, and sometimes it's overwhelming trying (is that an ego thing?) to keep our feet amid the sand and the flow. One of the things that is perpetually in my "conscious sanity" vision is a life free of financial worry, and let me be specific about that: my debts paid, my obligations (both past and present) fulfilled, sufficient income for me to meet my current needs and wants in a timely, healthy manner.

So here's my statement: I trust in Source to create a flow of immediate, unexpected income to fulfill that desire. I don't know how, or through what channel, but I'm trusting.

Random moments

The most important: Gwen Bell ( @gwenbell ), quoting David Deida, who says this better than I could have ever thought of on my own--and it was the one thing I needed most to see/hear today:

"Spiritual practice is the capacity to offer your love even when you feel hurt, closed down, angry, misunderstood, or hated."

I'm on Twitter now, too. I plan to be tweeting thoughts/inspirational quotes a few times a week (daily would be good, but we'll see--I'm a little slow on these sometimes). Follow me @conscioussanity. Should have the profile completed tonight, but for now....it's boring. By tomorrow, maybe not.

"Spiritual practice is the capacity to offer your love even when you feel hurt, closed down, angry, misunderstood, or hated."

Repeat as necessary.

Letting go

Lately the line "you must do the thing you think you cannot do" has been running through my mind. Eleanor R., wasn't it? At any rate, it's there, teasing me, as I contemplate letting go to make room for new experiences.

You must do the thing you think you cannot do. It becomes an admonition to let go of those things that mean the most to me, but that I know are not in my new best interests. To put it very mundanely...who'd have thought I'd have to give up pizza as a lifestyle change? (Seriously, pizza is on my list of top five lifetime favorite foods....) To put it less mundanely...sitting (zazen). Yoga poses. Stretching myself, and not just physically.

You must do the thing you think you cannot do. Not only letting go of things I never thought I could let go of, but also the DOING...what we want is often outside our comfort zone. We must reach for it. Reach for the thing we think we cannot touch. Even if it hurts, even if we pull a muscle, even if we have to stretch farther than we ever thought possible.

Do the thing you think you cannot do.

Anticipating change

Restlessness and anxiety are often signs that we're missing something. Our internal compass--the one that says "keep going this way" gets thrown off and starts wobbling.

I've found a couple of ways to approach this. One is to do a quick review of what I'm doing in my life--have I started drifting? Or, worse, made a deliberate move that is not in my best interests?

The other approach--and they aren't an either/or--is to open myself up to the energy around me. Actively look for synchronicity and messages that guide me to the next step. Sometimes restlessness is a way for Spirit to gently aid me in letting go and making room for what comes next.

I'm so lucky

Driving back to the office this morning after a meeting downtown, deep in conversation with a friend/coworker about something or other and we drove past the hospital...and past a homeless man pushing a shopping cart down the middle of the left turn lane. My friend noticed he'd just been in the hospital (had those sticky things they attach you to monitors with).

Instant gratitude for my health, my job, my life-trappings that allow me the freedom to do what I love.

Embracing obstacles

So first there was my sis pointing out that roses have thorns, but that doesn't stop them from being roses, and in fact, if they didn't have thorns, they'd probably be pale imitations of roses just to protect themselves (okay, I said it that way, she didn't, but that's my new interpretation of her "find joy" comment).

Then on Gwen Bell's blog today...there it was again. Of course, she was talking about detractors, trolls, whatever name you give the people who disagree with you, but the same principle.

And I'm a writer, so I know this.

It's tension. Life is a hell of a lot less interesting if there are no rocks in the road. The victory dance in the end zone is more fun when the runner had to make it past the entire front line (or whatever you call it...the problem with sports metaphors is you have to understand the sport!) to get there.

I'm not praising the problem, here, or telling you that you HAVE to suffer for your art. I'm just saying that the challenges have their place in our stories...we grow, we change, because we're forced even an inch out of our comfort zone.

Discipline is remembering what you want

I almost didn't post today. I've been crazy-busy at work, the universe dropped a few bricks on my head this morning (at which point my sis pointed out that you still gotta go through it, and the best way to do that is with faith that there is joy in whatever you're going through), and overall....

But I'd made this commitment to myself that I would post something every day--something insightful (for me, at least), inspirational, or at least something to think about.

So here I am.

I spent the evening with a bunch of writers--all of us in different genres, some writing for publication, others for private pleasure. Things have been so busy, I've been coming home lately, looking at the writing projects, and groaning. I'm tired. But...this is what I want.

I'm craving a sandwich--a big, filled to bursting sub from my favorite sub place. It's entirely possible that it's because I'm at the 'between' point in my cycle and my body thinks it needs more fuel. It doesn't. So dinner was (once again) lean protein and vegetables. I'm not depriving myself (people keep reminding me not to do that), I'm moving toward my goal of ideal health. This is what I want.

Tomorrow night is the shamans' group meetup. Odds are pretty good that I'll still be tired, having a lot of stuff going on at work tomorrow, plus all the writing/editing/etc I'm supposed to be doing. But I'll go. Because that's what I want. I want it more than I want to veg out and watch tv or read a book. Just like I want the healthy body and mind more than I want the sub sandwich or the Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Just like I want the writing gig more than I want a break. I want to remind myself of the path I'm on--keep the record, even if no one else reads it--more than I want the extra five minutes of sleep (not sure I can say that about the gym in the morning, but at least I'm on the blog!).

Discipline is remembering what I want.

One life to live

Once, many years ago, someone told me that belief in reincarnation was a 'cop-out'. To this day, I don't know why he thought it was a cop-out any more than his own belief in being saved and going to heaven was.

But maybe that's because deep down I believe it doesn't matter. I think that whatever you believe happens after this physical existence is done gets swept away by the reality and it's all going to work out.

So back to the 'cop-out' thing. Regardless of your beliefs, the cop-out--the excuse--happens when your belief in what happens next replaces action you take here and now. What if we each acted as if one shot was all we had at getting it right (whatever that happens to be)? If whatever happens after, was dictated only by how much energy we put into creating, loving, living big without hurting others (you know, the other things most religions teach)? If you couldn't pass it off as a lesson you'll work on next time, or something "God will forgive." (Personal note: a bumper sticker I find really annoying is the one that reads "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven." Every time I see it, I think, huh, so whatever you do, that's okay because ....?)

What if, instead, we approached life with this thought: what if this is the best possible set of circumstances, the best possible life, for me to make a difference? And it will never be this perfectly set again, and I'm going to take advantage of that?

Listen

We meditate to become more aware...and one of the things meditation teaches us in the process is how to listen.

Not to the external noises--they're often as distracting as the internal noise. We get caught by them, by the "I need," "you must," "this is what's important" messages from everyone and everything around us. Do this, watch that, buy such and such so your life will be complete.

When we listen--really listen--we hear a completely different set of messages. Sure, sometimes they begin with "you must." The difference between the "you must" of the outside and the "you must" of spirit is something you'll know immediately when you hear it, though. Or maybe you won't, and Spirit will continue gently (at first) knocking until you get around to opening the door. Spirit "you musts" won't let you say no for very long!

But the true messages resonate on a cellular level, and they're a lot easier to hear (and recognize) when we aren't distracted by the rest of them. Meditation, then, allows us to develop an ear for those quiet messages of spirit. We sweep away the clutter of all the other messages, and what's left is a beautiful silence. And then, through the silence, we hear what we were really meant to hear.

Music to my ears

I've been listening a lot to a cd called The Shaman's Heart. The facilitators of the meditation group I work with have played it a couple of times for us to journey with, and I love it. Every time I listen to it, I hear different rhythms--the first time, I was immediately (despite other plans) transported to a waterfall; another time I dove deeper into the journey than I've ever gone before (literally--a hole opened up, then another....). Now, especially when I'm falling asleep to it, I seek out different pieces of it--the sound of the rain, the sound of the heartbeat.

New inspiration

Inspiring to me, at least. Don't know how inspiring it is for anyone else, but I have a new measurement for my health--as I continue to eat right, hit the treadmill, and so forth....I've lost a 7 year old.

That's right, I've lost the same amount of weight as my 7yo goddaughter weighs.

How's that for perspective?

Conscious Sanity defined

Conscious Sanity: living awake, aware, goal-oriented, filling my space and time with people and ideas I care about. The "things" that matter are the things I'm striving to include: health, creativity, independence, love..or to put it more mundanely: living healthy/fit, writing (my branch of creativity), being prosperous and in a great romantic relationship. Friends who matter. Being consciously sane means knowing what I want and moving toward being in that space at all times, as well as knowing what I don't want so I don't drift into that by mistake. It means making time for the important things, and being willing to say "no" to other people's important things when necessary.

That's what I want for you, too.

Well, not the details. Those are up to you. But conscious sanity? Yeah, that I wish for everyone. Imagine a world in which we all walked around saying--to ourselves, at least--'my life rocks.' No regrets, just fulfillment.

Affirmations

Remember the old SNL skit with the guy standing in front of the mirror, daily affirming "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me"?

Yeah, I feel like that sometimes. No, not the sentiment, the silliness of it. Standing in front of a mirror, or a treasure map, mouthing words that I hope will change negative thought into positive action. (Don't ask me why I don't feel silly visualizing.)

And then I remember why it works.

It works because our minds and brains and bodies are wonderfully malleable. If we hear something frequently (or perhaps loudly) enough, we believe it, and belief becomes reality.

I think it also works because it reminds us of what we're aiming for. If I tell myself, and perhaps others, that I've lost 45 pounds, even if I haven't gotten there (yet), it's a frequent reminder that I need to get on the treadmill, eat real food (and not too much of it). Makes giving up pizza easier, too. Not much, but enough.

In the abstract, it's also a cosmic reminder: I am creating the life I desire.

Trust

Part of my path in creating this amazing life I live is ... trust.

Trust that no matter what my plans, the right thing is happening at the right time.

Today I experienced that in a whole different way. It's now almost 9:30 p.m. My plans included a well, list...(we all know how I like lists). Almost none of it happened. Other things happened. So now I'm feeling pressure to cram five hours of work into five minutes of pre-bedtime. Which is silly, of course.

So I have to trust that the things that happened (largely outside my sphere of control--or even influence) are more important to my growth than the things I'd planned.

Maybe that sounds a little controlling--it probably IS. Maybe even a lot controlling. But after years of drifting, discipline is important and part of me is worried that not adhering to my "list" will result in more drift....

I trust not.

In its own perfect time

A reminder: My life is bigger than I can perceive; everything I want is here, now.

Progress

I like lists. I like making them, and I really like checking things off them. I like knowing where I'm going and recognizing it when I've arrived.

School was easy. You studied, you took tests, you wrote papers, you did whatever you did and someone who was smarter than you told you if you did it right. Even if they didn't know the exact information (I had a professor once who gave me an A on a paper for no other reason than that I'd discovered something in my research--and questioned it--that he hadn't been aware of in thirty years of studying the subject).

Life is a little more uncertain. You do what you're doing, and then you check in with yourself to see if you got where you thought you would.

The karma of karma

Like the car alarm that bellows "step away from the car."

Step away from the karma. Basically, karma is consequence. This life, past life, next life, our actions are connected by the energy we put into them.

So why do we (or maybe it's just "I") treat it like it's the guiding principle of our lives?

Why do we insist on paying for past sins a hundred times over instead of atoning and moving on? If my "karma" is to be a victim, because I was an abuser in a past life (as I've seen/heard people say), do I have to continue being a victim? Will I then be an abuser in the next round, to "make up for" whatever happened this time?

Or do I say, with love, this serves no purpose. I release myself from this karma, I release you from this karma. If I must atone for my abuses, I choose to choose a different path--not of victim, but of healer, protector.

Abuser/victim is an "obvious" example, but by no means the only one. I'm also not assuming abuser/victim relationships exist only because someone is working out karma. But I don't think I am irrevocably tied to my past in a way that keeps me from making different choices.

Granted, I'm a little old to become a ballerina, but I can still dance.

First picture, then work

A lot of getting what you want is like following a map. You can do anything you want to highlight your destination--put a circle around it, put a big gold star on it, surround it with pictures of what you think it should look like...but if you never set foot on the path that leads to it, you'll never arrive.

This is easy to figure out when action is required. If you want to be a published author, you're going to have to sit down and write. If you want to be a yogi, you're going to have to do yoga. If you want to be a cordon bleu chef, you'll have to at least learn how to boil water.

We forget, sometimes, that the same could very well apply in other areas. Want a new car? Visualizing is good--visualizing might be essential. Visualizing a new car without going out to car lots on Saturday mornings might get your old car stolen to put you in a place where you must take action to fulfill your desire. Even if the action is small--you want a new car, but the money just isn't there. Any action, no matter how small--a penny in the penny jar every night--is a step toward the outcome. The universe can feed on this step, bringing more resources to you, not limited to what you are physically able to add.

It is traditional to add to visualizations, affirmations, and prayers for things like this--whether emotional blessings, physical wealth, or other changes--an affirmation for a positive process: for the highest good of all, with harm to none, in the right time and place, etc.

But don't forget the power of the penny jar. Little things add up.

Visualizing success

A friend did some work for me last week, because I was getting stuck in my own expectations. "I'm visualizing success and synchronicity," she said. Which was pretty funny, since I hadn't mentioned the word 'synchronicity'--or even the concept--in any of our recent conversations. So I took it as a good sign that she, at least, was visualizing on the right wavelength.

We know what we want (most of the time). We know ourselves, what suits us, what the path we walk ought to look like; no matter how far our present lives are from that path, that setting, we know what it should be.

We make lists. We make treasure maps. We visualize success. It works. Mostly.

I was reading some book or another once, and there was an exercise that asked you to visualize not the physical trappings of success (side note: success is always considered to be "success as defined by you"), but the emotional ones. How do you want to feel? Not in the sense of "imagine how you'll feel driving that expensive car," but "how will driving that expensive car contribute to the feeling you want to be surrounded with."

How do I want to feel, at all times, in my life? I want to feel independent, creative, certain, joyous. I want to feel curious and engaged with the world around me. I want to feel safe, able to handle easily anything life throws my way. Or maybe I want to feel energized, comforted, challenged....everyone has a slightly different list. Then, what surroundings (assuming I want to change my surroundings, whether physical, career-oriented, relationship-oriented, etc) do I visualize as supporting that?

Be willing to work for it

I'm sort of copying the post I just did on my writing blog--is that lazy? Especially in a post about work?

But, as noted yesterday, I'm reading the book Outliers--and not only does timing factor into success, argues Gladwell, so does work.

About 10,000 hours of it, dedicated to What You Want To Do (caps for a reason).

If your WYWTD is write, about 10,000--given a certain degree of talent to begin with--will bring you to the top of your writing game. Meditation? Interesting question, isn't it? Yoga?

Part of Gladwell's point seems to be that once you are good enough, the difference between the bottom and the top is work. Once you get into Harvard, the difference between you and all the other Harvard students is how much you're willing to work for WYWTD. An hour a day? Three hours a day? Eight hours a day?

Stephen King: Talent is cheaper than table salt. The difference between the talented individual and the successful one is a lot of hard work.

Open to inspiration, then be willing to work.

Practical magic

I'm reading the book Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. Last night on TV, my background noise while writing was the movie Practical Magic (one of my all-time favorites).

It may not be all about the timing, but it might be a lot about the timing. When the path you're on, and the place you're heading are lined up, what difference does a traffic light make?

It changes the people you come into contact with. It changes the speed at which you arrive. And if you think thirty seconds can't make a difference, try getting through a traffic light thirty seconds after it's changed...

Timing changes the weather--it can be the difference between a sunny day in the park and taking shelter with a complete stranger under a picnic pavilion during a lightning storm. It can be the difference between getting someplace "on time" or being locked out...and going to do something else for an hour.

It can mean missing your plane...or getting on it just in time to sit next to the one person you most needed to talk to, whether you knew it or not.

It's being available for a free-lance job, or having already agreed to go to Morocco with that cute soccer player.

It's answering the phone, or missing the call.

It's being late for work, or having five minutes to kiss your partner good morning...thus getting your entire day off to a good start.

Opening

There are days when it is easy for us to shut down. Perhaps it's even justifiable. We're tired, we're busy...sometimes, it's all we can do just to take care of us, never mind everyone else.

But what happens if we push just a little bit to make room for something--anything--that isn't just "us." A smile for a stranger--or a friend. A thank you, or congratulations--with meaning!--when it's tempting to wait until tomorrow.

Or bigger--ten minutes (or thirty seconds, I'm not picky) of concentrated effort, visualizing all that is good in our lives, when all we really want to do is collapse into how much it sucks.

'Cause sometimes it sucks. Sometimes it's just easier to lie in bed and not bother. Or to open a bottle, or a box of chocolates. To shut down and numb whatever is going on in your feelings, because sometimes, you're just beat. Sometimes, you just need a break, and that's okay. But sometimes, the break you need is hidden in being willing to open up instead of shutting down.

A-ha moments and where to find them

Anybody who ever made a difference in this world went through a struggle to find their real purpose. Don't dump all over yourself if you are feeling lost and worthless. It's a sign you're looking for your path.


That's from today's Daily Kabbalah e-mail. Those daily "tune-ups" (their word) are nearly always a source of something to think on, and sometimes, like today, they provoke an "a-ha." This one did, coming hard on the heels of a couple of conversations (I hesitate to call them random, all things considered) in which the topic of finding one's purpose came up. Two conversations, yesterday evening, then this quote this morning.
 
Remember that synchronicity/awareness thing? Yeah.
 
But what does it mean? my logical mind interrupts. You aren't feeling lost and worthless.
 
No, I'm not. Both my logical mind and spiritual mind more or less agree. Or at least on the worthless part. I feel lost more often than I like--there's just so damn much to do and heal and complete. And then I realize how often the word "heal" comes up in my internal conversations. A-ha.
 
Or how I feel when having a conversation with someone (anyone) on particular subjects and they get it. A-ha.
 
Or when I wake up with a song in my head, and it's the first thing I hear on the radio. A-ha.
 
Or an experience--meditation last night, for example--that yanks me out of my expectations and drops me into something that is so perfect, it had to come from somewhere beyond me and my physical reality. A-ha.
 

To do today

Today's to-do list contains the usual mundane items: some things I need to do for work, cleaning, working out, steps to do on various writing projects and for a couple of professional associations I belong to.

I like to-do lists. I look at mine frequently, throughout the day. So I've started adding reminders to mine, more amorphous "to-do" items that aren't going to really get crossed off the list. Yesterday, I added "be aware of synchronicity" to mine. It's on there again today, so every time I look at that list, I'm reminded to bring synchronicity to the forefront of my attention. I've added "be aware of beauty," and one I snagged off Danielle LaPorte's blog several months ago--"French kiss life."

What's on your to-do list?

Be aware of synchronicity

I've set myself this task this week: watch for synchronicity. I'm feeling a strong pull toward something magickal, so I'm keeping my eyes open for the right things to happen at the right moments, for the right messages to strike with absolute clarity. For god to jump out from behind a tree with a pot of roses in her hand, telling me to scatter them on the ground as I walk to see where the path leads.

Inspiration

Living an inspired life means realizing someone (or something) bigger than you has a say in how things turn out.

Master plan

Digression: why is it always a 'master' plan, and never a 'mistress' plan?

This week's horoscope from Rob Brezsny tells me this is an excellent time--astrologically speaking--to initiate my "five year master plan." Which seems to be great advice, especially considering that I wrote in my journal (my sporadic journal) a couple of weeks ago a whole host of thoughts on that very topic.

Serendipitous.

I'm not only a fan of Rob Brezny's, I'm a big fan of synchronicity and serendipity.

This blog is part of that whole urge to create a new level of commitment and passion in my life. More synchronicity and serendipity.

I can sum up my 5-year plan in a few words: live better, love better, create better. Live more, love more, create more. Stop drifting. Commit to what feels good. Live consciously. Live sanely.

The beauty of that is, as long as I keep those in my sights, I can't help but meet the goals.

Action words

Love is a verb.

Look for the beauty

See only beauty; feel only love. - James Redfield, The Celestine Prophecy

There's a prayer that goes something like this: beauty before me, beauty behind me, beauty to either side of me, beauty above and beauty below; I walk in beauty.

I think that is less a prayer for the blessing of beauty surrounding us, than it is a recognition of truth. The tricky part is recognizing it.

It's easy to lose sight of the beauty in our daily rush, but even easier to find it when we pause for a moment and look for it. Not just the beauty of natural spaces, although I think that is the first thing that comes to mind for most of us (the color of flowers, a flower growing in an unexpected place, the flight of a hawk, the pair of sandhill cranes feeding next to the road), but we can also find it in the human-created world around us: the art of a pencil, pen or paintbrush; the lines of a well-designed building. We, especially, can find it in the faces around us. In the lines that speak to experience, in the open joy of a child.

Beauty all around.

On the subject of meditation...

"We don't sit in meditation to become good meditators. We sit in meditation so that we'll be more awake in our lives." Pema Chodron-When Things Fall Apart

One of my absolute favorite weekly activities is the 45 minutes or so that I spend in group meditation, with music to help relax and open my mind, with crystal bowls opening my chakras, with candles and group energy/intention. It helps center and ground me in a huge way.

Daily meditation is different--here is where I'm confronted with "monkey mind," jumping from one thought to another, chattering away until I realize it's no wonder we--almost all of us--have difficulty detaching from the everyday. But to me, this is the heart of meditation practice. Facing my own thoughts, whether peaceful and loving, insightful and wise; or fearful, angry, worried, coping (did I remember to....?). Here is where I take the measure of where I am on my path. Some days better than others, says my ego. All days the same--part of the experience, says my wiser self.

There are no 'bad' meditations--it's impossible to fail, whether you're following your breath or following a dirth path into a forest on your way to a multi-world journey.

Shake up the calendar

It's not that a routine is necessarily bad. I can think of several that are downright comforting--say, the daily routine of monks in a monastery.

It's the stagnant energy that needs shaking (or stirring, if you like your energy mixed that way) up--rather like finding a new way to get the waters of a pool moving. Going back to the metaphor I used in my first post--if the spring is clogged, and no energy is getting through, things in the pond begin to die off. Not pretty.

Sometimes shaking up the energy is as simple as changing your daily/weekly routine. The point is that everything you do creates energy, and so if you do it differently--different energy. If you always shop on your way home, go to the gym first, and then shop. You'll interact with different people, have a different set of traffic to deal with.

Not exciting enough? How about this: I usually meditate with a particular group on Saturday evenings at 6. There's a second meditation at 8. The two meditations are different in structure, and they often attract different people (lots of people actually go to both). If I want to shake up the energy in my life in a particularly beautiful way, I'd switch meditation times.

Or instead of reading the paper at home on Sunday, take it with me to the park (it won't be raining yet). Take a walk, then take a break. Go to the gym at a different time (again, different people); shop for groceries in a different store. All mundane activities, all serve to change the flow of energy in your life.

Shake up the energy

That's what I call it: shaking up the energy. When I'm feeling stuck, that things aren't changing, I try to change the point from which I'm viewing my life. No, I don't mean looking for optimism (although if I'm thinking negatively, I try to avoid the subjects I view with negativity and just concentrate on the things I can think positively about until I'm out of the funk).

I mean physically changing my perspective. I started attending a weekly meditation circle a couple of months ago to expand the circle of people I was spending time with and to change the way I was meditating. Added a writers meetup monthly to ensure I was spending more time with writers, but also with writers not writing in my genre. Spend more time with friends.

In a way, I view it as the same as changing an exercise routine--sometimes you need to change what you're doing in order to move forward faster.

Accept responsibility for your life

This is one of the first steps to success, according to Jack Canfield in his book The Success Principles (okay, others have said it, too).

Accept your part in whatever happens--as Canfield points out, if you blame others for what went wrong, you're as much as saying you have no control...and therefore can't change anything.

But...you also need to accept responsibility for greatness. Accept responsibility for fulfilling expectations you create when you write that bestselling novel. Accept responsibility for the care and feeding of other souls besides your own in relationships. Accept responsibility and your own wisdom in making good choices with money, time, food, energy, etc.

A consciously sane life requires that you pull out the depths and heights of your spirit and put it on display--at least to yourself, and probably to others. Don't let it scare you away.

Accept responsibility for being great.

All there is

Imagine that your life now contains everything it is ever going to contain. Now imagine that that's okay.

Tuning out

It is my humble opinion that a contributing factor to the explosion of ADD and autism in this country may very well be the amount of stimuli we (and especially children) are subjected to. We are constantly receiving loud, colorful signals for our brains to process. (I have zero qualifications for making that suggestion--it's just an observation.) We spend most of our waking hours tuning in, and very little time tuning out. From 24/7 television to smart devices, from jumbotrons to DVD players in the car, from hi-def everything to Twitter, we are encouraged and enticed to be continuously on alert and ready to react. Add in 32 ounce colas and supersized coffees, and it's a wonder we don't collapse from the weight of it all.

Meditation, walks in nature (without the MP3 player), yoga, even sitting down with a book are ways of hitting the pause button and letting our minds and spirits shuffle through the clutter and find some order, some peace--maybe that's really tuning in.

Intention: Step back from the drama

It's very easy to get caught up in drama--we commit to other people's crap all the time. We take sides, we form opinions (emotionally) about the news, we respond to freaking commercials...

I'm in awe of people who are cause-driven. The warrior goddess hiding deep inside me pokes her head out quite frequently and encourages me to do things that I really don't need to be doing. (That doesn't mean no one should be doing it, just that I shouldn't.) But large scale or small, we need to--at the least--recognize that drama is a choice. If someone I love is going through crap, I am not REQUIRED to jump into it with him/her.

Manifesting what we want

Be careful what you ask for--you just might get it. (old saying)

Be careful what you ask for--because you are going to get what you ask for. (my version--and the corollary is: the tricky part-because there's always a tricky part-is recognizing it when it shows up).

We ask for things to manifest in our lives, and then complain it doesn't happen. This, I think, is the source of the famous "God answers prayers, and sometimes the answer is no." Because if I remember correctly from Sunday school, the bible verse didn't say "ask and it will be given to you if I think you've asked for the right thing." I'm pretty sure the instruction was "ask and it will be given to you, knock and the door will open."

So why don't we always get what we ask for? Timing, perhaps. Competing desires. Obstacles that we put in the way. Obstacles other people put up for us (that we allow to remain).

A favorite quote (again, can't remember the author, and somewhat butchered here) that I choose to remind myself of today is "the deepest desires of our heart have meaning, or they would not have arisen in the first place."

I will create the life I want, by also creating a way around the obstacles I find.

Intention: Play big

In absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily acts of trivia. (author unknown)

If you aren't playing a big enough game, you'll screw up just to give yourself something to do. (author forgotten)

The Devil makes work for idle hands. (old saying)

Find your voice

No, I'm not advocating getting loud, unless that's what you want. A writer's 'voice' is a way of looking at her/his style. It's the tone the writer brings to everything, what makes her/him stand out.

It's authenticity at its most elegant.

Yesterday, an interview with Dyana Valentine on White Hot Truth closed with this: "Knowing what I know about myself, my values and goals: how dare I hold back?"

Yeah. The key word there is...well, everything. This is expressing your voice: knowing what you know about yourself, your values, and your goals and committing to them. How dare I stand in my own way?

Intention: Breathe

There's a yoga saying I heard someplace: In the beginning, the breath. In the end, the breath. In between, the breath.

Breath is a good place to focus when we're trying to center ourselves, or when we're trying to remind ourselves to be present, to be awake.

Several years ago I discovered that when I'm tense, I hold my breath or I breathe very shallowly. Deep breathing relaxes us, and the act of breathing consciously brings us away from the drama of the day and centers us back in the present focus of our lives.

Breathe.

Intention: Focus

Yesterday at one of the conference sessions, we were listening to a leader from a large local company talk about corporate responsibility, and something he said really resonated with me on a personal level. He laid out the areas his company keeps at the forefront of their mission, and spoke of one of them as being truly central. Everything they do comes back to, is evaluated in the light of, this particular part of their mission. Everything.

I've done personal mission statements before, although it's not one of my favorite activities. How do you boil every part of your life down to one core mission? Perhaps it requires a big enough mission: save the planet, serve Spirit, entertain, heal, share knowledge, inspire creative people. Something like that. Substitute the word "intention" if you like.

And then, no matter what your mission is, bring everything you do back to that. Intention: live a life that is consciously sane. If you know what constitutes 'sanity' for you (or me, since this is my intention)--physical, mental, and emotional well-being, connection to inspiration (connected to Spirit), healing, creative and independent--then you do your best to consciously bring it all back to those points, those core values, asking yourself: am I awake in the world? am I connected? does this serve to make me healthy, happy, feeling the love? does this further one of my mundane goals?

Intention: Let go

In a discussion about personal power recently, a friend used this analogy: you're letting someone else drive the bus. Another friend added: yes, but I want the driver to go where I want to, with my a/c setting, my radio station, a stock of my favorite snacks, and....

Not everything in life is in our control. In fact, I once saw this comment (I think on whitehottruth.com): living an inspired life means giving up control to a power larger than ourselves. It's not only not all within our control, it shouldn't be.

So where do we draw the line? In letting someone/something make decisions for us, where is the line between giving up power and giving up control? Or drifting? It's easy to say it's giving up power when there is another person involved (who's driving your bus?), but don't we sometimes give up power when we claim to be following our inner guidance? (That might be a power grab, actually, but I think that's a topic for another day on the journey.)

There's an old saying: let go and let God. But "God's will" has also served as an excuse.

So how do you distinguish between giving up and letting go?

Intention: Connect

I'm on a borrowed laptop this morning--for whatever reason, my computer won't connect to the network (even though it says it is) here at the conference I'm attending.

Lesson: sometimes we think we're connected, or think we ought to be, and we aren't. On the other hand, sometimes connecting is as easy as changing where we're sitting, or where we're looking, or the channel we're doing it through.

And sometimes we connect effortlessly, despite what we think is standing in our way.

When we connect, when we slow down, focus on something other than our issues/perceived connection challenges, suddenly things start moving. We start communicating in a new way, start seeing the world a little differently.

Connect.

Intention: Allow imperfection

Pot, meet kettle.

Judgment is a blade we wield against ourselves as often as we do other people. We do it instinctively. Who am I to (fill in the blank)? Who are you to (fill in the blank)? You're eating what??????????? (I've been known to apply this one while catching random travel/food shows.)

But you know what? Judgment slows us down. Keeps us from loving, keeps us from living. What was I thinking? I could never (climb a mountain, write a novel, post an inspirational thought)...I need to lose forty pounds, I have nothing to say, I'm not PERFECT.

As though perfect gets anyone anywhere. It's the journey that's interesting, never mind the destination. As much learning and growing and fun to be had in the practicing, in the work, in the loving and living as in the thought of lying on my/your/our deathbed saying "well, I finished my bucket list."

When we allow imperfection, we allow ourselves to take chances, to risk the person we used to be on the person we want to be.