Spirit In Gear

Summer is Rest

Every time I pull into this rest stop in North Carolina on our way home from Ohio,  I want to stay and linger for an indefinite period of time.  The area is beautiful, providing a restful oasis.  Yet we rarely linger.  It's our last stop and home is 2 hours away.  It's also the time when I feel the most fatigue, at the tail end of a long trip.

Yet there have been 2 occasions out of many when we did give in and stay longer than the time it takes for a visit to the restroom.  One of these occasions was "forced" - my husband had a business call he had to be on for about 1/2 hour.  Lucky me - I laid on the grass and journalled - we had just returned from our older daughter's college graduation and I had many thoughts and emotions swirling around in my head and heart.

On the other occasion I was driving by myself and made a conscious decision to take time to rest and be present, giving up the self-imposed deadline of being home at a certain time.  Instead, I walked around, inhaling nature's beauty.  I later sat and did some writing.

I hope that I take more opportunities to rest.  That could be the most important "action" I take in that moment in adding to the quality of my life.

Photo Credit:  Debbie Call

Cinderella Breaks Free

It occurs to me late this afternoon, while doing a Jazzercise class, that my "inner Cinderella" has broken free of her imprisonment.  My energy on every level skyrockets!  I work out at my best level.

I recall that it begins last evening when I attend a monthly business association meeting.  I am feeling very energetic.  Filled with well-being, I network like a pro and enjoy meeting new people.  I continue with friends in the hotel bar after the meeting.  I don't remember the last time I feel this kind of energy.

My enthusiasm continues today at work.  I face all the same problems and issues present yesterday, but today I do so with levity and fun.  I have patience with myself.  I have patience with the people on the other end of the phone line.  I have patience with traffic.  I feel like the best of myself.  More compassionate, less interested in being judgmental.

What a switch.  For the past couple of weeks I've been feeling tired, jaded, resistant.  I felt uninspired to write a simple blog post.  I felt like a drudge, like Cinderella working with no reprieve in sight.  But instead of sweeping floors like Cinderella, I was feeling suffocated by unexamined, absurd expectations of myself.  Such as, "I can't relax until I'm a financial success like the gurus I listen to." or  "I have to figure out the magic bullet."  Pressure, pressure, pressure.

By the time Saturday arrives, a touch of food poisoning grounds me and forces me to rest.  I'm still in my pj's at 2:00 p.m. and I don't get any chores done, nor do I "accomplish" anything.  I sit on the couch  and read fiction.  I play a subdued game of bridge with friends that evening.

Being "benched" gives me the opportunity to do some reflection and meditation.  I find myself hanging onto Dick Richard's words about taking ourselves less seriously,in his response to a comment at his post, Let It Go! Let It Go! Let It Go!.  He recommends laughter and silliness to offset the seriousness in life, and in particular in the field of self development.

I'm not sure quite how I make the leap from tired and resistant to energetic and positive.  And really it doesn't matter.  But I do think Dick's words influenced me.  What I do understand is that somewhere along the line I decided I can feel good without external situations changing. 

And the wise Cinderella within who broke free knows that I can go far if I do these two things at this time in my life:  follow my energy (rest when I'm tired; go in the direction that feels good, as opposed to resistant); and build in a couple of brief times per day to be still and get in the space of "allowing" myself to be.  Practicing these two things can "grease" my receptivity for guidance and direction around business goals without anxious exertion on my part to find the answers.

I guess I don't need Prince Charming after all. 

Life in High Definition

What I see and experience in life depends upon the speed at which I'm moving.  There's "future" speed, and then there's "present" speed.

Too often than I care to admit, I operate in "future" speed.  Maybe you know what I'm talking about.  When I leave the present, I splinter myself apart.  Here's how it happens:  My mind races ahead to the future, while my physical body is left behind, and my spirit hovers about, outside of my awareness.

As I am doing one task, my mind trolls ahead like a search engine, thinking of all the things I have to do beyond this task ('gotta get this done, and then gotta do that, and then . . .").  Or I jump into the future with "what if" thinking, pulling in needless worry and fears about things that may or may not happen (what if my husband loses his job . . . what if my younger daughter does not find work when she moves to Chicago this summer, what if . . .).

Meanwhile my body starts to feel less grounded.  Instead of feeling a sense of rootedness, I feel tethered by adrenaline and sensations of being rushed.  My sense of creativity and mental expansion become pinched off as my access to intuitive guidance diminishes.  Been there, done that, right?  Welcome to life in the speed lane of Western Civilization.

This past week something different happens to me.  I experience a sense of "high definition" in my life.  All around me colors stand out with greater vividness.  I notice shapes and patterns - from the clouds in the sky above, to how the ground lays below.  Instead of scanning familiar objects in the landscape, I view them with that extra edge of sharpness and clarity, like our television screen in high definition. 

Results Revisited

Getting attached to results is a slippery slope going nowhere.  Yet I often cling (clutch is more like it ) to my attachment as if my life depends upon it.  Like worrying about some possible future event, attaching to results creates its own misery and has little to do with the outcome.

This past Monday I receive a short message during my prayer/reflection time: 

"Trust.  Take Appropriate Action.  Let Go."

Simple words.  Familiar words.  What is different now?  Impeccable timing.  I'm ready to receive this message.  My business partner and I need to find buyers for several investor properties within a 3-week deadline.  It doesn't help that funding for 2 of these properties got unexpectedly pulled out with no warning.  I feel the pressure, the panic.  How can I market these differently to attract buyers in time?

I step back from the emotion.  I decide to sandwich in my actions between trust and letting go.  I experience an odd sense of calm.  I create a little marketing twist to get people's attention.  I present these properties in an investor meeting from a different angle than previous meetings.  As a result, several serious buyers come forward with an interest in looking at those properties. 

By week's end, I begin to imagine other scenarios and outcomes I hadn't even considered when I was fixated on a specific result.  I discuss these other options with my business partner - options we can pursue if our buyers don't all come through at the same time.  I feel amazed that practicing non-attachment, giving up the clinging and clutching, creates a sense of clear-headed expansiveness in the absence of drama! 

My learning continues during the week when I receive Suzanne Falter-Barns' latest issue of her Expert Status Ezine in my inbox - "I'm Done with Results . . . How About You?"  Pretty enticing title, isn't it?

My big takeaway - the meaning we attach to results creates the problem, not necessarily the results themselves.  In Suzanne's words:

For instance, recently I started really getting into how many folks were visiting my blog every week. I worried if the numbers were lower than usual, and had surges of delight when the report swung high. And then I’d try to figure out what I did right or wrong that particular week … and consequently mull it over, tease it out, analyze and just generally fret.

In the light of my new non-attachment to results, I can see that it doesn’t ultimately matter how many people visit my blog. That number was just proving to be an ego stroke or an ego bash. What matters is actually how I’m interacting with the blog – and what REALLY matters is how effectively I’m sharing with my readers.

So now the focus has shifted to the journey, and how I choose to play it out.  When I’m excited about what I’m writing and put lots of energy into my blog posts, the numbers coincidentally go up. Conversely, when I’m lazy about it and lose touch for a week here or there, the numbers happen to go down.

Suzanne goes on to ask the pivotal questions:

Instead of looking to see how many people hit my blog so I can stroke my ego and feel powerful, I might ask instead, how truly and deeply am I sharing with others today? Am I reflecting what Spirit wants me to reflect today?*     " . . .Is my writing for this ezine teaching me what I need to know in order to keep spreading that love?

As Suzanne illustrates, we need to examine the meaning we attach to results.  When I'm stressing and struggling, my husband will jokingly ask me:  "Are we having fun yet?"  The question at least gives me pause and perspective!  Are ego's big footprints all over the meaning I attach to results?  If so, how can I change the meaning to reflect a higher purpose?  This week in my business challenge I focused on imagining outcomes that benefit all involved.  And that includes me too,  Sometimes I shortchange myself.

This morning, before I write this post, I receive another dose of reinforcement in the words of a prayer from Julia Cameron's Heart Steps:

I am able to allow situations to evolve and alter.  I am able to await outcomes.  I tolerate quiet periods of non-knowing while solutions emerge and present themselves.  I do not force solutions.  I expect the successful working-out of difficulties and differences.  My heart is wise.  It knows when to act and when non-action is the action to take.

My latest mantra - Cling Less, Live More!

Any lessons/insights you'd like to share on the meaning you attach (or don't attach) to results you seek?

[Photo Credit:  kjdrill]

Enough

I am enough.  I have wisdom enough.  I have faith enough.  I know enough.  I do not need to strive or strain. I do not need to reach or worry. I am enough.

- Julia Cameron, Heart Steps - Prayers and Declarations for a Creative Life

These words reach me this morning like a lifeline thrown to one struggling in rushing waters.  Instead of rushing waters, I find myself caught in the grips of torrential mental noise:  I need to market more.  I need to create more pay per click ads.  I need to read through all the material from my online marketing training.  I need to do each and every exercise.  I am not doing enough.  I need to make money.  More money!  I need to do it now.  Urgent, urgent, urgent!

"I am enough."  These words stop me.  The mental churning fades out.  I exhale.  I feel emotion rising up from my heart and escaping through the tears in my eyes.  I sense another part of me coming forward.  She comes not from ego, but from that part connected to the Divine.  She is calm, patient, wise,  She trusts.  She takes her time.  I sense her compassion and love.

I sit still.  I notice the relief I feel.  I watch my churning thoughts shift into positive scenarios.  I imagine what my life could look like as I embrace knowing I am enough.  I can see my grown daughters as enough, trusting them to make mistakes and surviving just fine.  I can use the knowing that I am enough to take my time and plan my marketing steps for my business.  Instead of feeling overwhelmed I can feel focused.  I can feel lighter because I make this marketing manageable.

My imagination continues to prance ahead.  As I quiet the demanding inner pressure, I can be more present to others, more positive, more caring.  Better self care leads to better care of others.  Not necessarily doing more.  Just showing up in a different way.

I start first with myself.  I resolve to lengthen my quiet time early in the morning.  To spend the first minutes of the new day in stillness, prayer, and reflection.  To ensure that the person who gets out of bed knows she is enough, and knows that her "spirit is large enough for any circumstance."

Who are you when you remember you are enough?

[Photo Credit:  Arjun Kartha]

Try This in Lieu of Resolutions

After an absence of several months, I've been quietly slipping into the blogosphere to read snippets from some of my fav bloggers.  Always . . . perfect timing!

Phil Gerbyshak's What's Your Word of the Year for 2009? caught me at a time when I most need it.  He suggests building your year around one word that resonates for you.  He gives credit to this idea to Christine Kane's Resolution Revolution post.  She supplies a lot of help if you need inspiration around words to select.  Both are excellent posts about creating something more powerful and lasting than a New Year's resolution.

It took me about 60 seconds to jot down 4 words.  My top 2 picks:  "ease" and "savor."

Why those two words?  Because I am out of balance.  I've been fully immersed in real estate investing.  It's a "reactive" business.  It feels like I have less control of my time.  I notice that I spend a lot of my day utilizing "masculine" energy - hard, action-oriented, "make it happen" energy.  I'm tired on many levels. 

Getting My Energetic Groove Back

Thank you, Tom Volkar, for your compelling post, Get Real About Your Work. 

Tom's post came out in perfect response to my own need a couple of weeks ago.  It sure does illustrate the impact we can have on one another through writing, as well as the underlying synchronicity that can occur through the medium of the Internet. 

Rather than summarize Tom's post, I urge you to read it and to take the 4-minute written exercise that helps you uncover the real truth about your work when money is no longer an issue.

Now allow me to back up to tell you where I lost my groove and how I got it back, thanks in part to reading Tom's post.

Ironically, a positive change in my business created the conundrum.  It begins when my business partner and I make the decision to get an outside office to work out of (in addition to our respective home offices).  With the addition of an assistant, we find great benefit in working more cohesively in the same physical space.

Three plus months later, we are reaping tangible benefits from the outside office.  We are developing processes and systems to work smarter; we are making far more offers on real estate; we have increased our income; and we enjoy great camaraderie.

So what's the downside to positive change?  I'm hauling my laptop and a number of essential files back and forth between home and the outside office.  I figure I'm losing an hour in the packing and commuting each day.  I've given up a great deal of flexibility and autonomy.  I begin to feel like I'm going to a "job."  The office is an environment laced with adrenaline and constant interruption.  After several weeks of this I find myself exhausted each day.  I fall behind on stuff at home.  And by the time I could blog later in the evening, I'm simply too spent.  I have shot my wad of energy.  Creative expression?  What's that?

As I note what my body and heart are telling me, I realize that the outside office is not the problem per se.  HOW I am working is a problem.  In a flash, I get it.  (When I did Tom's exercise, I discover that if money were no longer an issue, I'd write a whole lot more, and I wouldn't necessarily stop doing my day job.  I'd just do it differently.)

A pleasant shock of physical relief surges through me. A solution presents itself and I implement it immediately.  I make the decision to come into the office on Monday/Wednesday, and part of Friday as needed.  Tuesday and Thursday I work from home, by phone and laptop, In addition, I will go out to any seller's home on any day of the week if we have a deal.  But I don't need to sit in an outside office to wait for my phone to ring.

As soon as I implement this, I stop feeling tired.  I hadn't realized how much inner resistance I experienced each day on an unconscious basis.  Once I get aligned by changing  how I work, I almost feel giddy.  Doesn't take much for me to feel light and joyful once I get aligned. 

This is a lesson to me in the art and care of my creative being.  That part of me is especially happy.  I can only imagine the positive ripples that will continue to flow out, not only to other areas of my life and business, but further and further into the world.  Abraham notes that our purpose in life is to feel good.  And let's get real.  It's a lot more fun to hang out with people who feel good, isn't it? 

  

What I've Been Doing in Lieu of Blogging

I just set the timer for 20 minutes - that's what I'm alotting to write this post. 

I've been gathering items to write about and filing them away.  I've moved way beyond guilt over not writing.  I'm in overwhelm and work fatigue.

What can I say? I'm trying to find my way back into the blogging groove.  It requires a system change.  I had an epiphany moment today about how to change my work structure to give me back my old freedom and flexibility so that I'm not worn out and tired at the end of the day.  I'm going to spend more time in my home office and less time in the outside office with my other business partners.  The comraderie is great but not my productivity, or flexibility with time and structure. 

Poignant once in a lifetime moments have also been taking precedence over blogging.  Two weekends ago we went back to Ohio to visit family - had special moments with my 86 yr.old aunt (sister of my deceased mom); we went to see our senior college daughter's visual thesis and met her Graphic Design professors.  I glowed all the way back to South Carolina reliving the moment when our daughter's class of senior graphic design students voted our daughter most likely to change the world with one design. 

This past weekend we spent in Gatlinburg (3 hrs away) with old friends, laughing and listening to the sounds of music from the 70's.  It felt good to be with a liberal crowd.

This weekend we head back to Ohio for the college graduation.  I already feel emotional about it.  Four years ago our younger daughter graduated from high school.  We sold the family home, moved to South Carolina for a job transfer, and left our daughter back in Ohio.  She grew up fast.  And the four years flew by.  This is the milestone time - not just for our daughter, but for us as parents.  We're moving into a different phase of parenting - enjoying the flight of our children, but I feel sad about that too.  More change for poor old Mom.  And on that note, the timer just went off.

Parts of Myself I've Been Neglecting

What Parts of Myself Have I been Ignoring, Neglecting, or Denying?

This question clutches at me when I read it over in the list mentioned in my last post on eliciting heart wisdom.  Credit for the question goes to author Barbara DeAngelis.

Reading the question stirs up an ache within me.  I can feel the answer surface immediately.  It comes through as a strong yearning to spend more time in creating.  I feel cranky and out of sorts from dealing with so much left-brained minutia - constant details that have me scattering myself personally and professionally. 

As I review January, I realize it was an intense month for me.  My mother passed from this life early in that month.  I have spent a lot of time in both processing my grief, and in playing catch up in all parts of my life that were put on hold during the last week of Dec. and the first week of January. 

As life resumes a semblance of normalcy and well-being, I experience my thunderbolt.  It's time for me to build in the structure, through outside assistance, to give myself the space and time to create.  I need help in lifting some of the linear load off my shoulders so I can get to the creative/expressive/juicier stuff.

How committed am I to making the shift in my personal life ?  In my business?  My business partner and I just made the decision to get an outside office (lease in hand), and to take steps to legalize our partnership.  That is only the beginning.  We need to bring in another person to handle our minutia.  Only then will we have the time freed up to take our business to the next level.  It's a big change, a stretch for us, one that requires additional financial resources.

Likewise, in my personal life I need to hire a cleaning person to care for our home on a regular basis.  I had one for years when we lived in Ohio.  Since our move to South Carolina, I haven't used one.  And our house is much bigger here.  I spend so much time on weekends worrying about getting it cleaned, or worrying that I haven't cleaned it, that I feel stressed.  A cleaning person is a form of nurturing for me.  Take that cleaning load off of me and I know my creative output will skyrocket.

The beauty of the question within a question (discussed in my last post) lies in the depth at which the information comes back to me.  It starts in my heart, and then goes to my head.  I feel the change I need to make, and feel ready to do it.  Someone could have come in months ago and told me to get a cleaning person.  It's logical.  But I'm discovering that shifts rarely happen in the head. 

Before I wrote this post, I sent off an email to a discussion forum in our subdivision, asking for names of housecleaners.  I'm ready, Universe, send me the housecleaner best for me.  And you might want to throw in additional financial resources too!

What part of yourself have you been ignoring or neglecting?

How To Cut Myself Some Slack

Phil at Make It Great gets the credit for the idea of this post through a comment he left.  He asked for tips on how I learned to cut myself some slack.

If they say that necessity is the mother of all inventions, know that I am improvising as I go along this path!  I willingly share what I am learning, with the proviso that you jump in and share what works for you in the slack-cutting department.

First, I don't have answers - only awareness (when I am actually "aware" of my awareness).  Sometimes it comes from a trigger - such as the reminder I received from Rick Cockrum of Shards of Consciousness.  His response to my comment about my blog-related guilt provided much needed perspective.  He makes the essential distinction - that blogging is done “within the context of our lives, not as our lives.”

This perspective made me aware of the unexamined rules I operated by.  This time I acknowledged that my rule about blogging didn't make sense and wasn't helpful.  Having awareness of the rule allowed me to adjust it to take into account the stressors and time constraints of my reality.  I decided to blog when I was able and wanted to.

Cultivating compassion for myself also helps.  A couple of months ago I attended a 5-day intensive.  I found the first day or two tough because of my self-imposed rules about performing at my best.  What I learned instead was to accept myself, period, no matter where I fell on the scale of perfection.  Having compassion for myself, as I am always quick to have for others, makes a big difference.

I recall an exercise I did years ago at a retreat.  We were asked to hold up a mirror, and look into our own eyes, to see into our hearts.  I recall that feeling of compassion being stirred as I looked at this woman staring at me.

This morning I asked for guidance on a passage to read and this page fell open.  Here is an excerpt:

"Go to your bathroom or bedroom and look in the mirror.  Really.  Go and do it now.  Maybe the light in your eye is there or not; it doesn't matter.  Your 'original face' - the one in front of you right now - is the one God always sees.   When you see it too, you and God will both be in heaven - and we will get the benefit of you being who you are, here on earth."

Jason Shulman, The Instruction Manual for Receiving God

What would happen if we scheduled, on our to-do list, a line that said we would cut ourselves some slack two times today.  What if we decided to break one of our own rules that doesn't matter?  What if we chose to act with compassion towards ourselves on this day - what might that look like?

What can you suggest, by way of tip or experience, that helps you let up that rein a bit?