When In Doubt....Do Laundry

Yes, I've been woefully neglectful of this blog. Life got in the way of my blogging and personal goals. In fact I lost sight of having any personal goals whatsoever. Now I'm in a more reasonable place and have been anxious to return to both a personal life and this blog. So, let's get on, shall we.

Over the past several months I've had several competing priorities which culminated in total very little progress in anything. This morning I was thinking how when our lives are feeling out of control, our basic routines and chores can be quite grounding, bringing us back to basics and often having a calming effect if we let them. Although most of us regard laundry as a necessary evil of life, and I admit to experiencing this perspective, it can be an act of meditation, even a commune with nature.

A couple years ago I installed a retractable clothesline on the back of my house. I bought the clothesline at a garage sale for $5 (I had priced them much higher for a new one). My neighbors seemed intrigued by such a device and at a loss as to why I would choose to dry clothes on the line. They concluded that I was going "Green". Truth be told, this is how I grew up. Drying clothes on the line is how we lived, at least during the warmer months. Not only is it efficient and energy saving, but your clothes and linens smell outdoor fresh. Admittedly, I line dry several items in the house, certain delicates that I don't wish to share with my neighbor, or just in general during the colder months.

Doing laundry is a lot like breathing. It is a basic necessity and can serve as an act of grounding meditation. Not to mention it can get you outdoors if you use a clothesline. Next time you do the laundry try thinking of it as a gift you give to yourself and your family, the gift of clean clothes. No matter how crazy life gets, laundry is always there waiting for you.

Facing What Scares Me -- New Year's Resolutions

First let me say that I love the ritual associated with the New Year, the one of reflecting and goal setting. I love planning. However after years of planning, and very little action, I've come to associate New Year's resolutions with failure and doom. I admit to feeling ashamed about these past failures and have come to question my ability to follow through with them. Hence these past few years I've come to avoid this ritual.

I really dislike allowing fear to dictate my actions. So I'm going to give it another go. This time I'm focusing on weeks and months rather than a year. That way it's much easier for me to stay cognizant of what I want and what I need.

Kimberly Wilson is a gal who inspires people, me included. I went back to her December 2005 podcast
to find that inspiration as I consider my life's next steps. She advocates starting with reflection, then creating intention and following up with action.

Beginning with reflection, Kimberly asks that we consider these questions. I've included some of my answers to these questions.

What worked?

1. Courage, facing life issues that frightened me. The outcomes didn't always resolve as I would have liked,but I learned that the fear alone sucks up an incredible amount of energy.
2. Relaxing in the knowledge of what I can change and what I cannot.

What didn’t work?

1. Sporadic exercise.
2. Unlimited sweets.
3. Little time to myself (no vacation, trying to accommodate others' needs at the expense of my own).
4. Eating out frequently.
5. Eating mostly on pre-packaged foods when cooking at home.
6. Having the tv on frequently (ok, daily, even after canceling cable I've used dvds regularly just to have something one even though I may not be paying attention).
7. Procrastinating on household chores and work assignments.

What lessons did you learn?

1. What others think of me isn't nearly so important as what I think of myself.
2. Others don't think about me much. In fact, people generally think mostly of themselves.
3. Cooking whole foods at home is essential to my health.
4. I am addicted to refined sugar. If I don't control it; it controls me.
5. If I allow myself to backslide into old habits (e.g., sedentary lifestyle, not cooking, lack of balanced diet), I gain weight.
6. The physical sensation of hunger does not always indicate a hunger for food. It can also indicate a hunger for relaxation, stress release, rest, fulfillment, fun, etc. For those of us who have used eating as a coping mechanism, it can be quite easy to confuse the signals our body is sending. When you feel that pang, ask yourself what you are truly hungry for. The answer might surprise you.
7. I need to use a budget and check in with it on a weekly basis to meet my financial goals.
8. I need to keep updated to-do lists if I have any hope of accomplishing my goals at work, and perhaps even at home and my personal needs.
9. Feeling sorry for myself affords me absolutely no benefit. It neither moves me forward nor does it give me any solace.
10. My life is really quite full and enjoyable just as it is. I am enough, just as I am.

Kimberly further suggests asking yourself these questions.

How will you operate differently?
Who were the key players in your life?
Will this change? Do you want this to change?
What did you hope to do but didn’t or didn’t have the resources to do?
What would you like to do differently?

What have your reflections taught you about yourself?

Once you've finished reflecting, it's time to set intentions. More on that to come.

BlissChick’s January Question

Photo by BlissChick

BlissChick’s blog, for those of you who are unfamiliar with it, is beautiful, wise and insightful. She recently posted that she will provide a monthly question for which she wants her readers to write responses which will be posted on her site as actual blog entries (guidelines here). I don't plan to post my responses to these questions on her site, however I believe these questions are provocative and will help me on my path to my own bliss. The question for January is below as well as linked.

On an airplane, they remind you to give yourself
oxygen before worrying about a child or an elderly person.
If you can't breathe, you can't help anyone else.
How do you make sure to give yourself
necessary "oxygen" in your day to day life?

I took a couple days to consider BlissChick’s question. The only thing I can think of is coffee. It is the one thing I enjoy that I do daily, often multiple times per day. It’s my comfort. I just don’t think it’s enough and I don’t think it’s the healthiest habit/indulgence though I do generally drink half caf/decaf. Although I enjoy it and occasionally need it, I think it maybe a short-term oxygen replacement rather than the real thing.

I’ve been experiencing a malaise of sorts the past month. I think I’ve been running on empty for quite a while now and a month ago a situation at work left me feeling unsupported and questioning why I even try to improve things when others are being unaccountable. This occurred just before I left for my conference. Although I felt I couldn’t afford to be away from work, I was committed to the conference so I took the attitude of allowing myself to feel my feeling of discontent, go to the conference and allow the change of pace to restore me. Then the car crash occurred which resulted in another stress-induced adrenaline rush for the next week or two. Late last week I recognized how disconnected I was feeling which I chalk up to chronic stress and a lack of self-care. My main source of decompression (and this doesn’t in any way count as oxygen) is losing myself in movies or tv programs on dvd (preferably British mysteries). I’ve been doing this much more frequently lately than I prefer.

So one thing is clear, it’s time to place some focus on how to manifest more oxygen into my life. I need self care rituals which are nourishing, nurturing and supportive. Clearly there is more to come as I explore this topic.

A rant....

Yes, this is a rant. I'm not sure what came over me aside from feeling sick and tired of being overwhelmed. This post is actually a reprint of a comment I left on Marjorie’s blog at http://www.myinnerfrenchgirl.com/. To Marjorie I apologize for getting carried away. I'm not quite sure what happened, but I suspect it an act of decompression.

First, let me thank you for raising this issue, as it is very timely for me and is something I am struggling with. I'm in the process of implementing some changes in my life, one such change is utilizing Mareille Guiliano's advice from her books to change my eating habits. I'm a working single parent who rarely takes a lunch break, scarfs down breakfast, scarfs down lunch in the office sometimes while standing up and by evening is frequently too tired to do much more than snack....all. evening. long. I'm working towards cooking more (which I used to love) and taking time to just eat. My daughter even commented to me that she'd like us to have dinner at the table more.

I can't speak to other cultures or countries, but in my small Midwestern city, we are so busy to the point it interferes with community. We frequently don't know our neighbors, much less dine with them, because they too are so terribly busy going here, there and everywhere. My boss and I were lamenting the other week that both of our workloads are beyond reasonable, everyone wanting something done impossibly fast, so tasks get done quickly but frequently only to find out that they significantly lack quality because we are not allowed the luxury of time to do it right.

How did we lose our common sense? Why is it that we are so willing to throw away our personal desires, commitment to a job well-done in order to be viewed as a Team Player (the proverbial Yes Man or Woman)? It is all linked together...all links in a chain that may eventually be our undoing. It certainly has been my undoing in that it has stressed my body, my mental health and most certainly my emotional health. I think the difference with the US is that this sort of lifestyle is frequently glamorized and respected in a very odd and seductive way. Friends passing each other on the street saying, "Hi, how are you? Keeping busy?" as if being busy makes us worthwhile. Honestly, I am much more worthwhile when I'm not busy. I've experienced both and I say with the strongest conviction when I'm not busy, or at least in charge enough over my schedule to say no appropriately, I am physically healthier, far less stressed, happier, and much more pleasant to be around. Just ask my daughter, she'll tell ya!

Why Luxury? Why Less?

I suppose it’s time to explain this blog’s title/purpose. Although I don’t expect this blog will ever be read by anyone, this is a place for me to focus on how I live life and my desire to live a balanced life that is authentic to my heart and soul. Over the past few years I have been overwhelmed by so much that life has thrown at me. It’s so easy to just allow oneself to be controlled by the circumstances and goings on of life, to react to schedules, appointments, meetings, to-do lists and allow our desires to receive attention only in the event all else is accomplished, which it rarely ever is. Hence my heart and soul have become starved for the fulfillment they (I) crave.

Five years ago I was doing quite well, living my life in a fulfilling way, managing challenges as they came along. Then a few years ago began a period of incredible stress due to a move, work challenges, and most stressful of all, a custody battle for my daughter who, because of adjustment difficulties to her father’s remarriage and moving into her stepmother’s home, was experiencing extreme stress, depression and plummeting self-esteem while living with her father and step-mother, who in addition to the stressors above, did their best to undermine my role as mother.
My first blog I began a couple years ago because I was focused on achieving balance in my life. I was successful neither with the blog nor with achieving balance. Part was due to the circumstances of life; part due to a lack of commitment on my own behalf. Now that some of those major upheavals have resolved in my life, I feel better equipped to make healthful changes towards living a soul-fulfilling life. Or perhaps I should say that it has come to my attention that it is no longer something I can put off until tomorrow.

So, why luxury? Why the heck not!?! I deserve it. Oh I don’t mean spend oodles of moolah and the best of everything. I do mean filling my life with that which I truly love whether it be foods, furnishings, past-times, etc.

Why less? Because I have little moolah to go around. Because my home is cluttered with items that I either can’t wear, don’t use, don’t like, etc. Because too much of my life is spent on meaningless time drains like tv (got rid of cable earlier this year); excessive checking of email, both work and personal; errands for things I don’t need or certainly don’t need right then, wasting time in cyberspace at places that no longer fulfill me; and because I have allowed myself to gain a substantial amount of weight (30lbs or so) due to stress, thoughtless eating, emotional eating, and increased sedentary lifestyle. So, less will be more for me.

Now comes the "how". Well you didn't think I'd give up all my plans in one post, did you? The "how" is what this blog is about, that, and the motivation to keep me moving in the direction of liberation from old less than happy ways. However I will say that I believe to be successful, simplicity will be key. Starting small and keeping it simple will, hopefully, beckon progress.