I'm certainly in an interesting time. I think part of what is going on is a normal decompression cycle after working too much. But part of it is new. Part of it has to do with the new push and the new direction my business is taking. Because my business is changing, I'm changing. The business and personal changes are hard to separate, but clearly these changes tilt towards the business side.
I am hungry for changes in my personal life as well. I had been doing so well giving myself the first hour of each day. But that slipped after a while into giving myself permission to get an extra hour of sleep because that is what I wanted and needed most. I want that time back. I don't care if I decide to sleep in -- I still want the first hour for myself no matter what time that is. Things are not chaotic in my life, yet, but there are things that need attention. Things I need to take care of before my life begins to get chaotic. The fact that I have unopened mail and unfiled paperwork says it all. I'm also going to return to my Friday rule, that Friday I work for myself. It will be a challenge to implement this, but I'm going to do it this week. Once I get into the habit, it will be easy, and I will see the benefits of this diverted focus of energy building in a big way.
I'm really very happy to make these changes. I'm really looking forward to finding a new center of balance in my life so that my things are looked after as well as everyone else's interests. It lets me life the life I want to live, where my priorities rule my time schedule and not just what is billable gets priority billing. I want top billing in my own life. I want to choose to work on all sorts of things, but I decide and I take care of my wide range of interests, not just who will pay for my time. Isn't time my most precious commodity? Isn't the quality of life, the richness of living a daily life that addresses personal and professional, activity and rest, inner journey and outer journey... aren't these the values my heart sings about and that make sense to my head? It may be a simple credo to follow, but it is not easy to implement and keep in balance. I'm determined to find my center of balance for now between these duality points, and continue to adjust as the demands and interests of my life change.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Talking in Context
I just took a few minutes to read some of the recent entries here. I wanted to get a sense of perspective on this entry. What have I been writing about? And because I haven't been here frequently, what has driven me here?
I am shocked to see that it has been talking and listening. Mostly my talking and someone else's listening.
This is a bigger deal than I had realized. I'm going to chew on this idea today and see what I learn.
I am shocked to see that it has been talking and listening. Mostly my talking and someone else's listening.
This is a bigger deal than I had realized. I'm going to chew on this idea today and see what I learn.
Emptying the Gaps
It has been an interesting few months. I've gotten more done, seen more dreams realized, and had more projects going at the same time than any other time in my life. The cost of this uberproductivity? Sleep. The ability to fall asleep, to be more specific. Once I'm asleep, I usually can stay asleep until I'm rested, except for the fact that I've set an alarm to keep myself at least close to my normal working schedule. Which means most days, I get between 3 and 5 hours of sleep, not nearly enough for days and weeks at a time.
I realized this morning that my uberproductivity has shoehorned productive time into all of the normal gaps in my day, from the time I wake up until I'm laying in bed to fall asleep, with a pen in my hand while I envision the future I want to create for myself with the DVD of The Secret playing in the background. What ever happened to just going to bed in the dark without any noise in the background?
Somehow, I've lost the gaps in my timeline. They've been filled in, mostly I think through the 1) excitement of what is going on, and 2) the stress of so much going on has pushed me to find more time to address things. But it isn't good. The gaps are also essential to living my life. The gaps are where I just hang out with myself, where I face the void, and where I anchor myself in the stillness of everything greater than myself.
I used to keep myself frenetically busy because I couldn't endure the gaps and the stillness. Over the years, I've embraced the gaps and found myself in the stillness. They have been vital parts of my life and awareness. They have been the places next to my places for reflection. I sit in stillness and then emerge to reflect on my life, my thoughts, my journey. But now the gaps are filled, flooded with words and thoughts and motion that overflows from my cup. But not the good kind of overflowing, the kind that comes naturally when I tap into a spring of life-giving energy. No, this is more like a clogged sink that fills up and overflows onto the floor. It's not caused by tapping into a source, it's caused by the blockage of a flow. It's a negative direction flow instead of a positive direction flow. It's a symptom of a problem that needs to be fixed.
I need to drain the gaps. But more than that, I realized yesterday that I've been filling the space around me with excess words. In a fews days time, two different people told me that I've been quite talkative. Well, of course I have been talkative. My life is very quiet, no one around to listen to me, and the world has been dropping the most amazing things at my feet. I've gotten ideas for new things I want, and they have started showing up fast and thick. It would seem miraculous, except that I know exactly what caused this to happen. The only miracle is that I've somehow managed to get out of my own way so these things could come straight to me instead of hovering around me for a time until I remember to let them in.
When the second person told me I was talkative, I realized I needed to get quiet again. Not because I need to conform to some behavior standard imposed on my from the outside, but because I had failed to observe my behavior myself. I have realized that I've been talking more than usual before this, and I understood what was going on, and I thought it was just a phase so I didn't think any more about it. But now I see that it is a sign of something out of balance in my world. I'm excited. I'm happy. I have so many new things going on in my life. It's not like I need to talk about what is going on to process it for myself, or to see it clearly. I'm wanting so much to share the new and overflowing joys of my life with the people around me.
It's really too bad that I don't have a better support system in place around me yet. I would love to have people who know what is up with me, people who can hear a sentence or two and be up-to-speed on what is going on with me. That is the challenge of living alone and working alone. No one knows what is going on with me, and the stories lately are so big and so plentiful, it takes more words to share them. Too bad no one really wants to hear them. That is my conclusion. These people are busy with their own lives and stories and just don't have room to take mine in, or the time to hear me lay them down.
Yesterday, I came to the conclusion that I need to return to this journal for a time to help myself process the events of my life. I need a place to reflect on what is happening. Perhaps then I will not have the same desire to tell the world about my life, and if I do have some desire, perhaps having reflected on it, I can tell a more succint and elegant story than I can without the reflection. At any rate, the solution seems to be for me to sit with myself and my thoughts and process them alone. The usual. Isn't this the path of the mystic? Isn't this the reality of every person's journey -- we all travel alone even if we don't realize it. Isn't this the way I've lived my life for decades? I'm not sure why I thought this thing had changed. I have the tools I need, I understand what is happening, and I can manage this process.
Expect to hear more from me.
I realized this morning that my uberproductivity has shoehorned productive time into all of the normal gaps in my day, from the time I wake up until I'm laying in bed to fall asleep, with a pen in my hand while I envision the future I want to create for myself with the DVD of The Secret playing in the background. What ever happened to just going to bed in the dark without any noise in the background?
Somehow, I've lost the gaps in my timeline. They've been filled in, mostly I think through the 1) excitement of what is going on, and 2) the stress of so much going on has pushed me to find more time to address things. But it isn't good. The gaps are also essential to living my life. The gaps are where I just hang out with myself, where I face the void, and where I anchor myself in the stillness of everything greater than myself.
I used to keep myself frenetically busy because I couldn't endure the gaps and the stillness. Over the years, I've embraced the gaps and found myself in the stillness. They have been vital parts of my life and awareness. They have been the places next to my places for reflection. I sit in stillness and then emerge to reflect on my life, my thoughts, my journey. But now the gaps are filled, flooded with words and thoughts and motion that overflows from my cup. But not the good kind of overflowing, the kind that comes naturally when I tap into a spring of life-giving energy. No, this is more like a clogged sink that fills up and overflows onto the floor. It's not caused by tapping into a source, it's caused by the blockage of a flow. It's a negative direction flow instead of a positive direction flow. It's a symptom of a problem that needs to be fixed.
I need to drain the gaps. But more than that, I realized yesterday that I've been filling the space around me with excess words. In a fews days time, two different people told me that I've been quite talkative. Well, of course I have been talkative. My life is very quiet, no one around to listen to me, and the world has been dropping the most amazing things at my feet. I've gotten ideas for new things I want, and they have started showing up fast and thick. It would seem miraculous, except that I know exactly what caused this to happen. The only miracle is that I've somehow managed to get out of my own way so these things could come straight to me instead of hovering around me for a time until I remember to let them in.
When the second person told me I was talkative, I realized I needed to get quiet again. Not because I need to conform to some behavior standard imposed on my from the outside, but because I had failed to observe my behavior myself. I have realized that I've been talking more than usual before this, and I understood what was going on, and I thought it was just a phase so I didn't think any more about it. But now I see that it is a sign of something out of balance in my world. I'm excited. I'm happy. I have so many new things going on in my life. It's not like I need to talk about what is going on to process it for myself, or to see it clearly. I'm wanting so much to share the new and overflowing joys of my life with the people around me.
It's really too bad that I don't have a better support system in place around me yet. I would love to have people who know what is up with me, people who can hear a sentence or two and be up-to-speed on what is going on with me. That is the challenge of living alone and working alone. No one knows what is going on with me, and the stories lately are so big and so plentiful, it takes more words to share them. Too bad no one really wants to hear them. That is my conclusion. These people are busy with their own lives and stories and just don't have room to take mine in, or the time to hear me lay them down.
Yesterday, I came to the conclusion that I need to return to this journal for a time to help myself process the events of my life. I need a place to reflect on what is happening. Perhaps then I will not have the same desire to tell the world about my life, and if I do have some desire, perhaps having reflected on it, I can tell a more succint and elegant story than I can without the reflection. At any rate, the solution seems to be for me to sit with myself and my thoughts and process them alone. The usual. Isn't this the path of the mystic? Isn't this the reality of every person's journey -- we all travel alone even if we don't realize it. Isn't this the way I've lived my life for decades? I'm not sure why I thought this thing had changed. I have the tools I need, I understand what is happening, and I can manage this process.
Expect to hear more from me.
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