Tag: content

I’m Not Aware

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It’s the beginning of another year and for whatever reason – cultural, internal or driven by the all-powerful social media – I am pulled toward self-review. If I am being completely honest, my life is a series of perpetual self-evals. What is my purpose? What should I be doing? Am I on the right path? Am of service to others? To anyone? Followed by, I could do better, Habits are hard, and my all time favorite, Let’s figure this out.

So, here I sit before a blank screen pondering those same tired thoughts without a lot of fresh input. Instead, I offer the following…

Everything begins with awareness. Awareness of that higher, wiser part of ourselves. We all have it, and sometimes we use it. We all know we shouldn’t have the extra helping of pumpkin pie (or maybe even the first), stay up to binge watch something that is not really enhancing our lives, not getting up early to own the day, not planning meals and finances. I trust you’re familiar. I mean there are mythical beings out there whose finances are pristine, their abs are true, their kitchens are stocked with local, organic vegan fare and their relationships are nothing but love and light.

But I’ve yet to meet such a unicorn. If they don’t really exist, why am I spinning plates and hula hooping trying to live up to their imaginary standards?

I’m not gonna make this about resolutions or even intentions. Has that worked for you? I mean for more than a week? Me neither.

My gift to myself this coming year is going to be to listen to my gut, my higher self, the universe, nature, pretty much any voice that doesn’t come from my ego running rough shod with scissors through the night or any other actual well-meaning, yet mortally flawed, human being. I’m going to listen to the powerful, yet calm and quiet and simple promptings of my soul.

    • Put the phone down.
    • Go to your mat.
    • Drink water instead.
    • It’s a beautiful day for a walk.

I mean, her advice is spot on and so clear, there is no innuendo, no context needed, nothing cloudy or unsure. And usually it’s not about don’t do something and more about make a better choice. For my energy, my sanity, my peace.

My life will still be full of all that I love, travel, decorating, creativity, but I feel like it will be richer, cleaner, more spacious, maybe, if I pay closer attention. I kind of imagine myself – my human form – with all my to-do’s and passions and needs stuck to me, adding weight and making me itchy. Then I imagine creating space through nothing more than awareness and listening to that wise voice. (Conscious breathing and meditation never hurt, so I’ll throw that in a well) Then I begin to see myself with an inch of air between me and all that stuff. Then maybe a foot. Then maybe arm’s length, just far enough away that I can reach out and choose which task or project I wish to work on or play with. I mean everything we do involves choice. If we’re not consciously selecting where we put our energy and focus, those decisions are happening by default. And not very elegantly, I may add.

So that’s it. Just listen and follow directions. That’s my big plan. I mean, how hard can it be?

Purging for Your Life

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Tree of Life, Amazing Banyan Tree.

Did you do it? Did you come up with your goal for purging? I suppose goal is not the best word, vision is better, I think. Maybe it’s both. The goal is to pare down as much as you deem appropriate to fulfill the vision of what your life will look like, in all aspects, once you’ve reached this goal.

What’s your why? What is bigger and stronger than the sway of your stuff? That’s what we’re getting to.

I promised I would share my process, but I don’t suppose it’s much of a mystery. I have done this before: at my home, helping friends and family and readying a home or two for an estate sale. I have read blogs and books on purging, organization, efficiency, minimalism and the Japanese Art of Tidying. I have tried and faltered, stopped just short of the magic. Now I am back with new purpose; the vision of space to create and breathe and find stillness nudges me along.

The one thing I know for sure is your process will be unique to you.

Before you begin to consider all of your things – those objects that occupy space on bookshelves, hidden in drawers, in boxes in the attic or garage or *gasp*under the bed (a big Feng Shui no-no) – understand that any and all of them can stay. Please know that.

But remember your vision and goal and measure each tiny treasure against that possible future.

Also recognize that each one of these precious-at-one-time things can also be anchors, tethering you to the past, sometimes with happy memories, other times in sorrow or pain, but holding you at arm’s length from the present nonetheless.

Imagine yourself as a banyan tree, like the one pictured above. The tree is sturdy strong and content, but it can never move. Each branch has a series of roots in addition to the trunk. It is forever tied to the earth, to that one place. If you have no desire to grow, expand or create, by all means, keep all your stuff and remain blissfully stuck.

I know that my study of the yoga philosophy over the past ten years has given me a unique perspective on the accumulation of stuff and I may come across unsentimental at best and heartless at worst. I will cop to the first charge, but assure you I do have a heart. A heart that wants to be unburdened and free to create in the present. And I am not completely without sentimentality, perhaps I just lean more toward pragmatic.

There is a tenet in the yoga philosophy that I’ve mentioned before, called aparigraha. It means non-attachment or non-hoarding. If we hold onto things with a firm grasp we cannot open our hands to receive more. We stop the flow of abundance physically, energetically, emotionally and spiritually.

Ok, enough woo woo, let’s get down to business.

Sharing the entire process – that I am still figuring out for myself, by the way – would be akin to asking you to order a dumpster and throw everything away. Instead I will offer some initial encouragement and guidelines to get started, allowing for space and time, tactics that have helped me get and stay on this [mostly] rewarding track. Then later we’ll dig a little deeper.

STEP ONE:

Create an unshakable vision for your future unencumbered self. Think hard on this one because it is this vision that will fortify your resolve to keep going.

STEP TWO:

  • Clear a large flat surface. This could be a dining room table, a bed or even the floor in a room (assuming you don’t have critters – human or beast – that will curiously poke at your things and possibly wander off with them).
  • Mindfully move from room to room removing anything that does not belong there. Clothes in the living room, scissors on the entry table, etc. and place these items on that newly cleaned off flat surface.
  • Once you have swept the whole home (or the areas you plan to work on) put the items back where they belong. If there are homeless items, leave them here.
  • Clean your home. Touch everything, dust it, notice the items you’re vacuuming around, how many personal care items you’re wiping down in the bathroom, you know, clean.
  • Take a break. And maybe a shower. Seriously.
  • Now, slowly walk through each room you wish to purge with a critical eye. Remove everything you know you no longer want. Don’t linger. Don’t try on clothes or jewelry or get lost in the emotion of things, simply walk these collected items to the big flat surface, then move onto the next room.
  • Gather the following: 2 boxes, a trashcan, a stickee pad and a marker.
    • Box 1: Charity
    • Box 2: Gifts for friends or items to return – the stickee pad and marker are to label each item with the recipient’s name.
    • Trashcan: you know
  • Once your items have found their way into the appropriate box, take them. Remove them from your home, all the way, not just into the trunk of your car. Actually drive them to where you intend for them to go.

You will feel lighter.

That’s it for now. This part of the process could take weeks or months and maybe should. Please take your time with the possessions you chose to bring into your home. Some items will be tossed without a second glance, others will grip you a little tighter. Allow for the process to unfold organically for you.

Still stuck? Go back to your vision.

 

Urgency Reset

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IMG_7091

Been thinking a lot about urgency lately.

Particularly how social media creates a sense of urgency without really doing anything. Almost all social media channels use their users to create it for them.

Think about it: Aside from the algorithm-driven passive sales on Facebook, we’re reacting to the posts of those we know.

We are compelled to up our game, drop out, do more, do less, get the app, sign the petition, boycott him, support the other guy, all because someone we know, or someone who knows someone we know, is somehow suggesting it. Just by sharing their own opinion. No matter how uninformed.

It’s genius, really. Somehow.

We need to do more. We need to go out more. We need to post food pics and selfies in front of quirky places. We need to practice our inversions so when we’re in Germany we can pop up into one in front of where the wall used to be. We need to post the best version of ourselves we want others to see. We need to prove we’re unique. Just like everybody else.

It’s a mad scientists social experiment. It has to be.

I’m only halfway through day five, but I see this just through my tendencies to reach for my phone when I want to escape a conversation, or I’m bored, or I have a few minutes. I’m filling space and avoiding being present with nothing. Photos and posts of things I normally wouldn’t choose to read. Probably.

And as I scroll my mind is making calculations and decisions, seemingly without my permission or input,  about what I should post next or what glib response I can throw down on a friends photo.

But what if we picked the people or pages we wanted to visit rather than minlessly scrolling? Showed some restraint, some control. What if we chose how to use social media rather than being pulled along by the suggestions of a computer program? Is that even possible?

I get the irony here. I am suggesting you reframe how you use the very media on which you are likely viewing this. I’m just another voice asking you to do something, creating urgency.

I don’t know the answer. There’s a happy medium in there, or out there, somewhere. A place where information and mindfulness meet. I haven’t found it yet, although I am kind of partial to blogs. 😉

It all just makes me very tired.

So, today I spent some time in nature. And some time reading. An actual book with pages that I turned with my hand instead of tapping the right side of a screen. My whole house was open, the wind blowing the curtains on the back patio, breezes running from the front to the back. I caught the light outside and thought more than once about capturing it in my phone. But my phone was in another room and did not go get it. At least twice.

Then finally when it was time to start dinner I retrieved my phone to check for messages – just one, and finally took that photo.

This afternoon, just a few hours of cleaning my house, watching birds and butterflies and shamelessly reading seemed to reset something. No telling if it will last, but for now I would much rather sit on my back porch with a glass of wine and that book.

And no phone.

 

Making Space for Enchantment

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img_0596

I have too much stuff. And this is the year I am going to get to know it on a very personal level.

If you saw my home you might not agree with me and I have to admit I love my home, it’s warm and cozy and many – most really – of the objects I own have some sort of special significance or I just fell madly in love with them. But I’m done collecting and storing. I’d like to think.

This year for me is going to be about living mindfully. Consciously. In every way I can without becoming some reformed fanatic and without walking away and giving up when something becomes too daunting or difficult or even boring – there’s magic in those struggles.

I have been obsessed with purging and organizing since almost forever. When I was in middle school I actually wrote down everything I owned on a notepad. Of course I only had one room to catalog. As an interior designer I used the Chinese art of placement – Feng Shui – in every application I could, and still do in my own home. I’ve read the Japanese Art of Tidying and purged over 350 books, bags of clothes and shoes, chatchkes that had lost their charm and broken plates, furniture, etc. I read Minimalism in a day while I was at my brothers and organized his house with a plan for him to finish and my suggestions.

It’s in my DNA.

So If I am always purging you’d think that, a.) I am a hoarder and therefore have an unlimited amount of things to remove from my home or b.) there’s really nothing left for me to do and I’m obsessive compulsive. There is a third option that I’ve wondered about: do I continue to purchase things so I can continue to purge? Am I perpetuating this because it makes me feel good to clean out?

This will be the test. I do not want to simply organize – although I do love that! – I want to eliminate stuff and exchange it for space and clarity.

My plan:

  • Catalog every item in my home. I will start with just my stuff, but eventually get to my husband’s as well. He’s part of my conundrum. While I could live simply with a few precious items, he hauls stuff in on the regular to fix, keep or sell at one of his various antique spaces. Then there is the pile(s) of “I might need this…” stuff. But we’ll address that, and him, later.
  • Purge what is no longer useful or meaningful. Mindfully putting it in the best hands for what it is. Maybe even selling it to pay off that looming student loan (more on that…).
  • Eat clean 90% of the time. We do this pretty well, but I want to become even more conscious of the companies and people from whom I am purchasing my food.
  • Reduce my carbon footprint any way I can. Reducing the amount of plastic and paper we use, how we wash our clothes and our bodies (making conscious choices with shower products), growing some of my own food.
  • Create a mammoth spreadsheet of my stuff, categorize it, tell it’s story and along the way release what I can
  • Ask myself, with everything I do or bring into my home, “Is this the best choice for me, the planet, my home?” “Do I need it?”
  • Reduce my trash and recycles to next to nothing.

I don’t expect to come out on the other side of this with a chair, a table and laptop only. I won’t be reducing my place settings and silverware down to two sets. But I can make some sound decisions and profound changes that will impact my overall sense of well-being, improve my health and be kinder to the planet.

Wanna play along? Comment often with questions or what you’re doing. Let’s make this a practice we do together. It’s not about making sacrifices so much as honoring your own time and energy and creating the space for an Enchanted Life.

 

 

21 Day Challenge – Day 14 – Focus

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Shiny IMG_1958

I can’t do it all. There I’ve said it. My to-do list on a daily basis would make a Marine quake in her boots. Probably not, but she would surely see that even getting up at 4:00 AM would not help me accomplish the ridiculous tasks I have set for myself.

In truth my list is ongoing, it’s sort of a weekly list, spill into next week, sometimes never get done list. Focus. That magic word has eluded me so much of my Gemini existence. I want to do, see, be so much and believe I can, really believe it. If I focus too intently on one thing, I might miss other awesome things.

My ability to jump from this to that and back again has been a source of frustration to me most of my adult life. Shiny Thing Syndrome. Right now I am actually supposed to be looking for clip art, but I saw the blank page and jumped on it. Hopeless. Others find this to be a somewhat attractive quality.  While I may find the single-pointed focus person admirable and believe I could be that way if I wanted, they may find my ability to let go of the balloon in order to pet the puppy impossible.

My laptop and I have a lot in common. At any given moment there are 5 or 6 programs open, with at least as many tabs and/or pages open within them. No less than 90 files cover the beautiful photos rotating as my screensaver. The more that is open the slower it runs. Hmmm.

I throw a bunch of balls up in the air with the best of intentions only to either become overwhelmed and duck and cover or lose interest all together and wander off. The balls drop, some roll away, the ones that are left will get tossed up again.

It is with age and perspective – possibly an iota of wisdom  – that I have learned to appreciate my way of being. It has its challenges, but I am aware of them now. I have smoothed some of the edges and refined some of the processes. When I get caught up in the list and the lack of check marks I can just shrug a little, promising to do better next time.

Whatever better is.

I know I’m in danger when the list has become the priority rather than its contents. When I let go of a physical list there is always a mental one.

Focus. Let go. Focus. It’s a distillation process.

When I was in India I remember watching an elderly man in the country side from my bus window. He was some sort of shepherd. He had a handful of goats and he seemed to be walking them from here to there. I remember thinking, but what does he do? What I was really thinking was how does he measure his success? Then it hit me. He doesn’t. It doesn’t matter. He is being, not doing. It was such a revelation for me, that someone could be content just by being content.

He has no list, no schedule, no time card. For all I know he doesn’t even have a birthday or a permanent address. What he does have is peace.

I have no goats, but I can have peace, I just have to see through the mirage shiny things. The yoga helps, the writing gets it out and photography brings me present. These are the doing practices that help me be with the rest of it.

Focus. Let go. Focus. Be. Repeat.

[Photo: Catching the morning light making shiny things out of nature. Just add water.]