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?

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…

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

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