December 21 has come and gone. Somewhere about the 15th I knew that I wasn't going to have time to go through every single thing in my house to assess what is part of the future during the busyness of the holidays. In lieu of actually doing the manual sort, I made clear commitments to my intentions: what would and would not be part of my future. Among the commitments I made was to include beliefs, attitudes, and habits.
My day start with an email exchange with an old friend about refusing gifts to avoid the commercialization of Christmas. I started about 25 years ago by asking friends to give to charity in lieu of giving me gifts. That didn't fly at all. Now two and a half decades later, I continue to tell people that I don't need or want "stuff." I would be delighted, I tell them, with the gift of time: a walk, a cup of coffee, cooking together, or a movie and popcorn on the couch after the holidays have passed...or anything else that they'd like to do. I don't see nearly enough of my friends: spending time with them would be a gift I'd really like to receive...and it doesn't clutter my tiny apartment.
The paper today shared a practice of giving something to charity for everything that we receive. The example was that if you got a new pair of shoes, you had to give a pair away. Or, if a child got two toys, he/she had to give two toys away. If I do keep gifts, I think I will discipline myself to give away in replacement.
Perhaps it is because I've had the accumulation of gifts on my mind that this evening I had an aha! moment when I opened my medicine cabinet which is bulging at the seams. I surveyed all the stuff in it and realized that I hadn't bought most of it. Often when I buy cosmetics, I am gifted with a package of generous-sized samples of fairly expensive products. Some of them I do use, and I am grateful for travel-sized versions of products that I usually purchase for my travel bag. However, most of the products are not ones I will use.
As I assessed the contents of my cabinet this evening, I started pulling off all the stuff that I know I won't use, didn't want in the first place, and don't want. Just because someone gives me something doesn't mean I have to keep it. I haven't taken the time to do so on this eve of Christmas Eve to go through other cabinets and drawers, but I am certain that just following the rule that I don't have to keep gifts will liberate me from a heap of stuff.
Now, I realize that it will be much easier to throw away gifts from Estee Lauder or Clinique than gifts that were given to me by friends, but it isn't like I don't tell them every year that I don't want stuff. I already spotted homemade food gifts that don't particularly appeal to me. They will be a good place to start cleaning.
What joy this discovery has made me! Perhaps this is the gift that I really wanted for Christmas this year: spiritual housecleaning -- freedom to be relieved of the burden of unwanted stuff.
Friday, December 23, 2016
Friday, December 2, 2016
No! Not that!!
Sometime in 1993, I think it was, that I loaded the trunk of my car with five or six (maybe more) bankers boxes and drove two hours from Eugene to Portland, Oregon. I was delivering a professional treasure trove to a friend from graduate school.
Before going to graduate school I'd been a human resource (HR) director and employment manager. Actually, since I started working on my 16th birthday, I'd been working in HR. I developed skills and experience as a teenager that many of my peers wouldn't have for a decade. Because I had the experience, I ended up working my way through college in HR jobs. Then, that was where I got jobs afterward. I never even considered if I enjoyed these jobs, they were pretty good jobs in a small city that didn't have many good jobs. So, I did them.
Although I had the distinct intention when I returned to grad school that I would work in organization development (OD) when I finished, when I actually did finish and started my business, what I knew how to market was HR. So, not surprisingly, people hired me to do HR. Within a week of starting my business, I was booked three months in advance--what every new business owner hopes to happen. However, 18 months into the business, I realized that most of my projects had been the work I'd done before grad school and that I'd hoped to leave behind, rather than OD work that I had hoped to do.
I recall a crystallizing moment when I sat at my desk and knew I just couldn't/wouldn't do that work anymore.
In typical fashion, the Universe very shortly sent me two tests. I got two opportunities for work that were HR opportunities that I had just pledged not to do, and one of the projects was with a company I'd been trying to get work from since I'd hung out my shingle. I nicely declined, and I put each in touch with someone I knew who would do a good job for them.
Gulp! I hadn't turned work away before. Then, crickets....for about two weeks. I stood my ground and waited.
Finally, the calls started. Two nice OD jobs landed in the same week, and each would be four- to six-month assignments. I had turned the corner. During that quiet two weeks the temptation to go out and market had been great, but I stayed true to what my heart was telling me.
All that is the background for my trip to Portland. My friend did want to do HR consulting, but had only been working in the field since we graduated. I called her and said I wasn't going to take anymore HR projects. I had a lot of books, articles, and other resources. Did she want them? She was delighted. In that two-hour road trip, I separated from my HR umbilical cord.
Last Sunday afternoon I sat on the floor of my bedroom closet, trying to figure out what did and what did not feel like it was part of my future. I was able to throw away about a box and half of stuff that I would never have packed up if I'd had taken time to sort before packing. (See Endings/ Beginnings, 11/25/16.) There were things that left me stone cold, like the four-inch thick federal procurement manual. Definitely not feeling it in my future. And, there were a very few items, like the book Awakening the Heroes Within by Carol Pearson, that I would have loved to sit and devour in the moment. Definite save those.
In the zone somewhere between "definitely go" and "definitely stay," was a box into which I put the gray zone items. I just didn't know...or at least I didn't think I knew.
As gently as the moment 23 years ago, when I knew in an instant that I could no longer take HR projects, I knew "No! Not that!! None of it...." None of what was in the gray zone is part of my future. I will continue to go through boxes to make sure there are no "definitely stay" items, but I expect that almost none of it will stay.
I don't like to throw things away...especially books, but this time I have no one that I can pass my resources on to like I did my grad school friend. To just throw things away will really be an exercise for me, but I know there is no turning back. I have less clarity about what will be in my life after December 21 than I do what won't, but 23 years ago, I had to sit and wait for two weeks...and then I did know what I wanted my future would be.
For at least a year I've been saying that I felt pregnant. Now I've never been pregnant, so I am not sure how I know what the feels like, but it does feel like something is gestating deep inside me, and it wants to be born. I just don't know what.
I've written that our hearts are the compass to our lives and written on the backs for each of us is what is our true north--what is exactly right for us. The only thing I have clarity about right now is that I need to clear out the static which keeps me from hearing what is next.
Earlier this week I was doing an exercise in the workplace setting where a colleague and I were supposed to interview each other. The first question she asked was, "What are you hungry for?" I didn't think even a split second before saying, "Time, sleep, exercise, meditation..." Those were not thoughts; that was truth, completely skipping my brain and spewing forth without thought. I just knew. Like I just know what isn't in my future.
Every item on my "hungry" list was an activity that help me hear where the compass on the back side of my heart is pointing me--helping me connect with whatever is gestating.
I will continue cleaning out, even knowing that I will throw good stuff out to just remove it from my energy field. When December 21 arrives, I want to send a very clear message to my heart that I am getting rid of static. Then, I will bring in the static-clearing activities that I shared with my interview partner. That is my future.
Before going to graduate school I'd been a human resource (HR) director and employment manager. Actually, since I started working on my 16th birthday, I'd been working in HR. I developed skills and experience as a teenager that many of my peers wouldn't have for a decade. Because I had the experience, I ended up working my way through college in HR jobs. Then, that was where I got jobs afterward. I never even considered if I enjoyed these jobs, they were pretty good jobs in a small city that didn't have many good jobs. So, I did them.
Although I had the distinct intention when I returned to grad school that I would work in organization development (OD) when I finished, when I actually did finish and started my business, what I knew how to market was HR. So, not surprisingly, people hired me to do HR. Within a week of starting my business, I was booked three months in advance--what every new business owner hopes to happen. However, 18 months into the business, I realized that most of my projects had been the work I'd done before grad school and that I'd hoped to leave behind, rather than OD work that I had hoped to do.
I recall a crystallizing moment when I sat at my desk and knew I just couldn't/wouldn't do that work anymore.
In typical fashion, the Universe very shortly sent me two tests. I got two opportunities for work that were HR opportunities that I had just pledged not to do, and one of the projects was with a company I'd been trying to get work from since I'd hung out my shingle. I nicely declined, and I put each in touch with someone I knew who would do a good job for them.
Gulp! I hadn't turned work away before. Then, crickets....for about two weeks. I stood my ground and waited.
Finally, the calls started. Two nice OD jobs landed in the same week, and each would be four- to six-month assignments. I had turned the corner. During that quiet two weeks the temptation to go out and market had been great, but I stayed true to what my heart was telling me.
All that is the background for my trip to Portland. My friend did want to do HR consulting, but had only been working in the field since we graduated. I called her and said I wasn't going to take anymore HR projects. I had a lot of books, articles, and other resources. Did she want them? She was delighted. In that two-hour road trip, I separated from my HR umbilical cord.
Last Sunday afternoon I sat on the floor of my bedroom closet, trying to figure out what did and what did not feel like it was part of my future. I was able to throw away about a box and half of stuff that I would never have packed up if I'd had taken time to sort before packing. (See Endings/ Beginnings, 11/25/16.) There were things that left me stone cold, like the four-inch thick federal procurement manual. Definitely not feeling it in my future. And, there were a very few items, like the book Awakening the Heroes Within by Carol Pearson, that I would have loved to sit and devour in the moment. Definite save those.
In the zone somewhere between "definitely go" and "definitely stay," was a box into which I put the gray zone items. I just didn't know...or at least I didn't think I knew.
As gently as the moment 23 years ago, when I knew in an instant that I could no longer take HR projects, I knew "No! Not that!! None of it...." None of what was in the gray zone is part of my future. I will continue to go through boxes to make sure there are no "definitely stay" items, but I expect that almost none of it will stay.
I don't like to throw things away...especially books, but this time I have no one that I can pass my resources on to like I did my grad school friend. To just throw things away will really be an exercise for me, but I know there is no turning back. I have less clarity about what will be in my life after December 21 than I do what won't, but 23 years ago, I had to sit and wait for two weeks...and then I did know what I wanted my future would be.
For at least a year I've been saying that I felt pregnant. Now I've never been pregnant, so I am not sure how I know what the feels like, but it does feel like something is gestating deep inside me, and it wants to be born. I just don't know what.
I've written that our hearts are the compass to our lives and written on the backs for each of us is what is our true north--what is exactly right for us. The only thing I have clarity about right now is that I need to clear out the static which keeps me from hearing what is next.
Earlier this week I was doing an exercise in the workplace setting where a colleague and I were supposed to interview each other. The first question she asked was, "What are you hungry for?" I didn't think even a split second before saying, "Time, sleep, exercise, meditation..." Those were not thoughts; that was truth, completely skipping my brain and spewing forth without thought. I just knew. Like I just know what isn't in my future.
Every item on my "hungry" list was an activity that help me hear where the compass on the back side of my heart is pointing me--helping me connect with whatever is gestating.
I will continue cleaning out, even knowing that I will throw good stuff out to just remove it from my energy field. When December 21 arrives, I want to send a very clear message to my heart that I am getting rid of static. Then, I will bring in the static-clearing activities that I shared with my interview partner. That is my future.
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