Mark My Word

By January 1, 2009, the present tense of the following statements will no longer be fictional:

• My business is virtual.
  
• I work anywhere I want, anytime I want, for as long or as little as I want.
  
• I work with people that totally know their shit, ALWAYS deliver when they say they will, but above all, are FUN to work with.
  
• We laugh constantly while "working," come up with totally original/completely inspiring/innovative business projects that make us TONS of money -- 24x7, with minimal continual maintenance/upkeep. We do this while simultaneously bringing happiness into the world and watching out for the environment.
  
• We meet once a week, face-to-face, to discuss whatever needs to be discussed, assign specific action items to owners and bullshit/have some fun. Apart from this meeting, we're all free to execute our action items wherever/however/whenever we want as long as they are ALWAYS COMPLETE by the next meeting and delivered with quality that meets/exceeds group expectations. Those expectations are clearly laid out in each meeting so that there is no confusion in execution. When in doubt we reach out to each other as necessary ,to clarify.
  
• We spark the creativity, ingenuity and genius in each other as well as with everyone we work with. We catch fire from each others sparks and ignite the fire in others with our passion and enthusiasm.
  
• We only work for clients/contractors that we like. We are successful, not because we are competitive, but because we are collaborative. The money is never more important than the enjoyment we derive from our projects and working with cool people.
  
• We celebrate every success and learn from every non-success. There's no such thing as a failed project, just one that didn't go quite as expected.
  
• I wake up in the morning and tune-in to my original center. I dress and plan my daily activities as inspired by this inner voice. I feel light-hearted, clear-headed and excited about facing the possibilities of each day.
  
• I express myself freely/openly/honestly/authentically. If this means I make colorful use of the words "fuck" or "shit" more times than there are minutes in the day, then so be it. The people around me view it as a lovable quirk, rather than a lack of business polish.
  
• People fascinate me. The opportunity to meet new people excites me. The thought of all the synergistic combinations possible when you bring together unfamiliar entities, in unexpected/uncontrolled/go-with-the flow ways, fires me up.
  
• I walk around fully awake and in tune with the moment. As a result, the world around me lights up and is a constant feeding ground for energy, beauty, wonder, new ideas and inspiration.

Gratitude for This Dissatisfied Heart

It has been a long while, but I found the following in my inbox, from Paulo Coehlo's Warrior of Light newsletter and felt compelled to post it:

Lord, give us always a dissatisfied heart.
Give us a heart where the questions that we never want to ask can be voiced.
Deliver us from our conformism.
Make us able to enjoy what we have, but let us understand that this is not everything.
Let us appreciate that we are good people.
But above all, make us always ask ourselves how we can become better people.
Because if we ask, then it is quite possible that You will come and show us horizons that we couldn’t see before.

I feel like this sums up the journey I've been on since the beginning of the year. The past few months I have definitely been shown horizons that I could not have imagined before. I'm at such a different place now because I opened myself up to the difficult questions that did not want to be voiced. More importantly, I'm learning to tune in to the unadulterated response from God/the universe/the infinite and am letting go of the need to control the answers.

Further down in the newsletter, he tells the following story:

Strolling along the promenade, I hear a young woman saying to another in a very convincing voice: “I’ve programmed my life in the following way...”

That made me wonder: does she take into account things that happen just when we are not expecting them? Has she considered that maybe God has a different plan, a far more interesting one? Has she thought seriously about the hypothesis that, by including other people in her program, she might be interfering in different ideas and projects?

He could very well have been describing me. That how I was, not a control freak by any means, but I certainly felt the need to "be the master of my own destiny." But I'm learning that, not having all the answers, perhaps I'm not the most qualified to be that master. I've just been driving myself nuts with all the planning over people and circumstances that are beyond my control.

Luckily I believe in a benevolent, loving God/universe/infinite to whom I'm willing to hand over the helm. Thinking back, whenever I've unwittingly done this in the past, the greatest blessings have entered with the least amount of effort: meeting my best friend way back in first grade, meeting and falling in love with my husband, stumbling into my current career, finding my life coach, etc.

I feel very blessed.

Feeling the Current

The alarm clock in my son's room (where I've been sleeping for oh, probably close to 3 years now) has been blinking the incorrect time since a power outage we had about 3 or so weeks ago. I never got around to resetting it until last night before we settled in for our nightly storytime. I don't know why, I just suddenly thought, hmmm, this really should be set.

This morning, I woke with a mild jolt and looked bleary-eyed at the clock which registered 4-something AM in the morning. I remember wondering what might've caused me to set my internal alarm for so darn early on this particular day.

Cosmic aftershocks from the Firing of the Grid? That would be interesting considering I hadn't even heard of it before reading that post. How many other people might've woken at that same time this morning and wondered why...

In and Out of Touch and Back in Again

Have felt out of touch for a while and been out of touch as a result. Wish I could say it was becuase I've been too busy, out there -- living life, grabbing it by the b@lls, swinging it around and back again, creating up an artistic storm of revolutionary expression. But nope. Small tiny, incremental changes and progress, sure: signed up for voice lessons to get over some issues, have been looking into an improv class and am planning to check it out this weekend. But no big bang, no fantastic leaps in evolution. And it even felt for awhile like the universe had gone quiet. Haven't known what to make of it. Had God/the universe/the infinite given up on me, having tired of all the dialogue and lack of action?


Been feeling so anxious to get "there", constantly checking signs --am I closer? how about now?...how much further, Papa Smurf? I let the noise grow in my head until it felt like it had forced out all the insights/growth/perspective i had gained since the beginning of the year, not just mentally/spiritually/emotionally, but physically as well -- slouchy posture, poochy belly, nagging ache in my left shoulder. What the hell?? Frustration and discontent set back in to the point where Glenn was asking me when my next coaching session was going to be -- I needed it that bad :P. Aside from myself, no ones a bigger victim of my funks than he is :).



I keep forgetting this is all a process, a journey, a road with no destination. Gotta stop checking for signs and start enjoying the view -- not just enjoying it, but having an all out, completely uncharacteristic, gut busting, ROFLMBO BLAST! I can't remember the last time I felt like that (sober ;)).



The theme of fun/LIGHTENING THE HELL UP has been popping up in various places. In my last coaching session, we talked about the "inner child" -- for me this was the last version of me that was in touch with my original center. We talked about ways of setting her loose and letting her express herself and have some fun. Talked a little to Glenn about what we could do to make things more fun in our relationship. Then today, I checked on the assignment for the BPS AYTR class (haven't been keeping up with that at all):

Fun is not universal. Do you find that? It's different for everyone. It's
kind of like being happy in that you have to decide to have fun. You've gotta
lighten up. You've gotta want it. You've gotta be in the mind set of having fun.

Observation

They keys at the top of my keyboard are labeled BACK, FORWARD, STOP, REFRESH, SEARCH, HOME…interesting.

Rustling in the Ashes...

Work avoidance via the internet AGAIN – a clear signal that I should head the signs/omens (ala Paulo Coelho) that my current job is probably not what I’m meant to be doing…God/the universe/the infinite supports me in this! Proof: the deadline that should’ve passed last Friday has been extended to the end of this week.

Of late, have been very good about avoiding the signs -- everything pointing me in the direction of my doubts/fears, the unknown, undiscovered Personal Legends. My Other has been hard at work plotting, overthinking, analyzing, weighing the pros and cons, going against all the things I’ve so clearly been advised not to do. What is it about this -- my own inner discovery that makes me rebel so fiercely against what should really be very natural and closer to the very thing I’ve been trying to discover, to FIND – ME, my original center?

It is becoming more and more evident that the author of the blog, Crossroads Dispatch, is TRAILBLAZING the path I am attempting to summon up the courage to traverse. Google Reader showed she had a post yesterday titled, “the Initiation beyond our Wildest dreams” but I wasn’t ready to hear it yesterday. It wasn’t the right time.

This morning, I cracked open The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream at the suggestion of a new blogger I recently stumbled upon, in answer to a question I posed in response to one of his posts. I got to the part in the book where the shepherd just earned back double what he had lost on the first day of pursuing his dream. Got to thinking to myself, “Is the pursuit of your Personal Legend really worth all the effort? The trials/tribulations? Why not just be satisfied with the status quo? Is that not sort of a Zen/Buddhist way to approach it?” I can picture myself feeling alright at the end of a perfectly safe, secure, predictable non-exciting existence. I think I can bring myself to accept that. Better that than all the heartache of pursuing some vague, unknown promise of a Legend fulfilled, right?

Then this afternoon, at work, I see the link to that particular Crossroads Dispatch post sitting in my Google Reader again, but this time, I feel compelled to read it. Excerpts that spoke to me:

At some point, you leap. You say Yes, yes, whatever it takes, yes! Yes, I yearn to be whole. Yes, I want to be my real natural Self. Yes, I want galactic peace. Yes, I desire to live the Grand Love Affair with Life itself. Yes, I will not settle for less than that which is every moment embodiment in movement of truth, beauty, grace, power, love, joy, magic, ease.

[My Other, right this very moment, as I am writing this, is now causing me to question what was so clearly evident not 10 minutes ago.]

So I'm saying if you haven't recognize the wakeup call, and said Yes, this blog will appear to be a sputtering marvel of gibberish. I notice two types of people reading and replying: those that are on the fence, and those that have said Yes (although they might be wishing they can retreat)!
…
“And after that final no there comes a yes And on that yes the future world depends.” - Wallace Stevens So there is a fork in my post today. If you are on the cusp, I will be praying and meditating in a vigil all night. My intent will be focused on readers and every person that has ever ever crossed my path & whom yearn for Yes (yet lean towards "Yes, but...") a little boost of certainty and clarity and courage.

[How did she know?!!]

The work of the mystic is to make human beings aware of this possibility, to stand within the doorway of unity and welcome the collective inside.

[Ah, a mystic she is then!]

Most people do not even know that a consciousness beyond self-oriented individuality exists. They do not see the light that is streaming through, the wholeness that is beckoning them. The patterns of our collective conditioning have created a veil which blocks our awareness of what is being given. If we do not know what is being offered, we will not be able to fully participate in its magic, in its new way of being. We will not step through the doorway. Even many spiritual seekers still think in terms of effort, of trials and tests.

[Effort, trials and tests have definitely been on my mind...]

But there is no longer any key needed to open the door. It cannot now be closed. This change is so simple and fundamental it is easy to overlook. It is not a problem to be solved. There is nothing to be learned, no steps to success. Something is being given freely, with no strings attached. All that is required is for each of us to say "yes."" - Sufi master Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee, Working with Oneness

[Here's where it really starts to hit home...(emphasis added by me)]

If you've said Yes, this applies today: "…We no longer have to choose between our most personal yearnings and fulfilling our true destiny, for they are no longer separate. The two pathways have converged into one clear, strong expressway. The first thing we must do is to focus on what we really want. We need to get totally clear on this, by going into the deepest vaults of our heart of hearts and bringing out our most sacred, intimate personal heart's desires and our most precious dreams. Since many of us haven't dared to look there for a long time, it might be a bit difficult at first to discern what you most want...
…
Express out loud the things you most want. Write them down and put them on an altar. Call for them to come into your life. Call for them throughout the day and night. Express your readiness to receive them. Then live your deepest truth on a core level in every moment...And your Wildest Dreams will start pouring in....And please be careful that you don't push them away when they start coming in. Especially if they require dramatic changes in your established lifestyle, which they probably will. Be ready to welcome change without any resistance and be ready to move anywhere!" - Solara's 2007 Surf Report: Beyond Our Wildest Dreams

So I'm taking the plunge down the rabbit hole. There are no if’s/and’s/but’s. There’s only YES.

What seals the deal is she ends her post with the following image.

A phoenix.
Of course.
The phoenix that has been popping up in my subconscious from the beginning of the year.

Her final p.s.: p.s. We shall all rise from the ashes like the Phoenix. We shall all be Shining Ones.

The Red Pill or the Blue Pill?

knew i should come to work today and avoid the internet -- have a project deadline due friday that i've been putting off all month.

but neverthelsess, was inevitably drawn in, slowly, bit by bit -- first to email some friends back regarding a get-together in june. noticed an email in the inbox regarding new BPS AYTR content posted, relating to LEGACY. how could i resist?

question posed by heidi in her audio: where do you come from? where are you going and who are you becoming? TIMELY.

pondering various manifestations of those very questions since my last post. they've been emerging in my journaling (what do i believe in? what makes me come alive?), in an email invite from my life coach (what do I want my life to look like one year from now?), in blog posts (what goals truly inspire me at the deepest, innate, biologically-responsive levels?)...

in response, have been surrounding myself with goals, plans, to-do lists, action items, timelines -- all very logically and achievably laid out. all that's left is for me to execute. and yet, I DO NOT. instead, i stall/procrastinate/hesitate. WHY?!!

God/the universe/the infinite is messaging me in not-so-subtle ways that i'm focusing on the wrong things -- the SHOULDs and OUGHTs, rather than the burning, driving, compelling WANTs and unquestionable, without-a-doubt MUSTs that i'm still burying beneath an avalanche of all these false, self-imposed obligations.

i'm having the hardest time because i keep trying to figure things out when the universe is quite clearly telling me there's nothing to figure. there's only to feel. to sense. to live. to trust. to follow the instinct/the muse/the whim. from heidi's interview with kobi yamada:

Life is not an obligation but an opportunity. It is not about “have to” but “want to.” I would go farther and say it should be about “can’t wait to.” Basically I am describing a life of choice. We all make choices every day. Even failing to make a choice is a choice. So if you are going to live a life on purpose then it is up to you to proactively design your life. What do you care about? How do you want to be remembered? Who do you look up to? How will you give something beautiful to the world? Ask questions worthy of your attention. Put your goals to paper. Take action. Design a life you love. As you get behind the wheel of your life, it will take you places beyond your wildest expectations.

but i've never been one to blindly follow or leap without looking, without balancing every possible pro against every conceivable con. the answer seems too frighteningly easy. too good to be true. i'm staring the proverbial gift horse in the mouth, examing each and every single one of its perfect pearly whites, fearing all the while that it might take off at an uncatchable gallop before i'm done with my examination, but maybe at the same time, secretly hoping that it will so that i don't have to hop on and take the wild ride leading to who knows where...

The Universe Says "Create a Masterpiece"

First, I read a post from Steve Pavlina's blog, titled "To Thine Own Self Be True," where I'm drawn to the statement, "What creates a masterpiece is the artist. Really it’s the artist who’s the true masterpiece, and the artwork is the physical manifestation of the artist’s inner self. " "Hmmm," I think to myself, "interesting perspective on art and the purpose for its creation. What do I make of that?"

And the universe answers with a link via email to this offer for a free issue of Go Make Art ezine which contains the graphic to the right.

Holding pattern...

I appear to be caught in a holding pattern -- haven't done my morning pages in a long while, haven't blogged in a long while, haven't created anything in a long while. Thankfully, I haven't been feeling overly negative as a result. Just kinda wondering what's going on.

Perhaps the answer lies in my forcing myself to face the following questions that have been randomly(?) popping up in my head, of late:

• What brings me satisfaction?
• What makes me come alive?
• What, if any, products/services do I believe in?
• What am I afraid of?
• Why do I hesitate?

The Rain is Gone

The past couple of days have been making my head spin. I contemplated letting it all settle down/sink-in before writing about it, but I feel like I have to get it down while it’s still fresh in my mind and not watered down by over-analysis and the passage of time.

Posted recently about being confused about what I needed to change. Felt like change was imminent but I didn’t know what direction it was coming from/didn’t know what I should be doing. Came to the conclusion that I was being impatient and not letting the process take its course. So I left it and let it sit for awhile.

Turns out it really is true that you can’t know something before its time because I discovered the thing that I had to change was ME. If someone told me that straight up at the time that I asked it, they would’ve gotten a WTF look in return. The answer seems so broad and all-encompassing, but it’s very clear to me now. And the interesting thing is that nothing has changed externally, but so much seems to be shifting inside.

The shift seems to have started with the usual blog surfing. Again, synchronicity found me at the Creative Everyday blog -- I followed a link from there to a blog called Crossroads Dispatches. (wow, I just now realized the significance of that naming!!) To me, reading that blog is like reading the writing of someone who’s traveled the same path that I’m traveling on but is thousands of miles ahead of me. It’s almost hiking your way along some wild unbeaten path that you thought you discovered, only to see a tell-tale yellow flag signaling that not only has someone come before you, but they’ve been kind enough to leave clues (or clews as she would call them) to help you find your way easier. I wonder now if she named her blog Crossroads Dispatches with this type of symbolism in mind?? Maybe someday I’ll work up the courage to ask.

One of the first posts I came upon that caught me went to an article that said:

“…people nowadays also set great store by being original, but you can’t really be original by taking thought. That sort of originality is a false, is an artificial, originality. It’s not the real thing. You can only be original, you can only produce something original if you are original. That doesn’t mean being eccentric, it means in a way being yourself, it means being in touch with yourself, knowing who and what you are; having or developing insights, vision, having imagination. If you can be yourself in that way well you will be creative in the sense of producing something original, something which partakes of the nature of creativity.”

That quote is so in line with so much of my recent thinking/feeling -- stuff I hadn’t even yet journaled/blogged about because I was still formulating my thoughts in my mind. On top of that I would add that people seem the most unhappy, the further they are from their original selves, the further they are from their "original centers."

A lot of the other posts as I read them were all about letting go of yourself/your expectations and the accompanying worries and disappointments that stem from them. The reason I italicized “as I read them” is because I strongly believe it may not have been the original message she intended, but it is what I got from the post because it is what I needed to get from it.

She’s talking a lot recently about inspiration and about how it CANNOT be forced. She’s totally right. You have to make yourself open to it in whatever way you make yourself open to it. I think it’s different for everyone. That’s probably where a lot of people struggle – they look to others, their parents/friends/mentors/the experts to give them the answers, but only YOU can answer the questions for yourself. It’s certainly where I struggle. But the fact is, only YOU know what the questions are that need to be answered. To look to someone outside of yourself to help you define who you are is like going on one of those crash/fad diets – it may work for a while, but sooner or later you’ll be back where you started.

It’s only through doing the difficult footwork of getting to know and define and FIND for yourself that you get back to where you’re supposed to be – how you find your way back to your “original center.”

The second part of it all is to not just be open to inspiration, but be willing to follow it, and as much as it is within your power, to do so without hesitation, expectations or reservations.

Today, I was sitting at work when an Outlook pop-up appeared reminding me that I had a Toastmaster’s meeting today. I debated whether or not to go, but in the spirit of the go with the flow/follow your whimsy/muse messaging that I seemed to be receiving, I decided what the heck, I’m going. I got to the meeting location only to discover I had arrived 30 mins early. This was during lunch hour, so I didn’t want to waste the time just waiting around. Then I looked across the street and remembered I had been wanting to check out the Redwood City public library for awhile. I walked in and my jaw just literally dropped. It was so much more than I expected. It had a total Borders/Barnes & Noble feel to it – not dark and musty like the public library I remembered from my youth. Instead it was the kind of place you want to sit around, lounge and really just take your time browsing in. I have been putting off doing my artist’s dates because I couldn’t figure out where to go for just an hour that would inspire and recharge me, but it looks like I’ve found my place.

I checked out a couple of books for my son and then headed back to Toastmasters and lo-and-behold, what is the topic for the day? BEAUTY. Beauty in all it’s forms and all the various ways we come across it in our lives. [I’m almost tripping over my jaw at this point.] One of the main speeches given was actually about how the speaker had spent one afternoon following HER whimsy/going-with-the-flow, on a day that could otherwise have been perceived as one disaster following another, and how that had resulted in a very pleasant, memorable day for her.

If you think about it, what did I actually do in this 90 minute time period? I went to the library and attended a Toastmasters meeting. But because of the state of mind that I was in, I got so much more out of it than just a trip to the library and a meeting. For me, that 90 minutes was about reaffirmation of the messaging/synchronicity of late. It was about finding beauty in the simple things, not by forcing myself to find that beauty, but by being totally caught off guard by the beauty of a simple thing and letting myself get swept away by it.

I don’t really understand it all myself. But I don’t think I’m supposed to. In a sense, I think analyzing it too much would take away from the experience and may even be akin to “looking a gift horse in the mouth.” I just want to say thank you, God/the universe/the infinite for a day of simple beauty and the mindset to appreciate it.

Dream Box

Had a really great weekend this past week. On Saturday, participated in Jennifer’s fundraising workshop focused on creating “dream boxes” in support of the non-profit, Cheryl's Dreaming Big. It was really cool. How often do I find myself dedicating an entire morning to figure out my dreams and where I’m going with them? Never. That’s why I love taking workshops/classes. It totally takes you away from the day-to-day grind and gets you to focus on stuff you probably wouldn’t ordinarily get around to doing or thinking about.

As an added bonus, my friend, Anna, went to the workshop with me. I was a little worried at first about how comfortable she would be with sharing some personal stuff with people she didn’t really know that well, but she did great! She totally just went with it and the results were awesome. I loved her box. Collage/decoupage is so cool because even people who’ve never done it before are able to quickly/easily apply themselves and come up with something totally unique and beautiful.

Hadn’t previously met any of the other participants, but everyone was really open and so willing to share of themselves. Dreams are such a personal thing -- it was kind of amazing to witness complete strangers talking to each other about things that sometimes even very good friends don’t discuss. I was amazed at not just a lack of self-consciousness on my part, but also the eagerness I felt to put myself out there…so NOT the me of old, but I felt compelled and so I just went with it. I’m hoping that’s a definite sign that I’m changing.

At the end, Jennifer asked us all to write a little something to each person in the group -- what we see in that person that could help them toward achieving their dreams. These slips of paper went into our dream boxes for us to draw upon when we need encouragement in the course of pursuing our dreams. I thought that was such an awesome way to end the session.

Some stuff that came to me during and after the workshop:

• my dream is not so much the achievement of a specific goal or the occurrence of any particular event, but more the attainment of a state of mind/being
• every person has greatness built in them, just like an entire tree is already built into every acorn, but we have to find it before we can set it free
• other people’s perceptions of you can be so different from your own self-perceptions and they can be even more empowering than your own.

The boys slept at my mom’s yesterday. Got so much done! Got the laundry out of the way, straightened the house, decorated my journal for Italy that Claudine so thoughtfully sent to the workshop participants to kick things off. 5 more weeks! I’m so excited and feel so blessed to have this opportunity to just go and play and explore. Can’t wait.

Live the Questions

Haven’t journaled in a while – I’ve had trouble getting over that funk I wrote about in my last entry. Through the beauty of journaling, I can see that I’ve managed to spend the better part of a month in this funk! Time waits for no one.

I had been going to my usual places for inspiration/synchronous messaging – the Artist’s Way (but the chapters for the past 2 weeks have not been so inspiring for me), my favorite blogs: Ali, Wish Jar, Danny Gregory’s…nothing, nada, zip.

Last night on the way home from work, I was thinking about writing (maybe a poem) about how I was feeling like I was standing at the edge of a high precipice, so close to the edge that I could feel the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet tingling. I’m afraid of heights and I hate that tingly feeling, so I would never, under normal circumstances, stand that close to any ledge. But looking down, through the swirls of gray clouds/smoke that I imagine would swirl around beneath that sort of ledge, I see some kind of fire or light, some indication of a promise of something INCREDIBLE, waiting for me at the bottom, if I just take that enormous leap of faith.

Then this morning, I got an email notification that someone had left a comment on my blog – it was from the artist that I had written about in my last post, Leah Piken (so nice, thank you, Leah!). I went to visit her Creative Every Day blog and what do I see, but a post about “letting go of the monkey bar” with a link to another blog that I follow, 37days. There, I discover that the thing I had thought about writing last night, has already been written, perfectly (by Danaan Parry) in the “Fear of Transformation” [emphasis added by me]:

“Most of the time, I spend my life hanging on for dear life to my trapeze-bar-of-the-moment…But every once in a while as I'm merrily (or even not-so-merrily) swinging along, I look out ahead of me into the distance and what do I see? I see another trapeze bar swinging toward me. It's empty and I know, in that place in me that knows, that this new trapeze bar has my name on it. It is my next step, my growth, my aliveness coming to get me. In my heart of hearts I know that, for me to grow, I must release my grip on this present, well-known bar and move to the new one.

It's called ‘transition.’ I have come to believe that this transition is the only place that real change occurs. I mean real change, not the pseudo-change that only lasts until the next time my old buttons get punched.

I have noticed that, in our culture, this transition zone is looked upon as a ‘no-thing,’ a noplace between places. Sure, the old trapeze bar was real, and that new one coming towards me, I hope that's real, too. But the void in between? Is that just a scary, confusing, disorienting nowhere that must be gotten through as fast and as unconsciously as possible?

NO! What a wasted opportunity that would be. I have a sneaking suspicion that the transition zone is the only real thing and the bars are illusions we dream up to avoid the void where the real change, the real growth, occurs for us. Whether or not my hunch is true, it remains that the transition zones in our lives are incredibly rich places. They should be honored, even savored. Yes, with all the pain and fear and feelings of being out of control that can (but not necessarily) accompany transitions, they are still the most alive, most growth-filled, passionate, expansive moments in our lives."

I think that’s what my problem has been: I’ve been holding on to my monkey bar and avoiding the void of change and then getting frustrated that nothing is changing. As is quite evident from my goal’s graph, I’m struggling to keep up with new habits and break the old, bad ones (they’re not even major changes!)

The epiphanies/realizations/self-discoveries are great, but nothing changes until I change. And the thing I need to change is my avoidance. I also need to learn to be more patient. I keep forgetting this above all. "Rome wasn’t built in a day", etc.

I found this quote on the Crafty Girl blog (yes, I’m a total blog junkie) and it’s also so perfectly fitting:

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart

and try to love the questions themselves.

Do not now seek the answers,

which cannot be given you

because you would not be able to live them.

And the point is to live everything.

Live the questions."

-Rainer Maria Rilke

OMG, that was totally written for me…I’ve gotta post it somewhere where I can be reminded of it constantly.

Bitter and salty

8:15am:
Woke up this morning in such a bitchy mood (started yesterday). My morning pages were all filled with bitter and salty words, too :P…I don’t know what it is. I feel like I’m falling back to where I was before I started all this self-discovery.

Then this morning, while reading the transcripts from Heidi’s audio today, in her AYTR class, I got this: “…don't worry about where we're going. We're going good places. You just focus on the moment. Focus on making sure you are having a YTR [year to remember]. Now that may not mean that every day is a day you want to remember. You can have good days and you can have bad days. But evaluate that. Evaluate what's good and what's bad. If you're not happy and it's not going good, then make a change.”

Thanks again for the timely messaging, God/the Universe/the Infinite! But could I also possibly ask for some assistance with determining what exactly to change? I’m struggling a little with that part. I’ve come to all these grand realizations/conclusions, but I’m not sure how to translate it all into any tangible change.

6:15pm update:
Response from God/the Universe/the Infinite via the Creative Everyday blog . In it, the author is talking about a piece of art she just finished [check out the art -- it’s really nice]:

“This is the piece I mentioned last week. I needed to end it and so I finished it up today and here it is. The idea for it came quite randomly. I had started to doodle and sketch in a sketchbook, just swirling lines. And then a figure appeared and her long hair made me think of Rapunzel. I think she may have popped into my head because my hair has gotten so long. So, I was drawing her and the window she would gaze out of, but I didn't put her rescuer in the scene. Then it occurred to me that I didn't want her to have a rescuer, I wanted to re-write this tale, so that she would rescue herself. It also became a play on the idea of looking outside yourself (out the window, waiting for your hero) for the answers, when they reside within you. So, yes, there is this beautiful landscape outside her window, but within her there is an equally beautiful landscape from which to draw upon, and it's right there for her whenever she needs it. There's nothing to search for, there's nothing to wait for. The answers lie within.”

Thoughts that pop into my head as I’m reading the above: interesting that she finishes this art and posts about it today; I don’t even know who this woman is, I followed the links from some other blog, bookmarked her and have been randomly checking back ever since; “Rapunzel” was part of my nickname in college because I had long straight hair that almost touched my knees…what, if anything, do I make of this?

Here's to the Crazy Ones

This is the most awesome quote:

Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The trouble-makers.
The round heads in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.

They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo.
You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them.
But the only thing you can't do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They push the human race forward.
And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

-Jack Kerouac

Need inspiration? Check out this awesome quote finder I first discovered from issue 12 of Ali Edwards' aezine. She is good.

Awakening

From The Book of Awakening which I searched for on Amazon after reading a post from a new blog I’ve just added to my list of favorites – Creative Everyday (http://www.creativeeveryday.com/). I was compelled to follow the link to the book because I had just the other night finished the bottom half of my calendar for the BPS class and here’s what it looked like:

See that word there in week 4? Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not.

As I perused the pages using the Search this Book feature (which I absolutely LOVE), I received another message. This is from the January 3 passage, titled “Unlearning Back to God”:

“Each person is born with an unencumbered spot – free of expectation and regret, free of ambition and embarrassment, free of fear and worry – an umbilical spot of grace where we were each first touched by God…To know this spot of Inwardness is to know who we are, not by surface markers of identity, not by where we work or what we wear or how we like to be addressed, but by feeling our place in relation to the Infinite and by inhabiting it.”

When I first read it, I read the last sentence like this: "To know this spot of Inwardness is to know who we are, not by surface makers of identity…."

It wasn’t until I was retyping the quote for this entry that I realized I had misread it. Isn’t that weird? Maybe that’s how God/the universe/the Infinite communicates? In small whispers that are there one moment and gone the next, easily missed if you are not in the proper state of mind to receive the messages…

That first reading really struck a chord with me. It seemed to resound strongly of the messages in my recent journal entries, encouraging me to yes, get off my butt and find myself – the self that I was when I was born, when I was closest to God, before I fell under the influence of all the “surface makers of identity” like the media, the pressures of society, parental expectations, my own insecurities which stemmed from not knowing who I was. What did I like before I was told what to like? What did I want to do before I was told what I should do? Who was I before I was told who I should want to be by the bombardment of ads, commercials, teen magazines, high school peers, books, all the external, surface influences I subjected myself to?

The passage goes on to read:

“…the nature of becoming is a constant filming over of where we begin, while the nature of being is a constant erosion of what is not essential.…When the film is worn through, we have moments of enlightenment, moments of wholeness…moments of clear living when inner meets outer, moments of full integrity of being, moments of complete Oneness. And whether the film is a veil of culture, of memory, of mental or religious training, of trauma or sophistication, the removal of that film and the restoration of that timeless spot of grace is the goal of all therapy and education….this is the only thing worth teaching: how to uncover that original center and how to live there once it is restored. We call the filming over a deadening of the heart, and the process of return, whether brought about through suffering or love, is how we unlearn our way back to God.”

I like that – “the nature of becoming.” Is that what I’m going through? The process of becoming…[sounds so dramatic (and I’m so not dramatic)]. I started off the year with my stated goal being to learn to do what I love and love what I do, but maybe in order to do that, I need to first find my “original center” and ground myself there. perhaps that's the key to being happy -- finding your way back to that spot and living from there.

You know how they say God made man in his image? Maybe that's why we're all so different -- because God is so complex -- we all reflect different aspects of him, and when we try too hard to be something we're not -- to be like someone else, or worse, everyone else -- we drift away from the part of us that is most like God, most like the person he want us to be.

I think I need to get this book…

Justice

According to Which Tarot Card Are You?:

You are the Justice card.

Justice preserves the harmony of the world. Working with opposite forces, Justice does not seek to criticize or condemn but rather to accept.

The idea behind the card justice is that opposite forces are complementary; you could not have good without evil or light without darkness. Justice's position is to make sure that if a thing is out of balance, the weight of its energy is realigned with its opposite force.

This card is also a card of humour, for it is in pointing out contrary positions that humour is often found. The attitude that is found in the humourous person, being able to shift perspective and flow with an instinct, is important in the maintenance of good balance.

I like that. And even if I'm not quite there yet, I'll definitely continue to strive to be.

Message from the Hopi Nation

There’s an awesome quote titled “A Hopi Elder Speaks” that (for now) can also be found in the left nav of Ali’s blog. Glimpsed it a few times over the past week, but just today took the time to read it because she mentioned it in the body of her post. Again with the timing of messages being exactly appropriate for when I need to hear them! I’m just shaking my head in grateful belief.

The statements that resound most strongly for me from the quote are:

• "...this is the Hour"
• "What are you doing? Are you in right relation? Where is your water? Know your garden. It is time to speak your Truth. Create your community. And do not look outside yourself for the leader."
• "There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are torn apart and will suffer greatly."
• "Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above water."
• "...we are to take nothing personally, Least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt."
• "The time for the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves!"
• "All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration."
• "We are the ones we've been waiting for."

When I cut out and paste together the stuff that means the most to me (particularly the statements I bolded above), it almost becomes a whole different quote, one that feels tailored-made to fit the situation that I am finding myself in now. The same exact words take on a whole new meaning and power. That’s so cool and amazing to me.

Today’s epiphany

I’ve been carrying into my current job a lot of emotional baggage that I picked up along the way from previous jobs -- previous jobs that made me feel totally taken advantage of and imposed upon.. It’s analogous to starting a new relationship with emotional baggage -- kind of like mistreating my current boyfriend, acting out in delayed reaction to hurts inflicted by previous boyfriends. This job is actually being really good to me – giving me opportunities to explore, grow, supportive environment, etc. Time for me to treat it well in return and stop taking advantage of it and resenting it for something it didn’t do.

Messages

Keri Smith referenced this link in her blog posting today: http://www.adbusters.org/media/flash/slow_down_week/. That's totally me and my life. God/"the 'verse" (any other Serenity/Firefly fans out there? ;P) totally do communicate in mysterious/interesting ways.

Rantings...

In the shower as I was getting ready for the Partner Fair on Sunday morning, I started thinking about how fortunate/blessed I was feeling that I was discovering all this stuff about myself now, during the course of the Artist’s Way exercises and my BPS class, but how much cooler it would’ve been if I had started this self discovery at a younger age, perhaps even before college. Wouldn’t it be cool if there was some sort of a program for teens that guided them through all the angst we tend to go through as we’re struggling to define ourselves? [I think the idea was also partially influenced by reading Kerri Smith’s “Letting Yourself Soar” lecture.] We have all these courses in high school that teach about Math, History, Science, etc. but nothing really that helps us with the considerable work of defining or getting to know ourselves. At least when I was in school there wasn’t, if they DO teach this kind of thing nowadays, somebody let me know.

I started thinking about how maybe people are unhappy because they don’t know themselves well enough to know what will make them happy. The kind of stuff we learn in school doesn’t prepare us for dealing with the real world and all the emotional/psychological turmoil that goes into trying to figure out who you are and what kind of life you want to live. John Taylor Gatto wrote a book a while back, called The Underground History of American Education: An Intimate Investigation into the Problem of Modern Schooling where they talked about how today’s school system had originally been set up by the government and big business to mass produce workers with enough basic knowledge to work in their factories (a good summary can be found at http://www.thememoryhole.org/edu/school-mission.htm). These schools weren’t set up to give people the tools to figure out how to define themselves as human beings, how to figure out what would bring the most happiness/fulfillment into their lives, to determine what their rules/values were and how to stick by those rules/values once defined. But that’s the true stuff that we need to be prepared to deal with as we move into adulthood. For many of us, coming out of school, we aren’t armed with the tools or the wherewithal to answer these questions for ourselves. Instead, all we have are images of what the media tells us the answers are – buy this car and everyone will think you’re successful, wear this label and you’ll be cool, be this pant/dress size and everyone will admire you and you’ll be happy.

Instead of taking a good hard look at ourselves and determining our own value systems, we pick whoever seems to look happy and try to pattern ourselves after them. The problem is that we’re DIFFERENT. Every single person is different from everyone else. Instead of taking the time to figure out ourselves for ourselves, we let other people and other external forces like the media, influence or tell us what we should be. Then we let ourselves be judged by other people because we haven’t defined ourselves using our own definitions, so we don’t know if we are being ourselves correctly!

We have to flounder around picking out a major on the basis of who knows what, getting the grades, getting a “good job,” getting a stable career, meeting the perfect partner, spawning the perfect kids. But how do we know that this will make us happy? Humans are all so different from one another…how can there be one commonly conceived path to happiness/fulfillment? Why does everyone buy into that same dream?

Wouldn’t it have been cool if we had had classes to help out with things like defining our own commandments, assessing our own self images and determining for ourselves what is/is not attractive about our own bodies, listing out our values and beliefs and the reasoning behind those things so that when the time comes to defend or stand up for those things we know why we’re doing it to the deepest core of our beings. It would’ve been cool if we had been encouraged to explore our individuality as opposed to having been forced to conform to a common mold. Why do we all have to excel at Math AND Science AND Reading AND History AND whatever else to be considered good students? Why can’t we define our own subjects, determine our own curriculums based on our interests? Why can’t we pick our own teachers for that matter? People whom we admire and respect without having to be told we should. Sort of like the apprentice/master craftsman relationships of the Middle Ages, but more collaborative and less cheap, slave-labor-ish.

What would the world be like if we celebrated our differences instead of fighting over them and trying to get everyone to see things the way we see them? What is it about us that makes us want to convince everyone that we’re right? How can there be ONE single truth when we come from so many different perspectives and backgrounds and economic situations?

Why aren’t we encouraging/making mandatory the regular practice of self-reflection and contemplation? And giving ourselves the tools not just to question, but to FIND the answers we come up with?

It seems like such an enormous undertaking, but it’s necessary and worthwhile. All the cliché’s about journeys beginning with a single step, the Daffodil Principle, etc. are totally true. You can’t get anywhere new by just standing in the same place. You’ve got to take the first step and then have the courage to take the 1000 incremental next steps afterward, one step at a time. We've got nothing to lose except our fear/self-doubt and our true selves to gain.

Hitting the wall...and bouncing back

Got up this morning and, despite having stayed up late AGAIN tweaking the blog, was able to fight back the urge to go back to bed and instead ran up to grab my morning pages journal. Did all 3 pages despite all the excuses my sleepy brain came up with. Good to be back on that horse again. [Score: creative awakening (CA) – 1, self-sabotage (SS) – 0]

But afterwards, while feeding Ryland his cereal and playing swords with Logan, I noticed I felt a little deflated – the same kind of feeling I used to get after “Rec” [short for “Recollections in Christianity” – these weekend retreats I used to go to when I was in my late teens]. Everybody would come out of those weekends on a spiritual high, feeling close to God and optimistic and glow-y about the world, but always, after the singing in my head died down, and I was back in my own room, back to the normal routine, the high would go away and I would kind of hit a wall and get that “ok, what now?” kind of feeling.

Inevitably (not being proactive enough back then to go out and try to FIND the answer to that question – actually, I don’t think I even had the self-awareness at the time to recognize the question) the further and further away I got from the event, the further and further I would slip back into my old ways, until I was back to the same old self I was before.

That’s how I am in general, actually. I get all fired up and gung-ho about things when I’m starting them out, and then some unidentifiable thing happens, and I just suddenly lose interest – it happened with photography, make-up artistry and countless other artistic pursuits. While I was pregnant with Ryland, I completely lost interest in scrapbooking even! (but not in the purchasing of supplies, of course :P)

When I felt that same feeling this morning, I got a little panicky -- was worried that this might be signaling the end of my creative awakening (already?! what a short trip!). I tried to think of something creative I wanted to work on for the day and I couldn’t think of anything. I picked up one of the books I have that usually gets me all fired up, but it didn’t do anything for me this morning. I didn’t even want to start on this evening’s entry for the blog. Then I thought, “Awe, nuts, it’s happening again. I got myself all worked up over these self-discoveries and realizations over the past few weeks and now, it’s starting to fizzle…I’m going to end up my same old self, and fail my goal for the year, before I even reach the end of January!” [Score: CA – 1, SS – 1. Tied game]

Thankfully, I stopped myself mid-freak-out. Something made me recall the thing in The Artist’s Way about time-outs and the importance of “refilling the well” -- especially after a string of creative undertakings. Maybe that’s what this deflated feeling was? A sign that I’ve overdrawn my shallow well with all the energy and excitement I’ve thrown into my BPS assignment, the stuff I’m doing with my morning pages and The Artist’s Way at Work and my blog and the wireframes I’ve been working on for the Sales Kick-off this weekend. I took a deep breath and a good hard look at my kids and thought, “f*ck it, I’m just not going to think about it” and I played swords with my kids instead and chased them around the house. Then we spent the rest of the day at my cousin’s house in Sac, celebrating his fiancée’s completion of grad school. Spent time with my family, saw some friends I hadn’t seen in ages, had a beer, a glass of champagne, and 3 desserts later, and whaddya know? I found I made it through the funk J. Maybe time-outs really could be the answer? Even if they’re not, I’m going to pretend they are. For me. For now. [Final score: CA – 2, SA – 1. CA wins!! (this round) :P]

Hard to believe someone could go through all that mind-grappling in one day, isn’t it? But um yeah, it’s possible and um yeah, I do :P.

-- AGR

On a side note, had some trouble with this journal entry, since this is the first one after making my blog public. Felt self-conscious all throughout, like someone was reading RIGHT over my shoulder. Found myself using slightly more formalized language and had to go back several times to re-write. Just curious, does anyone else feel that way when they blog? Or are you all able to tune that out and still write with the same voice?

The Process

Woke up late AGAIN this morning and once more, missed getting to my morning pages…how many days is that in a row now? 3, I think, but could be 4. I’m disappointing myself. But I am happy with the outcome of this week’s assignment from the BPS class (for more context view this post). That was the cause of my late rising – I was up until 2 in the morning working on our first layout assignment.

I’m really happy with the end result. It’s our first layout assignment of the year, but already I’ve learned so much and most of it, not even directly scrapping related. Here's what I came to realize during the process:

• You won’t necessarily like all the assignments you receive. But you can look deeper, and try to find or define something for yourself within that assignment that you can better relate to, while still accomplishing the task at hand. Whatever you don’t like can be spun until you DO like it, love it even. This is totally within your power and control.
• You don’t have to rely entirely/solely on external inspiration. It may be more meaningful to use that external source as a springboard to inspire yourself.
• You can start a project with lots of independent elements that not necessarily drive you wild at first, but by applying creativity, you can bring those elements together into a more appealing/meaningful whole.
• You don’t have to have a clear picture of the end product before you begin, in order to produce something good. The point is to just begin, be decisive and stick by your intuition no matter how unsure you are of where it’s leading you.
• The minor screw ups (e.g., smudged my stamping, handwriting was not as good as it could’ve been, accidentally cropped off the bottom half of the magnifying glass) don’t matter and are barely noticeable in the larger scheme of things.
• It doesn’t matter if no one else sees what you see when they look at what you’ve done [that’s actually not possible since no one will come at it from the exact same context]. But as long as it’s got meaning for YOU and you’re happy with the end result, it’s got meaning and it’s a good thing.

Yep, this layout really calls/speaks to me. I propped it up so I could see it while I straightened out my office upon completing it. I stared at it while I brushed my teeth before going to bed last night. I carried in to work with me because I wanted to journal all this and have it on hand to jar my memory. And it’s not because the layout itself is particularly appealing visually, or by any means what I would consider the greatest thing I’ve ever made, but because I learned so much during the process of creating it, and therefore it carries so much more MEANING for me. Glenn (my dh) even noted that I seemed to LIVE THE MOMENTS OF THE PROCESS with this layout more than any other. [That man is way more intuitive and a much deeper thinker than I give him credit for! I’m blessed, truly :).]

Nothing else I’ve made to date has made it out of my home office/studio. This is the first thing that I’ve connected with so much that I wanted to have it with me after it was done. With everything else, I was so focused on finishing the project that after it was done, that was it, it was just done, and I would prop it somewhere on a shelf or shove it in my mostly empty scrapbooks. With this project, I’ve finally gotten myself to experience the meaning of the phrase “it is the journey that matters, in the end.”

For anyone interested in the full details:

To be honest, I wasn’t jazzed about the assignment originally because it didn’t really get my juices flowing or anything. And as much as I love Heidi’s work (and her products!), not even her layout inspired me at first. So I decided to take a deeper dive into the transcript of Heidi’s audio for the week. In it, she explained in a little more detail the reasoning behind each of the challenge elements.

This deeper interpretation resounded more strongly with me. I thought about it in detail on the ride home. Glenn even helped me to brainstorm a mind map to represent a clean slate or starting new. He came up with some really cool stuff! I ended up copying parts of the mind map into the layout because it hit home so strongly for me.

When I got home, I picked out a patterned paper that had been in my stash for the longest time because I couldn’t figure out how to use it – it was a photo-real background of a bunch of magnifying glasses. The magnifying glasses seemed appropriate since I expect to do a lot of close introspection. I practiced writing out the quote I was going to use for my goal and then ended up writing it in the middle of all of the magnifying lenses. Then I cut out the one that seemed to work the best and stuck it to the background paper. I built the target around the magnifying lens since it was already circular and had my goal written in the middle. It also worked out nicely as a way to place may goal in the center of the bullseye.

For the light background I used another lighter patterned paper that used those old-school, computer punch cards as a pattern in the background. It was a little too dark for me to write over, so I sanded it and distressed it a little. Symbolically, I felt that was very representative of my quest to minimize the parts of work that don’t totally psyche me and turn them into things that better fit my needs. On the sanded areas, I ended up copying the mind maps Glenn and I created. So, I feel like I really accomplished making the background mine.

Before I copied the mind maps on the page, I pasted down my pictures and embellished them with my reasons and some other stuff I found in my stash. I wasn’t totally crazy about these pictures when I started and wasn’t sure about where I had placed them initially, but I went with it and now I’m really happy with the way they turned out on the page.

For daily motivation, I wrote my favorite quote around the edges of the page. It’s a quote by Marianne Williamson that begins “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure…” It’s one that really hits home with me and sets my mind in the right mode when I read it.

My purpose in capturing this detailed account of my thought process is not to share my method necessarily (because at this point, who am i?), but to share how I came to the realizations I did from this exercise, that are directly applicable to my goal and taking me closer to achieving it. When my enthusiasm starts to wane (as I suspect it inevitably will), and the layout starts to appear so common that it begins to lose its meaning/power for me, I'll have this post to remind me of the process and all that I learned from it.

--AGR

Slacking...

Hmm, guess I’ve been sorta busy this week…or maybe it’s just I’ve been more lax with myself and undisciplined with regard to morning pages and journaling. Missed a couple of morning pages this week (including this morning) because, well last night, I stayed up a little later than usual to work on finishing a project I had started sometime last year. It’s an envelope tag book that I had decorated with MM Couture patterned papers (love those papers!!). But it never felt quite finished because I couldn’t think of what to use it for, so I didn’t want to add too much detail, so I left it until I could come up with something…then this week, I got a newsletter from Jennifer Lee (the life coach that Glenn hired for me for my birthday in 2005) where she was featuring some items that she makes called “wish boxes” and “blessings boxes” and I thought, wow, that would be a great use for that tag book! The “wish box” theme fit the dreamy kind of symbolic, unstructured look that the book ended up with and then I came up with a title for the cover that I think is totally fitting for both my personal tastes and the book's purpose: Wishful Thinking. I’m thinking I’ll jot down notes on all the hair-brained ideas I come up on the drive to/from home (e.g., this morning I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to have a site where you post YOUR dream job? It would be like Monster but instead of employers posting job descriptions for their perfect candidates, it would be people posting descriptions of their dream jobs [I’m talking the really out there type dream job like “adventure travel food critic” or something like that]) and keep them in there, along with the additional stuff that might come out of some exercises I’m considering doing from the The Artist’s Way at Work book. I need to start dreaming on a grander scale and capturing that stuff somewhere…Anyways, I love it and I’m really happy and quite proud of the finished product.

I have another project that I also started last year at the same time as the tag book – a cigar box that I also left unfinished because I couldn’t think of a use for it. I think that would be a perfect fit for the “blessings box” concept – a place where I can put little scraps of paper every night that name what I’m most thankful for that day. If I had that blessings box today, tonight’s slip of paper would read “Ali Edwards.” I read her blog all the time and subscribe to her newsletter. At the beginning of the year, her newsletter included a challenge for picking a single word “to focus on, meditate on, and reflect upon as [you] go about [your] daily life.” I thought it was an interesting challenge, but I thought it would be too much to do on top of trying to find a goal for Heidi’s Year to Remember class. So, I filed that idea away in the back of my mind, hoping I would remember to do it for 2008.

But, as it turns out, as I pondered what to do for Heidi’s class, I found myself constantly thinking back to Ali’s challenge. Soon after I wrote my entry for 01/04 (or was it that same day even?), the word “find” seemed to creep in and lodge itself in with my goal. I still didn’t commit to using it for Ali’s challenge though, because I didn’t think it was cool enough or that it fit exactly what I needed…but the longer it sat, the better it seemed to fit. Still I hesitated…Then today, got another AEzine (Ali’s newsletter) and she sent a link to a site where you could do a search for quotes based on a keyword (http://www.inspirationpeak.com/). I tried it using the word “find” and it came up with 55 responses, almost all of which seemed to hit home and tie back to my goal as I read them. How could I not choose it after that? The universe is speaking (loudly) and I’m going to heed the message. Is that amazing or what??

Other things I did manage to finish include tweaking (in Photoshop) of some pictures Glenn and I took of me working last week – a prereq for this week’s Year to Remember assignment. I also did some additional tweaking on some pics I want to post on the Photoblog site (yesterday’s blessings slips would have read “Photoshop” and “Rhonna Farrer’s frames”). What I didn’t finish: any of the work I needed to finish from last week. I’ve still got all that HR stuff to migrate and the Sales Systems Vision wireframes to complete along with some additional tasks I picked up during the week. I SERIOUSLY have to get off my ass and get shit done, but I’m still feeling blocked and uninspired. I haven’t gotten to the part yet, in “Artist’s Way” where they talk about harnessing your creativity on demand…I don’t even know if there is such a part in the book, but I’m hoping so and I’m hoping it’s coming in the next chapter or so :P.

-- AGR

Family Appreciation

Today was a really great day. We started off by waking early to get to church for the 8am mass. We got there a bit late, but the kids were fairly well behaved – we only got a couple of grouchy stares through the whole service :P.

Afterwards, it was Family Appreciation Day in San Francisco. Mayor Gavin Newsome’s office sponsors the event all over the City, where basically families that are able to show proof of address for San Francisco are admitted free to all sorts of attractions all over the City. Lucky for us, Rose and Rene were free today and also happen to be residents. We met up at the Exploratorium and they got us the green bands that served as the free passes all over the City.

I love taking the kids to the Exploratorium…the looks on their faces as you let them run around and explore to their hearts content. None of the usual “don’t go there!” or “don’t touch that!” – it’s just the opposite and you see grown ups all over the place pointing stuff out to their kids just to see that look on their little faces that they get when they see something for the first time…that look of amazement that is just completely priceless.

We let the kids run around for a couple of hours (got some great shots of the action too :)!), then we took a nice long walk to Chestnut Street to have lunch at Amici’s. I love going out with Rose and Rene and their kids – their girls are almost exactly the same age as our boys, so it’s really cool that we’re pretty much going through the same things and can understand the amount of time it takes to get through a meal with kids or the number of stops you have to make to go to the bathroom or to feed or change diapers. It’s kind of hard when we take the kids with us when we’re out with people who don’t have kids – it can be kind of frustrating on both ends for the single people and us :P.

After lunch, we decided to head to the Bay Aquarium since that was an ordinarily pricey attraction and it seemed like a good deal to get in for free. The kids loved that too! It’s almost like scuba diving. In fact, Rene said it’s exactly like scuba diving except without the pressure :P. So much fun to see the sharks and fish through the kids eyes.

Right after the Aquarium, we headed to the Hard Rock Café to get our parking tickets validated. I consumed way to many calories with the Chocolate Peanut Butter Crunch dessert that I ordered, and we spent way more than the validation was worth with everything else we ordered :P, but it was a nice way to end the evening. Logi fell asleep right at the table while he was still chewing on his hamburger! That’s how exhausted he was from all the fun we subjected him to throughout the day J. Rose and Rene had to leave around 6 for Rose’s mom’s birthday celebration, so we wrapped it up and then Glenn and I took the kids (Logi sleeping in his stroller) for a walk around the Pier before heading back to the car.

Towards the end of the Pier, there was a merry-go-round and Ryland started making all these excited noises and bouncing up and down in his stroller (I love when he does that – it’s so cute!), so Glenn took him for a ride. He just kept looking up at all the decorations at the top of the merry-go-round – again with that awesome look of amazement! I wish I could capture that look on film, but I never seem to get the right shot. It’s indescribable (for me anyway).

On the way home, at one point, both boys were each holding one of my hands. Then, Ryland started kissing my hand like I’ve done to his on a number of occasions. I loved it and it’s a moment that I truly want to remember forever.

Now we’re at home and I’ve just finished straightening up the mess we left downstairs yesterday. Before I headed down to straighten up, I got to hold each little guy in my lap and just breathe in their little baby head smells and feel the contentment of the day. Glenn and the boys are up in our bedroom now. I’m going to join them for a little more family fun before we turn in for the evening.

Synchronicity

Slept though the alarm this morning. Well, actually, I guess that’s not 100% true. I heard and I did wake up, just long enough to turn it off and go back to sleep :P. Stayed up way too late last night reading The Artist’s Way at Work – just couldn’t get myself to put it down. It was one of those times when I felt like God or the universe was messaging me directly through the words on the page. Everything just seemed to be hitting home and melding perfectly with the goal I decided on last night on the drive home. It’s really making me a believer in the whole synchronicity concept.

I started reading when we got back to our house with the boys while Logan watched TV. The Artist’s Way at Work is a book I actually purchased before Logan was born, while Glenn and I were both still working in the City. I bought it at a discount bookstore on a whim. When I tried to read it at that time, I quickly lost interest in the book after a few pages. I couldn’t seem to keep focused on the reading – the words weren’t striking any chords at that time. Then just last week, before I got the email to start the Heidi Swapp BPS class, I looked down at the bottom shelf of my bookcase, where the book had been collecting dust for close to 4 years, and just thought “hmm, maybe I’ll give it another go.”

For me, that’s the amazing thing about books and writing – it allows people to share their thoughts/feelings/emotions/experience with other people without having to be in the same room, country or even lifetime. That’s amazing. What’s even more amazing is that because people are so different and shaped by their own thoughts/feelings/emotions/experience that impact their perceptions and points of view, the same exact words read by two different people can be interpreted in completely different ways. And both interpretations can be right! How cool is that?!

Over the past year, I’ve daydreamed of writing some sort of self-help, advice book that would start off with an intro where I describe the synchronicity of books – how I’m not a professional psychologist or trained psychiatrist, but more of a human nature enthusiast – listening, watching, observing, analyzing, noting behaviors, communication patterns, expressions of emotion; how I am sharing what I’ve observed because “something” compelled me to capture my thoughts/experiences/observations on paper. Later on, someone else may be compelled, perhaps initially attracted by the color combination or visual appeal of the cover, to pick it up and read it. That compelling force is a manifestation of the synchronicity of the universe. The message contained in the pages of a book may not ring true for the person at that point in time, perhaps they’ll let it collect on a shelf somewhere for a bit, but when they or someone close to them comes to need the message, they’ll remember the dusty book is there and pick it up.

Wow, I’m really feeling the affects of not having done my morning pages today. The words and thoughts just aren’t flowing as they did with yesterday’s entry. I find myself hesitating, rechecking, and misspelling noticeably more. I must’ve edited the paragraph above about 50 times! The flow’s just not there. Tomorrow morning, it’s morning pages, first thing, for sure.

Having trouble capturing creative images for my Project 352 Photoblog as well. I’m just not capturing anything that’s visually interesting…I think I’ll have to Photoshop the hell out of something to get it worthwhile enough to post. I’ll start working on that now. Maybe I’ll have better luck with that than I’m having with this journal entry.

-- AGR

Commitments

Lots of journaling and introspection for me in the New Year. Have committed to doing morning pages a la The Artist’s Way and in addition signed up for Heidi Swapp’s Year to Remember class where the first assignment includes journaling as well. I’m used to the introspecting and analysis, I’m just not used to the journaling piece of it. I just think the thoughts and let them go when they will.

In many ways, I think both of these things (the daily journal and morning pages) will be good for me because it’ll allow me to capture and perhaps make some sense of all the stuff that runs through my head on a daily basis. I do a lot of mental processing all throughout the day and it gets lost the minute something distracts my attention. I think I’ve come up with some pretty profound stuff in the past too! But since my memory is for shit :P, I can’t make use of any of it now. This way, I’ll be able to capture both the raw, random stuff in the morning pages and then maybe do something more structured with my journaling.

I’ve decided to do the journaling electronically too (maybe post it in a blog even). I spend so much time in the car, commuting back and forth from Vallejo to Redwood City for work. Since starting at Informatica, I’ve tried several different ways of making use of this time – reading, sleeping, talking to DH (the driver J); I’ve even considered purchasing books on tape or some sort of language CD – but I think journaling will be even better. Especially during our evening commute when it’s too dark for me to read.

I need to decide on a goal that I want to work on for the year…I’m sort of trying to decide between a really practical thing like “Purchase our first investment property” and something more personal like “Find my creative voice.” The second one might be a little challenging to make tangible, but I think I could do it with a little effort. A third idea I’m tossing around that’s kind of a middle-ground is to come to terms with my dissatisfaction at work. That would entail spending the time to do some true, hard soul-searching to find what I really want to do with my life OR finally coming to terms with the fact that I’ve got a good job that I should be thankful for and after accepting that, finding some way of working the fulfillment aspect into it. The end goal would be that by the end of the year, one way or another, I will LOVE MY JOB (whatever that job ends up being).

The more I think about that third option, the more I like it. It’s a problem that’s plagued me for a number of years…almost since I started working. I’ve always been torn because I love the paycheck of course, but my line of work has always sucked up so much time (either due to long working hours or long commutes or as was most often the case, both) I don’t have much left to pursue personal interests. Yep, I think that’s it. That’ll be my goal for the year:

By December 31, 2007, at the very latest, I will wake up every morning with a positive attitude toward (and hopefully excited and looking forward to) the work I will spend my precious day doing. I chose this goal because:

• Life is too short to spend your days dreading what you do
• It will force me to take a good hard look at my job and examine what it is exactly that I find dissatisfying or unfulfilling about my work and address it, OR find a new line of work that better suits me
• It will still allow me the opportunity to explore my creativity, both in my definition of what creativity means and how I express that creativity in my day
• It appeals to both the practical and explorative parts of me
• It will be challenging yet engaging enough to keep my interest for the year.
  

Almost forgot, I also started a Photoblog for a project I stumbled upon online – Project 352. Basically, for the whole year, I’m going to try to take a picture everyday that will visually represent that day. I’m hoping it will be an easy way for me to capture the everyday-ness of life in a creative and hopefully visually appealing way, and help me to notice and appreciate the little things that I too easily overlook and take for granted. I’m also supposed to take a self-portrait at least once a month. I think it’ll be interesting.

I sent a comic strip to Gina today that I found on Danny Gregory’s blog (I LOVE that guy! He’s totally insightful and inspiring at the same time) – it’s a simple cartoon of a roughly sketched guy with just a single speech bubble that says “How much of my life should I devote to contemplating my life?” I thought that was particularly appropriate for the both of us. We both have a tendency to analyze things to death and when we get together, you better WATCH OUT, ‘cause some deep thinking is definitely going to go down :P. Love her to death though, she’s the only person that close to understanding (or really knowing) me.

Also did some searching on Amazon today for books on how to write more eloquently. I didn’t use the right keywords though apparently because the results were totally not what I was looking for. I did come across a really interesting book though (I forget the exact title) that I “searched inside” that talked about the concept of emotional currency – that’s not the phrase they used, but that’s essentially the idea the author was conveying: figuring out what your partner finds emotionally valuable, what makes them feel loved and appreciated. I think that’s an excellent idea.

I asked DH on the way home from work tonight what his emotional currency was. He gave some really good responses that I’ll try to work on providing more of. I’m a little disappointed though that he didn’t ask me the question in return. I didn’t want to push it though because I didn’t want him to think I was just asking him as a segue way to getting him to do more stuff for me. Instead he switched to the topic of work (as he often does). It’s been heavy on his mind lately because he’s been dealing with a bunch of crap at the office. I would truly have to have his job. Seems like a really thankless position where you get scapegoated for stuff that’s totally out of your control. His manager and director are not very supportive either. I hope something better comes along for him so he can get into a better place.

As for me, I’ve had a pretty productive work week so far, coming back from the holidays. I had a ton of crap on my to-do list before I left for vacation and I didn’t finish it because I totally couldn’t focus!! Well I’ve already knocked off most of the list and still have tomorrow to finish off the biggest and most tedious piece which I left for last. I need to get it done tomorrow so my director hopefully doesn’t notice it wasn’t done before I left, and he gets back from his vacation next week.

That’s it for tonight I guess.

-- AGR