Day 17 - Changing the right habits.

I'm doing that thing again where I see connections in seemingly-unrelated things.

For eleven or so years, I did a lot of trial and error to figure out what was causing some of my health problems, and how to fix it. Lots of doctors, lots of naturopaths, lots of getting very very frustrated, lots of searching the internet for ideas. As it turns out, my symptoms fit a lot of different conditions -- and all of those conditions have conflicting if not complete opposite ideas for how to reduce pain and flare-ups. There's the low acid diet, the IC (interstitial cystitis) diet, low oxalate diet, low glycemic diet, anti-candida diet... and if you compare them, foods that are definitely okay on one diet are absolutely not okay on another.

Since I didn't know what the cause was, I had no idea which direction to go. I'd try a diet associated with a condition I thought, maybe, I might have, I would feel like I was eating "healthier" and doing things "right," and I would end up hurting more. And then I would bang my head against the wall and wonder if I needed to try harder, give it longer to work, or go a different direction.

When I finally got a diagnosis, the best part of it was that I finally knew which diet to follow. As it turned out, I had been making things worse while trying to make things better.

When I was describing this to someone earlier today, I started seeing similarities in other situations.

How often do we tend to try and change the circumstances around us without really addressing why we're unhappy with our surroundings in the first place? What if all the stuff we try to change around us is the wrong stuff? How do you go about figuring out the right course of action for you, without knowing quite where the cause for discomfort really falls?

On the other hand, I did just talk yesterday about how trying the things that don't work is helpful, too.

Again, I guess it's all about balance. Trying things to improve your situation is always a good thing, even if it doesn't work the way you'd like. But keep digging -- sometimes finding out why you're having difficulty and addressing it can help you move forward more productively.

Day 16 - When things click.

I remember The Hippie Housewife mentioning once that she had been working with her son (who is just a few weeks younger than mine; we were pregnant together online!) on using scissors, and he just couldn't get it. She realized one day that they hadn't worked with them for a while, and felt like she should, so he could get some practice. The next time he used scissors, without having had any practice in between, it clicked; he was suddenly skilled with scissors, because now, he was ready.

I've experienced the same thing with my son, and knowing that this tends to be what happens, I work with it. Right now, it's drawing and writing. For the longest time I would see kids his age coloring pictures with different and appropriate colors, at least trying to stay in the lines, and my kid? One crayon, three scribbles, "I'm all done," and he'd move onto something else. He just didn't seem to care about it. His abundant (abundant, did I mention abundant) inquisitiveness and communication skills showed me that I had nothing to worry about as far as overall development; he just didn't really care about drawing or coloring. Until about two or three weeks ago. All of a sudden he's coloring (mostly) within the lines, showing an amazing attention to detail where color is concerned, you can recognize his name when he writes it, and he is asking to practice drawing and writing, all on his own. Something just finally clicked.

How does this factor in for adults?

I know similar things have happened to me, as well. I'll struggle with something for a while, seem to be beating my head against the wall, and then all of a sudden, it clicks, and magic starts to happen.

The tricky part is finding the line between exhausting yourself working on something that just doesn't seem to go anywhere, and sitting there doing nothing while you're waiting for the time to be right. It's possible that continuing to work on something you're having a hard time with will eventually pay off and the work itself will make things click; it's possible that waiting for the right time will actually help you find it, and once it's right, things will magically fall into place. I also think it's possible that the right combination of both attitudes could yield some great results -- that putting the time in and learning what doesn't work could be an important step of letting things work perfectly (give or take) when the time is right.

I'm not sure if a child who had never used scissors before could know exactly how to use them at "the right time" without the prior experience, or that my son could color Robin (as in Batman) with a red suit, yellow buttons, a green mask and a yellow cape if he'd never before held a crayon. But even with some prior practice, they weren't able to do it well until they were ready.

So how about this: if you're beating your head against the wall over something, relax, and know that when the time is right it will pay off. Conversely, if you're hesitant to take any first steps until the time is right, start trying something until then just to get some practice.

What examples do you have of things working out well when it was obviously the right time for it to happen?

Day 15 - Slogging through apathy.

So, let's say you've realized that things need to change in your life. You're not happy where things are. You have a vague concept of what could be different. You feel like you should be doing something else. You feel that you have every power within yourself to improve things. You might even have a vague concept of how to go about it -- what specifically you could be doing to improve yourself, your circumstances, your health, whatever you feel needs improving.

And then you don't.

It could be a fear of change; it could be a fear of improvement; it could be that sitting still and not doing any of it is just plain easier.

But you really, really want to! Kind of. You think.

Then what?

The approach I tend to take with clients who really-want-to-I-think, or who are just plain stuck on the couch, is to take baby steps. Really tiny baby steps. I even have to laugh at myself sometimes when I catch myself saying to a client, "What would you think about thinking about..." making some type of change in his/her life. If diving into something is the hard part right now, get used to the idea of it, before you dive in. Think about what your life could be like if you were to take some real steps toward your goal. Think about your life could be like when you accomplish your goal. Think about why you have this goal. Think and think and think, and plant the idea into your head so hard that you want it, and sitting on the couch isn't comfortable anymore. Build some internal momentum to help you get started. Then when you can't sit still on it any longer: go! You have the plan in mind; you've been thinking about where you need to start; you've been developing an idea of what you want this to look like. So go for it!

A lot of times, doing the mental prep work for making a change in your life and getting yourself to the place that you're really, really ready to do it, is a big part of the battle. Once you start taking the steps to make it happen, the momentum happens pretty much organically.

What do you want to do or change that you keep putting off, just because? Start thinking about it. Create a picture of it in your head. That's it. Then see what sort of life the picture takes on for itself.

Day 14 - Brain surgery on myself.

I'm calling Day 13 a wash and not double-posting today. Mostly because I am exhausted, and I'm just gonna go ahead and see that as a valid excuse :).

After weeks of insomnia, the opposite has been the case the past week or so and I seem to be barely able to stay awake past 9:30. (So, given that it is currently 9:29pm, you'll forgive me if this post trails off into random characters any minute now due to my falling asleep on the keyboard.)

This recent exhaustion and its marked contrast with my less-recent insomnia has me thinking. We seem to be in a society that thrives on encouraging productivity. In fact I feel absolutely safe in saying that I was much more productive when I wasn't able to sleep: wide awake, folding clothes or catching up on emails or blog posts I'd neglected the rest of the day. I may not have been sleeping, but I didn't feel so behind. Now that I'm getting tired earlier -- arguably at a normal time of the night -- I find myself struggling to keep up.

Am I expecting too much of myself? Even if it's things I want to do, with no tangible benefit other than "I just wanna," compared to things like, "Hey, we're all out of clean underwear," where do the priorities lie, and where ought the priorities lie? Productivity, me-time, or getting some dang sleep?

This is one of those things I'm great at when it comes to my clients. In fact, one was commenting recently that after a session she and I had where she, too, was stressing out over a mile-long to-do list and not enough time to complete it, she was able to take the "what absolutely has to get done or the world explodes?" approach to prioritizing that we'd done during the session, and apply it on a fairly regular basis when she feels herself feeling the same type of stress. I remember my own coach commenting one time that you "can't do brain surgery on yourself," and this is definitely one of those cases for me. I'm so glad I'm able to help my clients feel more empowered when it comes to their to-do lists, because, man, I can relate to stressing out over them...

Today is just one of those days. But that's okay, because I know that once the immediate STRESS of realizing how full my calendar is this week is able to wear off, I'll be able to look at everything I absolutely have to do and realize that for a lot of it, the world will not explode if it doesn't get done. (We currently have plenty of clean underwear. And even socks.) And I know that at the end of this very busy week, I'll feel very accomplished. So right now, I'll just remember to breathe.

What about you? How much stuff that absolutely has to get done or else is on your plate right now, stressing you out? And how much of that, actually, could be put off until you realistically have time to do it, without the world exploding?

Day 12 - Appreciation.

Occasionally my kid will have a day where nothing is good enough. It's not that he's necessarily unhappy with what he has, it's just that what he has isn't enough. He has a million Star Wars Legos, but not the new Boba Fett; the picture I colored for him was good, but he asked for the lava to be orange and part of it is red; we're on our way to get ice cream and he's holding a toy in each hand, but he needs a quarter for the vending machine; he's played way more video games than we normally allow but he didn't get to play this one. So we often find ourselves with the opportunity to teach him about appreciating what he does have.

But how many of us need that same reminder?

I'll admit it: I'm one of them. Lately, I've been keeping myself conscious of the feelings of "not enough" of something, and as soon as I feel it kicking in, I stop it, shift it, think of something I can appreciate instead, and move on with a smile and a contented sigh. I'll catch myself complaining that I don't have any free time, and remind myself that I'm choosing to spend my free time keeping up with chores rather than reading or writing, but I could just as easily make that choice differently; or, whining to myself that I don't have any friends I can talk to until I remember that, oh wait a minute, yes I do, I just don't talk to them often, so I take the opportunity to shoot a text to a friend; or, complaining that we always do what they want but never what I want, only to be met with the reminder that hey, I can ask to do things I want just as easily as they can.

How often do the choices we make keep us living with a limited idea of our resources? How easy could it be to reframe things, to remember all that we do have and to better utilize what we have rather than looking for more to fill a void? 

Right now, think of something you've been feeling a lack of. Time? (Time for what? What could be rearranged to give you time for that?) Money? (Money for what? What could be rearranged so you could use your money differently?) Friends? Love? Support? Attention?

What of that do you already have that you could appreciate a little more? Because the funny thing is, wishing you had more makes you more aware of what you don't have, yet appreciating what you do makes it easier to see more of what's already in front of you.

Day 11 - Soullessness forthcoming.

I don't even know how to explain this.

So, there's this movie, Manos: The Hands of Fate. In short, it is the worst movie ever. I only wish I were exaggerating. It really, really is. And it's not just bad like "wow, what a total waste of time" bad, or bad like "wow, this is so bad you can laugh at how bad it is" bad. It's the kind of bad that sucks out your soul moment by moment, makes time slow down so that the movie lasts seventeen hours instead of two, and by the end of it, you generally have lost the will to live.

MST3K did Manos and that doesn't even make it tolerable. If you're not familiar with MST3K, one man and a few robots he made are launched into space by a mad scientist who forces them to watch terrible movies, which they sit there making fun of. Typically this can turn a terrible movie into something hilarious with all the making-fun-of going on. In Manos, by the end of it, the dude and the robots are all crying, and the mad scientist and his assistant both independently apologize to them for sending them Manos, saying that they've gone too far.

I have seen it three times.

The first, I was in college, and I watched it with a group of nerd-friends.

The second, some other friends who'd seen it and I were talking about its awfulness, and Rich felt left out... so we watched it together to let Rich experience the horror.

Which he then felt the need to spread to his brother, which makes time number three.

What typically happens is that at the beginning of the movie, people are all geared up and "Ooh! A bad movie! This'll be awesome!" and excited. Then after a bit, the excitement not only fades but is gone completely, and posture goes from upright to a general slump. A while later, you just get fidgety and uncomfortable and want it to end, when will it end. Then by the end of the movie you feel dead inside, posture is something close to being a puddle of goo barely even maintaining a position on the furniture you're slumping so hard. In groups where we would tend to watch multiple movies in one night, by the end of Manos, you just.... can't. There is no desire to watch anything on the television again, ever. Period.

And we'll be watching it tonight with some newer friends, who are currently excited to see a how bad a movie it can be.

If I don't make it out alive, just know that I love you all.

Day 9 (late again) - Inspiring.

It always amazes me seeing how people respond to their circumstances -- how some folks react outrageously to things that seem small to others, how some respond calmly and see opportunities in things that would be devastating to others, how different people can respond to the same exact thing in completely different ways.

A friend of mine and former metaphysics teacher had his foot amputated last week. I visited him in the hospital yesterday, and in the face of something that others could find truly devastating, he was happy to feel better after the issues leading up to the amputations had been taken care of, discussing how interesting it was to observe the different personality types of the hospital staff and how their attitude affects their work, and curious what type of career he may go towards next, since he had, until now, been in construction.

In the face of losing a foot and part of his leg, in place of pain and loss he was talking about change, and how this can help him better help others.

It's all in how you see things, I suppose. I like his way. And I wish him speedy healing, and an exciting transition into the rest of his life.