Some Rambling Thoughts On Getting Things Done

In a perfect World, which I don’t live in, I would have something wise and Grasshopper-ish to add to this. So… living in this World, where oftentimes things are hurtling down the track at such breakneck speed that I run, duck, and cover almost out of habit, let me say only that along with the age-old wisdom I learned in Kindergarten, “when you hold hands with your partner don’t pick your nose,” Thich Nhat Hanh is a mighty wise dude.

In Module 36: Gentle Productivity of A Year With Myself, I was re-introduced to a few insights about Getting Things Done that, frankly, no longer even apply to me. And this is NOT BEcause I don’t live in the same World with other humans who are breathing in and out and living from experience to experience. It IS, however, BEcause I am less concerned with things getting “done” and more apt to shine my light onto the wonder of DOing things.

For instance, I recently started participating in what I am learning are called everything from memes and blog-hops to challenges and prompt-inspired events. Sometimes they are billed as parties. This is, frankly, Very Cool Beans for someone like me. I have always loved taking an idea, suggestion, or gentle nudge and running with it.

I Now have a growing group of people I’ve never met face-to-face who I am engaging with in a meaningful way and they are All Over This Planet!!! It’s NOT that this practise is new-to-me, but what is new is the underlying intention.

It seems that these folks also enJOY a gentle guideline and very specific window of opportunity. And they too have even MORE fun going off to visit and see what others have been up to. And leaving a comment or just an encouraging word. Golly what a difference THAT makes.

They are present or absent without story or excuses. They are full of information and willing to help and literally seem to step right through the Wildly Weird Wacky World called The Internet and sit BEside me right here in the Wee Cottage, guiding me along, encouraging me, and helping me find the questions I need to ask that I don’t know enough to know I need to ask.

This has BEcome my measure of productivity. And this is good. For me. For Now.

I loved the reminders and insights and great suggestions throughout Module 36. I enJOYed the Vision Interviews, in particular Lisa Baldwin’s “best advice to creative women who want to find a gentler path to getting great things done.”

She says, Listen to your self. Trust your own process, even when it’s weird. Be curious about your ways. And do everything you can to sculpt an environment that supports you and your work in the world.

So here’s what I see. Life is a Journey and there is NEVER EVER going to BE that ethereal roadside oasis where we get all of our buttons counted and are deemed “done.” Done isn’t the objective. DOing is. DOing with what brings ME [or YOU, or, hey, mayBE both of us!!! ;~D] JOY and a happy heart.

A Life BEwildering…

 

Module 35: The Flow  Why You Procrastinate and How to Stop It in A Year With Myself is a curiously inspiring module. Well, for me anyway. And inspiring is the right word for me to use here. Sometimes, perhaps due to the amount of time I spend living my own little Life out here on my own, I discover I’ve lost perspective on How Others Live.

I made up a “rule” for myself some years back which is: I won’t spend more time thinking or talking about something than it takes me to START IT, or even just DO IT. As a world-class worrier obsessed with recreating the past, this “rule” has given me the traction to stay in Right Now, get my eyes OFF that rearview mirror, and NOT imagine I have a crystal ball about what’s up ahead round that next bend…

It was insightful to read about the rituals, routines, and creative practises of the two instigators, Tia Sparkles and Cynthia Morris. It is refreshing and encouraging to see that their discoveries mirror my own in many ways. I was reminded that there are as many paths to live Life on, none really better or worse than another AS LONG AS THEY ARE WORKING FOR YOU…

In my Life I have pretty much eliminated the issue of procrastination. I stay in this day and this moment. Since letting go of my car in April, this has really made itself clear. So many things, having to BE mindful about HOW A) I am going to get there to DO them, and B) get back home again, quickly reveal their unnecessary-ness. Likewise, putting something OFF that needs to BE done Now is no longer a luxury I can afford.

The larger picture from this module is how I see Life and my place in it. There is Life and Currie’s Life. NOT necessarily intersecting. NOT always on the same page. I never realised how much I forced MY WAY onto Life [as well the people in mine]. When I “hit the wall” in late March of this year, when I was “out of schemes and solutions,” the idea popped into my mind about letting go of my car.

This was NOT even a consideration. NOT on my radar. Furthest thing from my mind… and then, in a blink, it was The Answer For ME At This Time. Everything, and I DO MEAN EVERYTHING shifted in that one moment. The way it unfolded, the things it made possible, and the gift it is to me, a gift that keeps on giving, these are things I never could have imagined part of Currie’s Life.

So… I was deliciously delighted by this week’s Venture Maps. Connecting the Dots really sings to me. In particular:

 Narrow thinking keeps people within the imaginary boundaries of the box and stuck dealing with the same old problems.

Creative thinking goes outside the imaginary boundaries of the box and discovers innovative ways of solving problems.

Are you faced with a lingering problem in your life or your business that you could solve by thinking and going outside your box?

I’ve found a way of living my Life that is way BEyond any box I have ever constructed round myself or found myself living in. It’s definitely in The Flow…

BUT...

A YEAR WITH MYSELF MODULE 34: MONEY MATTERS

This quote on page 3 from Brené Brown “had me” by the 7^th word…

Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy – the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.

A word I intend to use almost NEVER:

BUT…

A tiny word which takes what came BEfore it and strikes it out definitively.

Yet in the context of this Module of A Year With Myself, devoted to Money and the notions round Our Money Stories, Contexts, and richly layered MEANINGs, the word gains points and power from me.

I think that coming to understand our Money Story/Stories is essential work. In particular where it is nearly invisible background, like the noise electricity makes we don’t notice until there is a power outage. Still. Hollow.

It is safe enough for me to say that I’d never have got involved in A Year With Myself were I NOT ready, willing, and able to dive in and take Stuff on. Still, the topic of Money is so large, oozing its way into every nook and cranny of Life, it seems there is likely little headway to BE gained exploring it “with myself” alone.

BUT…

Here’s the thing: My money story is written, filed, and stored. My Money MATTERS, on the other hand, are what I write with each breath and every blink of My Right Now.

This year I have taken long and deep pauses to look and see what I think I see there, where I am looking. I’ve grown brave and embraced the risks involved with such introspection. I have stumbled, frequently…

BUT…

This Matter of Money matters to me Now in a far different way. Far FAR different.

Today I see money as a companion. I see how I misunderstood its purpose for BEing in my Life, how wildly wrong I was about it for nearly all of my Life. Yet it is still and always a companion for the Journey.

I agree that it is energy, that wealth is a state of mind, an attitude, and I am all about knowing this companion, but that is all that it is, a companion. It is NOT Me, it does NOT stand for Me, define Me, and it certainly does NOT speak for me.

I’m neither more nor less BEcause of my companion.

BUT…

It certainly is BEcause of ME.

Out of Focus

Module 33: Laser Focus: Learning to Focus on What Matters the Most

When I think about focus, I think of how the Very Best Most Wondrous Things in my Life have come when I stopped TRYING to make them happen. Trying to will them into BEing. Trying to BE Good Enough to finally deserve them, or their generic equivalent.

As someone who lives a lot in her head, I have had to learn to separate my automatic from my zoom focus. I’ve had to try an entirely different lens. I’ve sometimes even changed my camera.

When my 12-year relationship was rolling into its 14^th year I started to see something I’d completely missed and long misunderstood. Love is NOT meant to BE two people living apart. Love is NOT something to BE earned or deserved. And Love is definitely NOT about keeping score.

Love is patient. Love is kind. And OH!! YES!! Love does NOT envy. Or boast. It’s NOT proud and wait… oh-oh-no it’s NOT rude or self-seeking…

Ummmmmmm… How’d I miss ALL that?! Had I been living in a fantasy World???

Apparently so. You see I spent a good bit of my childhood separated from my one or both of my parents. When I BEcame a mother I A] didn’t think twice about taking OUR son 3000 miles away from HIS dad when we divorced; and B] didn’t catch on to the wrongness of then spending the bulk of my son’s childhood 3000 miles from HIM.

I can see how I got confused. I can even see how I may have totally BElieved that focusing on the quality versus the quantity of time shared with my own parents or my own child was the point. [but I gotta say, that quality sure wasn’t anything to BE excited about…ever]

It makes sense to me, Now, that I could BElieve my ex-partner and I would benefit from BEing apart, that we could “make it work” [even though it was clearly NOT working] and whatever benefits we were receiving surely weren’t DOing either of us any discernible good.

Back on point, however, I was looking at Laser Focus and that which really matters MOST to me. The fact that I still had some relationship with my parents growing up, and later, with my son as he grew up seemed enough. I mean, why should I expect anything MORE than enough?! And why, since apparently my ex-partner needed that first year, then one more year on her own, and our house wasn’t selling and well, I was okay on my own keeping myself preoccupied with, well… Why didn’t I SEE there was trouble, with a capital “T” and it wasn’t JUST in River City!!??

Today I see with that perfect focus: hindsight. I see my misunderstanding self DOing what she thought was “best” or “right” under the circumstances.

I see, NOW, that survival doesn’t equal enough.

I see it was my focus got in the way of what I could see.

Ohhhhhhh…

Navigating the Winds of Change

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. ~ Lao Tzu

Often I am struck by the utter simplicity of sensibility. It is like a waterfall that I didn't recognise as water, falling. This week’s Module in A Year With Myself is Winds of Change. In its pages and stories and reflections I saw very clearly that Change is a constant, for all humans, for Life, and yet we all seem to alternately resist and attempt to control it.

These last 6-7 years of my Life are all the proof I need to see that what Lao Tzu said is wisdom well-heeded. Everything that is How I Live/Who I Am has changed so completely that I have trouble remembering what/who/how I used to BE. I’m NOT embarrassed to say how much I resisted everything that changed. [BEcause it was only totally] Nor am I going to pretend this resistance wasn’t filled full and overflowing with sorrow.

I have a confession to make. I REALLY miss my son when he was about 0 to age 5. [he is going to BE 34 in October] I may have mentioned this BEfore. I keep several photos round about the Wee Cottage from Way Back Then, all of which give me the warm and fuzzy feeling that the baby, toddler, and wee boy is still Right Here, Right Now. Of course, I am NOT delusional [or only a little!!] I am only a mother. For years, decades Now, and the turn of a century, I have wished away Now dreaming I might, magically, BE able to spend a day with him at various ages and stages that came and went like the wind.

Of course this isn’t possible. And Today I know it. He’s grown up. He is an extraordinary man. He simply blows my mind. Life has naturally and spontaneously CHANGED him. It is DOing so, Right Now, as I am writing this, and whenever anyone else may BE reading it.

I think that learning to live Right Now is so much harder than it sounds. It requires exacting fine-motor skill at Letting Go. It demands that I enJOY Life and simultaneously let it GO while opening to What’s Up in the next Now. It means I must resist my natural resistance. It’s… complicated.

And yet it’s also like getting used to the pitch of the sea. At first it is a bit nauseating, then it gets a bit better, and eventually dry land seems, oddly, a bit tame.

Change is constant and even Change is always changing. It’s like dancing with the wind. And simply letting it lead.

Patience with small details… Rumi

I don’t recall where I read this bit of quote, but I DO know that it gives me that “structure, a trellis around which the grapevines of my work can grow…” that Molly Gordon speaks of in her Vision Interview with Cigdem Kobu in Module 31: Habits.

A Year With Myself www.ayearwithmyself.com is a whole lot about small details. For me anyway. It is about making myself aware of my habits and practises, BEing kind to/with myself when I discover I’m in my own way, and allowing for the very intimacy of BEing fully ME to envelope me, no apologising, justifying, or explaining required.

But what is most important and I think has been affirmed for me in this Module is that Habits Are Good. And, that as Aristotle said, We are what we repeatedly do, [emphasis mine].

I am one of those fortunate people who has a storehouse of experience to draw upon and launch from. I really enJOYed Tamara Holland’s Vision Interview where she says, Relying on experience, which is one of the greatest gifts of age. Experience has taught me that consistent effort over time will get you places and results that you would not get if you did not put in the effort. I realise she could have said, BECAUSE I SAID SO, but I liked the plug for age BEing experience, something I have been growing more aware of in recent years.

I am also noticing a trend these past several Modules where I feel affirmed and my Gratitude is taking regular flight. I felt I would always BE a perpetual mess/mass of contradictions and just that side of crazy, yet in the past year I have shifted into another perspective.

Here’s the thing: it is NOT so much my age that has given me experience to draw upon as it is many repetitions of experience that encourage me to more fully appreciate BEing the age I am and living a Life that is “just right” for ME.

I am on a mission of sorts this year and many times felt/feel I’ve taken a turn down a road that didn’t take me anywhere near where I was heading. Interesting scenery, meeting cool people, and discovering some great ideas aside, I haven’t yet found my “just right” road.

Yet BEing the operative word.

Sometimes I get worried and fret and dig up my poor little seedlings to see if they’ve put down any roots… YET!!! I am NOT a gardener, but I can say with certainty this is NOT a good habit for growing things. There is a whole arena of “small details” of which I am no part whatsoever.

On the other hand…

I am looking back Now on habits that I have built by simply DOing them, one day, and the next day, and I Now trust completely that they will “take root and grow” as long as I keep DOing my part.

I have also discovered that it’s NOT about some imagined RESULTS of these habits and practises but that it is who I am BEcoming by simply DOing them that it turns out I’m “after” on this “mission.”

It is a good realisation, however “late in the game” it’s coming to me, that what I am after is an ordinary Life in which I get to BE extraordinarily ME. NOT the bells or the whistles, just ME…

Sorrow Prepares You For Joy… Rumi

Me & My Shadow

The first 5 words of this quote from Rumi have given me insights that I have to say weren’t at all what I’d expected coming into this module. Such is Life, eh?!

Oftentimes, when I come to writing, I feel a large mountain of thoughtsandfeelings. I have to move them, or squeeze myself into the space they have NOT completely swallowed whole. It is big and it is difficult, and if I am honest I will say that mostly I work in the spaces BEtween them. And often with no more than a wish or a prayer.

As this week unfolded, and as I was absorbing and watching the volume of words and stories and discoveries in Module 30: Transformation of A Year With Myself www.ayearwithmyself.com, I have, as seems my way on this Journey, come face-to-face with someone I never imagined Me to BE.

Here’s the thing: I’ve heard so much about My Story that I really didn’t know whether My Story was even something that I knew, that I could, if necessary, pin down and put into words. TELL IT. Share it. Claim it as mine.

Of course, that is all preface and preparation and my ridiculous effort to control what YOU will think of ME when you KNOW, even a little bit, MY STORY. [it is truly humbling how many times I decide you won’t like it so I don’t risk telling it without all the appetizers to distract you from its essence]

While there is so much that is good and juicy in Module 30, I kept coming back to those 5 words: Sorrow prepares you for joy… BEcause I am still trying to make some sense of what has happened in my Life & World since the end of 2005. BEcause Sorrow has surrounded these years. BEcause that same Sorrow has made room for immense JOY.

Sometimes, especially in the past week, I get to stand at a bit of a distance from myself. To watch. To listen. To notice. To simply see Me in the World.

And some of those sometimes I get to see how upside down and inside out things are from my perspective.

I spend WAY TOO MUCH time reflecting, leafing through the pages, and reconsidering what is Past. Over. Done. I keep trying to follow the thread back to the BEginning of all this, to see in a moment of great AH-HAH how indeed Sorrow prepared me for JOY. And sometimes, though I really hope you won’t think even less of me for saying so, I actually think that other people are staring down at me DOing this. Are standing with arms crossed, eyes glaring, and foot tapping, wondering just how $^(#*@ -up I REALLY am.

Truth: No one’s watching. Nor waiting. Nor really all that interested. It’s just the Currie Show. Broadcasting Live 24-7-365/66. Like a closed circuit television. Or the snow after the channel shut down for the night. [remember that?!]

Well, mayBE I will amend that to no one ELSE. Really, even this post, like about 98% of what I write, something I DO a lot of, each and every day, will MayBE BE read by 3 people. Even if I were to post [read:blab] it on Facebook. Makes me ask: if I am blogging and no one is reading does it even matter?!

Back to my friend Rumi’s 5 words of wonder: Sorrow prepares you for joy… What does this mean, today, Right Now, today???

It means that Life is messy. Imperfect. Unable to BE contained, weighed, or measured on a closet door, marking parts of the Journey, that is “the story” [or mayBE My Story]. Wouldn’t have imagined that when this module landed in my emailbox last Monday.

It’s funny how each week of this year has revealed a ME to Me I hadn’t seen BEfore. In fact, the title, A Year With Myself, is so telling. At times I want there to BE more camaraderie and sharing of process, but that really wouldn’t BE A Year With MYself, would it?!

Whatever it is that is My Story, it’s only memory, and selective memory at that. VERY. I have stayed focused on some parts, certain characters and places and circumstances, but that is all “in my head” quite literally. Those people I stare at and the times we shared are over and done except for the Life I give them up in BEtween my ears. And I suppose too, in my heart.

The “sorrow” I have had, YES, it has prepared me for new experiences of JOY, new sorts of JOY. But I often feel much more like the Wizard of Oz, BEhind that curtain, nothing more than an ordinary and quite imperfect woman [in my case].

When I have an AH-HAH these days, it’s almost laughable. I remember BEing about 7 or 8 and insisting vocally and incessantly that my parents WATCH ME dive into the pool when we were visiting my grandparents. Now, though, I am my only audience. I am the one who can [and DOES, if I’m BEing honest] SEE and who CARES, always. As it should BE, mayBE…

My sorrow has often been realising and remembering that I am IT. So, too my JOY is in realising and remembering I am IT.