Connected and Committed

JOT Day 6, 7

I am getting my phone set up to be able to post easily. I have a touch screen that requires extensive revision, but I'm going to do it anyway.

It's snowing where we are. If we get snowed in, that's ok with all of us.

JOT 4,5 - So what? Do it anyway

I looked up some pricing for printing promotional Post-Its and postcards. Very doable, and energizing to my ideas for where performance art, stand-up and public speaking meld. Handouts that will actually get used. More on that later.

And I also spent an entire day in airports retrieving my son for the holiday week. While there certainly was some down time in between flights, typing anything of length and substance on a touchscreen cellphone I find an aversive experience. I guess I'll have to get over that if I'm going to keep up with these posts. The rest of this week will be filled with company and travel, a perfect testing ground for this endeavor. My introversion tends to want my nervous system to shut down when there are lots of people around and all kinds of activity, so I'll be trying to push through all that resistance and do something that I want to have happen anyway.

So what? Do it anyway.

JOT 2,3 - The Follow Through

Let's see--I think I'll first list what it was that I did, and then any processing or insights that come along. Yeah, that sounds good.

Yesterday was day 2 of this adventure, and I had the opportunity to research on the computer for several hours on what it takes to register a small biz in the state I find myself in these days.

And I signed up for access to some video and content that will jumpstart by small biz in sales, building lists and creating content that sells.

At first I was going to name this thing I'm doing Twenty Minutes a Day, but the time thing wasn't in the spirit of how I am approaching this, so hitching my enthusiasm to just one thing, a babystep that I could complete on its own or continue with a long as it felt good, felt like the way to go.

Today, day 3, I'm going to read a bit more in the public speaking books I've gotten so much great energy from.

The holidays present even more of a challenge in terms of making the time to do what it is you've said you want to do for yourself. Family and friends clamor for your presence, and it's easy to just give up on doing something in the direction of where you are going.

So I'm going to hold the space for effortless slots of time showing up for me to be able to do just one thing over the next week when my family will be around 24/7, and report on how that went. It will require some discipline and resolve and some unaccustomed "selfishness", which has an entirely different connotation to it in Abraham vernacular. Unless we decide to do what is important to us, we learn to undervalue what it is we want, which makes us less present for those around us when we are with them, since we're nursing resentment and would really rather be somewhere else doing that thing.

Here's to the new selfishness.

 

Just One Thing (from here on out affectionately referred to as JOT) Day 1

So this is it.

My enthusiasm and decisiveness have reached critical mass at the same time, and so I'm launching a project that I'm fascinated by and a little leary of all at the same time.

Which is good. Perfect, in fact.

One should not begin a process of change that one feels totally relaxed about. Safety brings complacency and boredom to the table, eventually leading to premature retirement syndrome: it just doesn't go anywhere.

It takes some good old fashioned resistance and occasional jolts of fear to make an effort like this recognizable to the ego, and then the real challenge commences.

And just to round out the personas accounted for, this endeavor has momentum and energy behind it that has been building for quite some time, unbeknownst to my conscious awareness until last week.

The timing of it all is a bit puzzling though, since I normally do not indulge in the whole resolution setting debacle at year's end, or beginning for that matter, so I'm not waiting until January 1 to start.

I'm starting today with the Just One Thing initiative.   

Just One Thing, as in pick something and let yourself surrender to the process of moving towards it and enjoying the feeling of the adventure along the way.

Just one thing, and then do just one thing every day that puts you one infinitesimal step closer towards attaining it.

Not 43.

Not a handful.

Just one.

And allow the babystep accumulation to sweep you over the top of your goal, which might very well morph and molt and be something totally different by the time you come up for air.

The goal is really beside the point.

Doesn't matter what it is.

Losing weight.

Dropping the smoking habit.

Exercising.

Eating better.

Cooking more meals at home, and more often with all the members of your family present.

Finding something else to do besides watching television.

Cleaning out the garage/closets/spare bedroom/hallways because we can't walk in them anymore.

Finding a different job.

Deciding to like the one you have.

Finding the love of your life.

Falling in love again with the one you've got.

Putting some time in to learning a new hobby.

Picking one up again that you enjoyed in the past.

Feel better about life in general.

Doing what it takes to officially/governmentally/on-the-grid start your own business.

Practice public speaking/performance art/stand-up at a level you've only dared to sort of think about, sometimes.

I could go on.

There is something about which you might be hovering at the edge of crossing a line in your head about doing/being/having.

And at the moment you choose to follow where it wants to take you, then you're in this thing.

That's where I am, and I'm going to apply this babystep accumulation process to the last two items on the list I rambled on and on about.

And then I want to document that process, here on this blog (Unless I do it somewhere else. Because I fully expect that this ride will take some twists and turns and produce some fabulous, here-to-fore unknowable results that might have it look different than when it started. Hoping so).

To demonstrate what that looks like. That it's doable. That I get what my thought chaperone coaching clients go through because I do it myself, on purpose. That there are levels of blissmongering, and I'm diving in to find out what some of them are.

I plan to label my posts on this topic with "Day 7 - JOT", or something similar, so you can tag along with me and keep pace with where I am in the journey.

I don't plan to comment so much on what I'm doing, which I'm sure I'll do some of, but more about what new way of being this practice is creating for me. What new thoughts I'll have access to, what new experiences I'll savor, what new people I'll meet, what old stereotypes I'll put to rest, what new layers of feeling good about being alive show up.

So here I go--exposed, accountable, vulnerable, and rarin' to go.

Care to join me?

364 days from now there will be roughly at least 1200 hours with which you can look back on from a place of engagement and discovery, or the same ol'-same ol'.

I know what vantage point I'd rather be lookin' from.

 

 

 

cognitive dissonance dancing

 

When I bring home a dvd to watch, I am so hoping for a transformative experience.

Mere entertainment isn't enough. Transformation, both on the screen and then depending on how well it's done, also inside me--this is much preferred.

Such was the case with Rachel Getting Married.

Substance abuse. Dysfunctional family. Classic American story.

But this was different.

At the beginning, I was afraid of bing overwhelmed with the rawness of it all.

At the end, I felt cleansed by the kind of grace that only accompanies an assemblage of the best, doing their best, and it all somehow getting captured on film.

Once I watched the special features and understood the genesis of the film's existence, and the chioces made as to how it was shot, and it's being finished in 33 days, and the cast--well, of course it was amazing.

Taking chances. Going with the moment. Trying something new, something different.

That's where the juice is. That's when the envelope gets pushed.

And that's when we really feel alive.

At the time it might feel impossible, a struggle, this discomfort and cognitive dissonance dancing all over the place.

But it works.

It's not often I feel transported beyond my immediate surrondings, and this story did that for me. It took several hours for its effects to wear off.

Perhaps some of them never will.

And that would be a very good thing.

respect for hormones and hurricanes

Life is a blur these days.

In a good way.

The days go by so quickly, it's amazing.

In the not so distant past, I counted the minutes every day while doing work that was most uninspired.

The contrast between the two situations is fabulous.

Appreciating, that, I am.

And the fact that I am able to override the directives that hormones send out.

They were intent on anarchy, they were, desecrating all blissmongering perspectives like so many robot operatives in an action figure movie.

But no, I said.

Even if you can't remember what feeling good feels like at the moment, you can remember that it's been possible to feel that way, and you will feel better again at some point.

So I remembered.

And now I do, feel better.

I have respect for hormones, and for hurricanes.

Both have amazing powers that humans can only dream of possessing, controlling, and never will.

But we have chocolate.

And Yirgochiffe coffee.

So it doesn't matter.

clean start

 

This is what we woke up to this morning. Beautiful, pure, soul-soothing.

It feels like how New Year's Day feels.

Clean.

A fresh start.

Until we break our resolutions.

I imagine that soon there will be talk of coming up with 2011 resolutions all over the popular media.

Well, here's a list that I think are worthy of the time one might spend thinking about that topic:

 

10 Reasons to Face and Embrace Your Shadow

I know. Not exactly what you were expecting.

But everything in the world that we might point fingers at or blame or groove on outrage about stems from individual and group shadow dance. Someone's sucky childhood grew them into the pain-ridden adult who makes the kinds of choices they make that, while they may bring pain to others, bring them immense relief from the torment inside.

So I recommend we start trying something new in the arena of making changes.

Let's start on that inside job that makes a difference.

And then pass it on.

 

*1. Wake up from the spell of your ignorance, delusions and projections.

        All of that is a lie that our egos contrive and the culture corroborates with to keep us         hopelessly mired in thinking about what's wrong with us and looking in vain for what                        might fix us, instead of thinking about things that we want to do, and then doing them.

*2. Release huge amounts of energy that you otherwise expend to keep your shameful parts hidden.

        It's exhausting, this pretense-keeping. Your body makes you slow down with illness to get a rest         from it, and only then do we get a glimpse at how much we tension we carry around every day.         We poo-poo it, and that makes it all the more insidious.

*3. Stop living in fear, pretending that you are someone you are not.

        All the layers of meaning we've heaped on the roles we take on and the choices we                                make keep us in fear of being found out. Such games we play with ourselves. The ego is         paralyzed with fear that it won't be needed anymore once we decide that pretending to be                   who we really aren't has gone on long enough. It isn't going to die; it will just adopt a new         level of importance in your repertoire of personas.                                                 

*4. Start choosing whoever and whatever you want to be at any moment.

        We poo-poo this concept too. "It's not that easy." Well, at first it isn't. But consider                            that it ain't all that easy to maintain the status quo of pain, either. It feels familiar, it feels         like home, but it don't feel good. Being who you really are does.                  

*5. Recognize that the people who trigger you are mirroring back aspects of yourself that you have forgotten.

        Forgotten, and buried deep, and layered all kinds of meaning on top of, which leaves you rolled         up into a ball in a very dark place. It's not true, most of any of it. Come on out in the light         and dust yourself off, and get some air between those stories you've told yourself for decades,         and the truth. It takes practice to reclaim your sanity.

*6. Remove physical aches and pains in your body that are manifestations of blocked energy or repressed emotional material.

         A body can only take so much before it starts contorting to hold what we give it to hold.

*7. Find the gift in each of your Shadow aspects and learn how to use them for good.

        There's a turnaround in each of our perceived weaknesses. There are books out there that         can help you see them, feel them, and let go of their dominion over you. You'll notice your         bodily maladies start to diminish at the same time. Funny how that works, isn't it?                   

*8. Admire the greatness you see in others as your own.

        There is more than enough to go around. Someone else's misfortune doesn't mean there's                       less for you now. As a matter of fact, it's a trail of breadcrumbs for you to follow, if               you're up to receiving all the good stuff you've been asking for all your life. It's there,                    waiting for you to let it in.                    

*9. Manifest your full potential by reclaiming the parts of yourself that you've denied, hidden or given away to others.

        No one has the power to keep you down, sad, afraid, empty, alone. You are the only one                    with that power. You might attempt to give it away to people who really don't want it in                        the first place, and they do things differently around you because of it. But its yours and         yours alone.

*10. Finally really get what those spiritual people are talking about when they say, "We are ONE!"

        We are really all one humongous organism, making choices based on the energy available.                     Let's stoke the pile with more positive than negative, shall we? The powers-that-be seem to         be afraid of what might happen if we all were to become independent thinkers and followed         our souls' requirements. There's tons more money to be made from happy people than         unhappy people. Perhaps that might be an initial way "in", by making it about the economy.         

        Slightly shallow, but hey, it's a place to start.                         

 

Numbered items by Alissa Sige Weisman, MFTi.

Commentary by Blissmonger.