This or That?

A number of years ago home chef and writer Julie Powell embarked on a mission that may be the secret dream of many serious hobby cooks.  She committed to cooking her way through every recipe in Julia Child's masterpiece, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, during the course of a single year and blogging about it each day.  She accomplished this while holding down a day job. She did it, and I continue to be amazed.

When I heard about the project, I was instantly envious, and almost as quickly, I called back any jealousy.  I have neither the budget nor enough friends to help me eat my way through all that food, and quite honestly, I am not sure I'd like to eat some of it. Think eel or three different liver dishes for starters. But what fun to pick and choose and make all the ones I'd like to eat.

I've written many times in this blog about my passion for cooking, and just over the last few months (maybe since I started sorting) it has occurred to me that while I like to cook, what I love is baking. Since I have both a gluten intolerance and very high quality standards, making baked items that measure up on both those qualifications has been a 20-year challenge for me.  I get my feelings hurt when I am asked to bring a salad or vegetables to a potluck instead of one of my from-the-oven masterpieces.  (Well, I think they are masterpieces, but usually there are a few versions before perfection.)

Recently, on a tip from a coworker, I discovered "The Great American Baking Show."  By the time I found the show, contestants were entering quarter-finals.  I binge-watched earlier episodes to catch up.  As I watched the series, it occurred to me that I make recipes.  I do alter them, sometimes almost beyond the imagination of the original. I do have to play with the options for substituting gluten-free ingredients. What occurred to me as I watched these "home bakers" is what they have that I don't: a mastery of the techniques that are involved.  As the champion was named on Thursday, I remembered the Julie and Julia project, and I wanted to jump into an apron and start a parallel project trying recipes that would help me learn the techniques of baking.

My invigorated desire to master the techniques of baking is occurring at the time I have three "conflicting" projects going on in my life.  First, I am sorting things that no longer fit with my life.  I now enter my third week of that project, and all I've thrown away are unsolicited make-up gifts and shopping bags. (I have almost put the online version of The Game Called Life to bed, but it has bounced back in review.) If this is really a priority, it seems I should have accomplished more by now. In this sorting project I am supposed to discover where I can work with passion in my encore career.

Second, I have my perpetual "get sugar out of my diet" project, which is more closely aligned with the third project.  Finally, this week I embarked on the addition of a health coaching certificate to my other coaching certifications.  Of course, we started with nutrition, which confirmed getting sugar, as well as refined ingredients that make baked goods, well, baked goods, out of my diet is a priority.

Is it this or that? Am I going to be a baker and go on a whirlwind of learning baking techniques or am I going to be a health coach who shuns the stuff of baked goods?  Oh, do I really have to decide?

I find that the Universe is quite generous in providing us with support to learn spiritual lessons when we are ready to learn them.  The Buddhist "when the student is ready, the teacher will appear" thing comes to mind.  In Rabbi Kula's Yearnings, which I used to escort me into my meditation retreat the first week of January, he explains the importance of getting away from dualities: trying to figure out which thing is true, when in likelihood, there is some truth in both.  My next read was actually a reread of Caroline Myss's The Anatomy of the Spirit.  She makes a similar case with different language.

Last week I heard an NPR interview with a psychologist who talked about our tendency as humans to classify decisions into either/or.  Our basic survival is based on determining, "Is this a fight or flight situation?"  Over many years of working with executives and executive teams, I have found that as soon as they get two options, they want to decide which is the best.  When I ask them about other options, they often come up with several and often better ones than those they started to choose between.

Faced with the conundrum, "Am I going to be a baker and go on a whirlwind of learning baking techniques or am I going to be a health coach who shuns the stuff of baked goods?" I think the answer is "yes."  I am going to try to take the advice of the spiritual teachers and avoid the tendency to force a decision between two options and stay with the ambiguity.  God is, after all, in some way referred to as mystery in most religions.  I'm going to hang with God in the mystery for a bit longer.

My real challenge will be how to stay true to all of my intentions while I linger in the ambiguity.  At the core of our intentions are the ones in our hearts--the things that flip our switches and bring us to life.  To eliminate either my passion for healthy food or the parallel one for baking would be untrue to my heart.  To neglect the cleaning out process would fall short of my intention for this transition period.

I am still wrestling with how to be true to myself in the sugar challenge, since I know enough about baking techniques to know that at least a small amount of sugar is essential to the chemistry of baking.  No sugar, no rising. My experimentation with natural sweeteners has been disappointing at best. Maybe the real challenge here is to grow in consciousness about sugar so that I am in control of how I handle it rather than letting it control me.  Now that is a real mystery to me.

Life is full of "this or that?" puzzles. For those reading this in the U.S. right now, you are aware that there has been a growing political divide in this country for 20 years. The truth is perceived as "my view, beliefs, or side," and the non-truth is "the other's view, beliefs, or side." Staying open and conscious through the dichotomies of life provides the intention muscle and spiritual discipline to grow beyond a simple choice and into a Higher Truth in which there is almost always veracity in both.

Digital Detox

There is an expression, maybe from the I Ching, "when the student is ready the teacher will appear." My last post on "Digital Addiction" was hardly stalled in my iPhone, when it seemed that everywhere I turned, I was encountering something about the deleterious effects of digital addiction.  I hadn't even realized that there even was such a thing as digital addiction until about six weeks ago.  Now I am bumping into it everywhere.

First, though, I owe a report about how well I did, or more precisely didn't do, during my effort to walk away from my devices for one day.  I found that every few minutes I would start to do something that involved one or another device. I would catch myself at least half the time, but that suggests that half of the time I mindlessly turned to the radio, iPhone, notebook, or television.  Most of the time, I noticed within seconds, but at 5 p.m., I abandoned the experiment and decided that I would wait until my staycation.  My little experiment has been a good lesson in not being present.

I am now six days into my annual vacation at home, and I realized two things going into my leave. First, I really needed to be off devices more. Second, going cold turkey was not going to work for me since I did want to arrange lunches, coffee, or drinks and other outings with friends, and doing so would require one or more of my devices. So, rather than shutting down all devices for 10 days, I took an approach we might call mini-withdrawals.

With my mini-withdrawals, I have brought more conscious to my use of electronics. That allowed me to actually choose when I wanted/needed to use by devices and be aware of how much of the time I was turning to them out of pure habit...and addiction.  It has also allowed me to choose more consciously what I will watch or listen to.  I quickly discovered that I often had something mindless on in the background just to fill space rather than because I really wanted to watch or listen.

How has this actually worked? When I was cooking for a dinner party Friday night and Saturday, I normally have had NPR, a podcast, Spanish lesson, or audiobook in the background.  I made the decision to cook in silence.  My cooking became a meditation.  I was able to really be present. My guests arrived and I was relaxed and present to them.

This evening I walked about 20 minutes to the hardware store to pick up some things, and again normally, I would have been listening to something.  I made the conscious decision to just leave the iPhone in the charger.  I ended up having a leisurely shopping trip during which I was able to just enjoy looking...and a little buying.

I took a book to read on my commute to a lunchtime concert at the Library of Congress rather than my usual practice of catching up with email and reading The Washington Post on my phone, while listening to podcasts or TuneIn Radio.  I was enjoying the book so much that I just left my phone in my purse until I got home, and when I was present, I decided to have a lingering lunch rather than putting myself on autopilot and jumping on the Metro to return home.

When sitting by the pool yesterday, I didn't check anything on my iPhone, but I do confess to loving the "Ocean Waves" soundtrack in the background while I read.  I was able to actually get into the book I was reading and with which I had been struggling for two weeks while reading a couple paragraphs before checking some device.

While I do find the level of my descension into this addiction distressing, given the number of places I've been bumping into media coverage of the problem, I am not alone.  Last night on the shuttle from the Metro to the Kennedy Center, where we can safely assume everyone is going to enjoy a live performance, a woman was totally freaking out that she'd forgotten her iPhone.  I was glad that I'd decided to turn mine off until I was headed home.  It ended up that I was so relaxed from not looking all evening, that I didn't even look at the phone until I was home.

In the last two weeks, I've discovered a Digital Detox Boot Camp in the jungles of Costa Rica, where they take people's devices and lock them up for a week, while providing lots of physical activity to distract participants during withdrawal.  In the coverage about the event, I learned that the average American looks as his/her smartphone every 4 minutes!  Given that I do often go hours without looking at mine, I felt some righteous relief with that data point.

During a conference that I attended last week, I learned that there is actually a name for what happens to people who spend too much time on their devices: Cognitive Capacity Overload.  The symptoms are the same as ADHD--Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, including inability to focus and really be present to what one is doing.

Just this evening on a Freakonomics Podcast--yes, I am still listening, but I have been much more judicious and have deleted about 3/4 of the podcasts to which I would normally have listened. Anyway, the podcast was exploring the health concerns related to lack of sleep, and you guessed, it all of our screens contribute to difficulty falling asleep and the quality of sleep once we do.

I love my iPhone, and it does provide me with efficiencies and effectiveness that I otherwise couldn't enjoy.  (Thank you, Google Maps.) I am sure even those who will sojourn to Costa Rica for serious cold turkey withdrawal will pick their devices up again when they return. However, I have learned enough from my little experiment into mini-withdrawals to know that I will do them more frequently. The quality of my relaxation and the relaxation in my work is dramatically improved.  And, I am able to embrace that most difficult of spiritual lessons: being present...in the present.

I Can Choose

Day Two of my personal introspection retreat came at the end of a tough night.  I had a very hard time falling asleep, and then I tossed and turned for what seemed like most of the night.  Drifting in and out of consciousness, peppered with several bathroom stops, I struggled.  Lying on the cusp between consciousness and sleep was a big rock I'd turned over during Day One: happiness.  (For more on big rocks, see yesterday's post.)

In the stack of books on my nightstand for months (maybe years) has been Authentic Happiness by Martin E. P. Seligman, Ph.D.  When I finished two others from the stack yesterday, Authentic Happiness awaited me.  Instinctively, I knew that this was a big rock.  I knew this, in part, because I'd read the book before.  I also knew it because I've known I wasn't really happy for a long time.

For most of the last 35 years, I've thought I was a happy person, despite what the Universe threw on my path, and it has thrown a lot.  But, somewhere along the way, something shifted in me.  I couldn't say exactly when it happened or why, and while I've certainly had moments of pure bliss (mostly on the dance floor,) happiness has drifted further from my consciousness.

Not long before going to bed last night, I took a short assessment of my happiness at the start of the book.  What I learned is not that I am unhappy much: I'm not.  Perhaps more distressing to me is that I spend an overwhelming percentage of my time in "neutral"--not happy and not unhappy.  The scripture about spewing lukewarm water out of our mouths came to my mind.  Neutral?  Is that the best I can do?  Neutral is certainly the lukewarm water of happiness.

So I slept.  More accurately, I tried to sleep.  The thought of being neutral passed in and out of my consciousness.  Unhappines is unpleasant enough to force action--to make me change something in my life.  But neutral isn't uncomfortable enough to motivate movement.  I just steep in it.

Well, mostly I steep in it.  Over the last 12 to 18 months, I've been increasingly distressed with my work situation.  I could say that has been about the people I work with, and to a significant extent that would be true.  Yet, in my heart of hearts I have known there was more at work than unpleasant people who intentionally attempt to make my life miserable, which they do.

I've been bored.  Is that neutral?  I think so.  I've had conversations with my boss and with her boss.  I have so much more ability and experience.  I could be making a much greater contribution.  They've pretty much said, "Making a greater contribution not your job here.  Do your job."

Last night as I started my reread of Authentic Happiness, I got it.  Now, since I know I've read all or at least most of this book before, I must have known what Seligman describes as "the good life," but I certainly couldn't have told you yesterday morning what it was.  He describes the good life as "using your signature strengths every day to produce authentic happiness and abundant gratification."

Signature strengths are those things we are good at that are "deeply characteristic of us," and mine are all the things that I am not using at work.  My bosses have been kind in telling me what an excellent job I do, and I was recently recognized by a regional professional organization for one effort.  But, being "excellent" at what I do is another signature strength: whatever I am given, I choose to do it well.

That a large percentage of my life in neutral is a function of not being able to utilize my signature strengths, or if I do, only for short periods and not as a part of a unified whole piece of work.  It should not come as a surprise then that I've been job hunting pretty seriously almost since the earliest of my conversations about my work.  Tomorrow I have a job interview.  Understanding that using my signature strengths will make it much easier to decide whether this is a job I want.

There's another thing about being on neutral: it seems to have robbed me of my life force. Furthermore, it has robbed me of energy to even exercise my signature strengths when I am not at work. I come home exhausted and drop on the couch, mindlessly watching TV and often falling asleep. Writing is one of my signature strengths, and more often than not for most of a year, I've neglected writing for this blog. For years, I was called "Little Mary Sunshine" by friends and coworkers.  Mary hasn't been seen for a long while either.  Neutral has pervaded every corner of my life.

More important, though, is the truth that floated in during my first meditation this morning: "I choose."  Each of my first two books included significant portions about being of choice, giving credence to the old saw that we write what we need to know.  I've chosen to be in a job that doesn't allow me to use my signature strengths for over five years.  My choice--a choice driven not by my passions or what will make me happy, but a choice driven by my financial planner. Really?  I've let her decision position me for a neutral life.

But there is more to "I choose" than the place I hang my hat for 50-60 hours per week.  If I am going to go there and give my life energy to my agency, then I need to choose to be happy about it. The choice about not writing has been mine; I have no one else to blame that on.  Life is too short to be on neutral most of the time. It is time for me to own responsibility for my happiness.

I have no idea if I will be offered the job for which I will interview tomorrow, and I have no idea whether I will accept it, if I am.  What I do know for certain is that wherever I am, whatever work I choose to do, I will choose to be happy.

Choosing our Diseases

Yesterday I wrote about mindfulness with an emphasis on mindfulness and eating.  Last evening during the local PBS fundraiser, I watched "Protect Your Memory" with Dr. Neal Barnard.  Dr. Barnard inherited the gene that predisposes him to Alzheimer's disease, so his interest in researching what people can do to avoid or at least delay memory loss is a personal one.  He described a few simple steps to eating, exercise, sleep, and other means to delay this horrible disease.

My own family medical history predisposes me to coronary-artery disease and diabetes. A recent public service advertisement campaign has made me aware the women are more likely to have heart attacks, increasing the attention I should give to the coronary-artery disease.  It works out that many of the things that one does to avoid Alzheimer's are the same as those to prevent my genetic challenges.

Many years ago, I attended a "Mind-Body Medicine" conference at Duke University Medical School, one of two or three pioneering research universities to explore out ability to control our physical fates.  It has been way too long for me to remember who the speaker was, but I distinctly recall a description of the impact our DNA has on our long-term health.  "Think about DNA," he said, "as providing us a door to a disease.  Our lifestyle choices determine whether we open the door."

The decision, made by my parents when I was 10 and my brother was 7 to shift us to a low-fat diet to reduce our likelihood of opening the door to coronary-artery disease, was a fortunate one.  My decision as an adult to continue to reduce my intake of "bad fats" while increasing consumption of "good fats" has continued to help me avoid opening that door.  My decision in my early 30s to begin running daily and to continue exercising regularly continues to support that decision.  Those two decisions have combined to keep my weight in the healthy range, which reduces the likelihood that I will get diabetes.  According to Dr. Barnard, those decisions have had the additional benefit of protecting my memory.

By contrast, the treadmill of working long hours in recent years which seems always to race faster has often precluded my daily exercise, With that said, even in bad weeks, I usually get my heart rate up for at least 30 minutes two or three times a week.  It ends up that my decision to get rid of my car in 2010 and depend on my feet, a decision originally made to protect the environment, has been a good one for these various health challenges as well.

Most often, when I've rounded the corner on exercise, it has been because I want to make sure my customers are well served.  However, I am realizing that perhaps I've been making a false choice about exercising.  I've framed the decision as "Do I serve my customers well?" or "Do I not serve my customers well?"  With my increased mindfulness, I now see that the real choice is "Do I go beyond reason on customer service?" or "Do I choose to keep the doors to my DNA closed so I may enjoy long-term health?" Although I tend not to be motivated much by money, there may have been days when I made the decision between "Do I skip exercise to put in the 10th or 12th hour of the day to get a miniscule bonus at the end of the year?" or "Do I skip the bonus and choose health?" Those are very different choices.

At a regular meeting of people interested in mind-body medicine at Duke in the late 1990s, one of the Kaisers of Kaiser Family Foundation spoke about the next 20-25 years in medicine.  What he predicted then has now significantly come to pass in the 15 years since he spoke.  He said that by 2020-2025 we would understand the causes of most debilitating health challenges, and we would hold the ability to determine our health in our own hands.

As I've just discussed, we now know how to prevent or delay coronary-artery disease, Alzheimer's, and diabetes.  In the years since, we've learned to avoid if not prevent certain kinds of cancers. I don't think we've got to the point the speaker described when we can avoid diseases altogether, but then again, it isn't yet 2020-2025. I would add to his comments that we not only hold or will soon hold the ability to determine our health in our hands, but we also hold that fate in our consciousness.

Which brings us back to intention and mindfulness.  Will we bring the intention to have health to life by being mindful about the choices that we make moment by moment?  I would like to think that I could and would.  I know I have the intention.  Yet intention without the mindfulness to choose in each moment to support that intention is empty.  I certainly have discovered that my willingness to be honest with myself about the choices I am actually making to close the door on disease and to open the door to a long and healthy life with support my intention.

Feelin' Alive

An odd thing happened about 8 p.m. last evening: I started to feel.  Not emotionally; I seem to do well with that.  What I started to feel was alive. 

I had pledged for months that, as soon as I was through Thanksgiving, I would begin to work "normal" hours.  Until that point, I was boxed into long-term commitments with clients.  For months, I had been very judicious about accepting new work so that I would continue to dig my hole deeper. 

Yesterday was one week since we went back to work after Thanksgiving.  Last week I did work shorter hours but I was in training two days, so I did attend to things before and after class.  Yesterday was the first "regular" work day since Thanksgiving and my first "regular" work day for over a year.  I actually worked the number of hours I am scheduled to work. 

What was even better is that I could work at a sane pace.  For months, I'd felt like I was juggling so many glass balls that I couldn't possibly keep them in the air, but also couldn't let any drop.  I could feel the tension mount in my shoulders even as I would be walking toward my office in the mornings.  Yesterday, I just took on one task after another and completed each, allowing myself to be totally absorbed in what I was doing--being present. 

I did stay 15-20 minutes late last night, time that I actually relished, because I was relaxed and just pulled a couple things off the stack on my desk that has been mounting for a year.  This morning I continued, sorting through a stack of rolled up chart pad pages that have been accumulating, and I was able to almost empty that corner of clutter of the room.  I am astounded at how relaxed I have been the last two days...and what a difference that has made in how I feel.

That brings me back to what I felt last evening.  I got home 2-1/2 hours earlier than usual.  I had a nice dinner that I could actually enjoy because I wasn't falling asleep in my soup.  Then I paid a few bills and balanced my checking account.  This may all sound pretty mundane, but I haven't had energy or focus to do anything that required thought for months.

All that, and it was still before the time I normally got home.  :-)  I almost didn't know what to do with myself, but that was the point when I realized what I was feeling.  The deep exhaustion that had worn on me for so long was gone.  I had energy.  My head was clear enough to concentrate, and I actually had time, energy, focus, and enthusiasm to plan a weekend trip with a friend.  None of this would have been possible even a week earlier. 

Today I began to feel glimmers of optimism.  I actually volunteered to help a colleague on something, and I'm contemplating assuming a responsibility that a different colleague has been urging me to take for some time.  I am doing so with a view not to overload myself again, but I delighted to have the option to choose to take on something else.  I've felt so buried for so long that I didn't have the choice.  Now I do.  Choice is a powerful intoxicant, and I am dizzy with joy for being back in the driver's seat in my life.

Now, one step at a time forward....

Listening to Their Wisdom

I have noticed over the years that coaching clients often "present" to me issues which I need to look at in my own life.  When I find myself having similar conversations, especially in back-to-back sessions, I figure I should pay attention myself.  That happened today.  Interestingly enough, I've been involved in several conversations over the last two weeks when the same topic bubbled up. Something similar came up on a class I am taking last night.  The Universe is sending people into my life to help me learn. In their answers, I find wisdom.

Each of these clients led me to draw a model for further exploration--the same model. The concept is that we have three levels of "being" in our lives.  A colleague of mine draws it with three concentric circles. The innermost is "DNA."  That part of us is what it is, and we aren't likely to change it. My brown eyes are not going to become blue because I choose that.  The next circle is labeled "Personality," and it is likely to change little.  The bigger outside circle is entitled, "Behavior."  Now "behavior" is something we can work with. 

I think about the difference between personality and behavior as being like an actor or an actress, who plays a role.  The role doesn't change the actor's personality, but they behave in the play or movie in a way that can be contrary to their natural personality.  Our jobs often require us to behave in ways that are contrary to our natural personality. For instance, I am a strong introvert, who has a job that requires me to extravert about 75% of the time.  It is exhausting, but I can and have done it...for decades.

So it is that conversations with two coaching clients today explored their needs to choose behaviors that are not naturally easy to them in order be more effective leaders.  As I helped them discover how they could allow themselves to slip into a role, it didn't seem all that difficult.  We were able to identify times in their lives during which they'd learned a new role that had by now become so familiar to them that they could hardly remember what it was like before they chose it.

This ability to transcend who we might naturally be and step into a much bigger role opens countless doors. I call it leadership, but maybe it is "just" conscious living. The ability in a moment to be conscious of who we are, what our tendencies are, the stories we've told ourselves about what we can and can't do, and then to choose the behavior we want brings intention to life in our lives. We step into the life that we would have rather than the life we inherited.  Consciousness, intention, and action.

I used to struggle with this a bit.  "If we choose to act contrary to who we are, is that 'authentic?' I have wondered. But after much reflection, I believe it is much more authentic.  If we just act with what comes naturally, we are doing so without thought.  Reflecting--even soul-searching--and then choosing what is in integrity with who we choose to be: that is authentic.

I would like to say that I do that all the time.  I know there have been times when I acted that authenticity much more than I do now.  The pace of my life has lulled me into this trancelike state--the sleeping state that men call waking--where I forget to remember that above all else, we have free will.  I can choose who I will become by the behaviors I demonstrate in large and small ways...every day, every hour, every minute.

As I listened to the wisdom spill across my clients' lips, I knew that on some level they were advising me.  Wake up and become who you choose to be!

What Brings Me To Life?

“I have my own soul. My own spark of divine fire.” George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion and My Fair Lady

I flipped the TV on just in time to hear this line at the end of My Fair Lady over the weekend.  I've seen that movie several times and read Pygmalion at least twice.  I don't remember those two sentences.  For some reason this weekend they grabbed me and nearly paralyzed me.  I went to the desk and wrote down, "My own spark of divine fire."  Then I just sat and looked at it.

That I have my own spark of divine fire is not a new concept. I've felt it burning intensely within me before, often and for long periods of time.  I've written about it.  But Saturday those words captivated me.  As I've thought about it since, hearing those words was an awakening for me.  After many years of having my spark burn so brightly, I don't feel that now.  I may have realized it before, but I am not sure I had named it.   To acknowledge that was quite painful. The haunting questions have been: "How could I have lost that?" and more importantly, "How do I fan the flames of my spark again?"

I definitely feel like the last week of recovery and reflection have brought me to the place where I was ready to really hear those words and realize that somehow I lost myself.  I can't say exactly when it happened, but I do know that over the last two months when I had been writing I felt that divine spark again. I know that when I started exercising I felt that divine spark.  I know when I am in nature, I feel it. 

A number of years ago I was attending a conference at which one participant spoke of his personal way of staying in touch.  He said that when he is in doubt, he asks, "What brings me to life?" and "What brings life to me?" So simple, and yet I believe so true.

The hard part is being awake to that choice in each and every moment: the choice point that inevitably leads to our divine spark.  The divine spark in each of us is what brings us to life and burns brightly in us.

Somehow in my heart I know that I lose myself when I fall into autopilot life, going through the motions of life without really being present to it.  As I think about going back to work day after tomorrow, I know that I can be in that job and feel my own spark of divine fire, but I can only do that when I am awake and present in each moment.  Because, when I am awake and present, I can consciously ask myself, "What brings me to life?" and "What brings life to me?" And, then...just do it! 

Sisyphus?

In Greek mythology Sisyphus was a king who was known for deceitfulness.  His punishment in the afterlife was to push a huge boulder up a steep hill, and just as he was about to reach the pinnacle, the boulder would slip, and he would be forced to follow it down.  Then, the process of pushing the boulder up the hill would start all over again. 

For whatever reason, sometimes my life seems like I'm living out Sisyphus' punishment.  There have been a number of periods in my life during which I really struggled financially. Just when I would be able to see the light of day, something unexpected (usually a shift in one market or other) would occur, and I'd be starting over. 

I've encountered Sisyphus in my health as well.  "Health" isn't really the right word.  My overall health is excellent, but I've struggled with pain issues for 23 years.  In recent months, the annoyance has been the sight in my right eye.  If it's not one irritation, it's another. 

I'm tired.  I am ready for life to be easier.  So far, no magic easy pill has appeared.  Somehow I just keep on keeping on...and being pretty happy along the way.  The way I figure it, I can be cross pushing that boulder up the hill, or I can be happy.  Both those around me and I enjoy life more when I choose the latter.

I was talking to a friend the other day about my memoir, and she spoke to how resilient I had been.  I guess I have.  As I sat to write this, I googled "resilience."  No shortage of material on resilience out there, but the description I love the best was from Psychology Today:  "Resilience is that ineffable quality that allows some people to be knocked down by life and come back stronger than ever." 

What I liked most about it was the word "ineffable."  I just liked the sound and feel of the word; it has a happy feel to it.  I looked that up, too.  "Too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words."

Put together, we get "That too great or extreme quality to be expressed in words that allows some people to be knocked down by life, and come back stronger than ever."  How cool!  That reminds me of a song I learned as a youngster, "Get yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again."  I like that my friend thinks of me that way. 

A couple days ago I was recovering from a challenging week, facing taxes and paying bills, a writing deadline in front of me, as a cold was settling in for a stay.  I wanted to go to bed and sleep for a few days.  I didn't.  I wrote instead.  The more I wrote, the better I felt. 

When I start doing something I love, things just magically get better. In the painful days after a break-up, I ran.  I'd take off with tears running down my cheeks, and by the time I was home, I always felt great.  Sometimes I dance.  Other times I garden.  Still other times, I cook.  This weekend, I wrote. 

I think resilience must be a bit of a chicken and egg thing.  Is resilience what makes me do the things I love, thus allowing me to bounce back? Or, is doing what I love what gives me resilience? Or, does it matter? I think not.

Life has thrown me a curve ball or ten, and I have always bounced back.  I always learn something along the way, and most of the time I make new friends on the journey.  Most of the time I don't even whine much any more.  Maybe I've developed my resilience muscle. 

Although the definition implies that only some people have resilience, I wonder if resilience isn't something we choose.  Let's say I bring the intention that this next trip up the hill is going to be an adventure, and I will meet some interesting new people along the way. Odds are on that I will appear to be resilient, but not because I have a special mysterious quality.  I will appear to be resilient because I choose to be.  I've written many times that everything in life is a choice point. I've just chosen to be resilient, and that makes magic happen.

Hurry and Happiness

The day of the year when I feel almost as happy about working hard around the house as I do the day I decorate for Christmas is the day I undecorated for Christmas.  Tree out, wreath and poinsettias gone, furniture back where it belongs: with a deep sigh of relief, things have fallen back to "normal," whatever that is.

I am an NPR junkie, and I find the programs of my local station intellectually stimulating while doing mindless tasks around my apartment, like cleaning and removing ornaments and lights.  Today I heard an interesting piece* about happiness and its relationship to usage of time, which started me thinking all afternoon and evening. 

Two elements of the research of Dr. John Robinson, University of Maryland sociology professor, tell the story.  First, those who are less rushed feel happier, and second, those who have less free time on their hands express happiness more often.  The magic happiness cocktail: a combination of not being rushed and having little free time.  Not rushed, but having little free time? This seems like a contradiction.  I thought if I had less free time, I would feel more rushed.  Yet, Robinson's research shows that people who are very happy almost never feel rushed.  The reason that they have less free time, he has found, is that they have a lot of interests which they remain engaged in, and which, apparently, bring them happiness.

A related piece of research mentioned in the program, Dr. Erik Angner, economics professor at George Mason University, reports that the more television people watch, the less happy they are.  The leap is that they aren't engaged in interests that bring them pleasure, so they have a lot of free time to watch television. 

I have a colleague who seems very happy.  She has two small children, but she is still is engaged in community, church, and family activities. I've often wondered how she does all she does, but, despite all that she has happening in her life, she never seems to be rushed. I'd say her life supports Robinson's research. 

Some topics just keep coming around.  The first is about being present.  It seems to me that when I am really present, I am not rushed. I am not thinking about what is next or what isn't being done; I am able to enjoy what I am doing because I am present to it in the moment.  As someone who often does  feel rushed, I can say that it relaxes me to just think about being really engaged and present to a number of pleasurable activities.  I actually could have been as mindful about undecorating my house--really been present--as I was decorating it, and I'll bet I would have felt a lot less tired at the end of the day.

The second is about choice. Robinson reports that those who are most rushed experience outside pressures beyond their control. He says that a sense of control in our lives is important to happiness. But who could have more balls in the air than my colleague, who seems never rushed?  I suspect that those who are happiest just choose to be present--they choose to let go of control in exchange for just enjoying--being in joy--with what they are doing.

Winston Churchill is credited (probably incorrectly) with the quote: "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."  If we feel too rushed to give or even too rushed to be present, then, it would seem to me, that we are really choosing not to be happy, although most of us would probably not make that choice if we were conscious of what we are doing.

Robinson sums up his research with a play on words from the Bobby McFerrin hit of a couple decades ago: "Don't hurry, be happy."  Now that's a choice.  Why would I want to hurry if I could be happy?  That's a no-brainer.  I think that may be a good fourth intention for my year...or maybe the intention should be: "Be present for this year."  I think it is the same.








http://wamu.org/programs/metro_connection/13/05/24/dont_hurry_be_happy_research_highlights_link_between_busy_lives_and_bliss#at_pco=cfd-1.0

Feeling My Heart

In less than a minute, I can transform my world.  All I need to do is to close my eyes, concentrate on my heart space, and "breathe into my heart."  I can't really explain how I "breathe into my heart."  I understand the physiology of breathing which involves nose, mouth, windpipe, bronchial tubes, lungs, and diaphragm.  There may be other parts, but I am fairly confident that the heart isn't one of them.

Yet, as I concentrate on my heart while I am breathing, something magical happens, my heart seems to get bigger and "vibrates"--a warm and wonderful sensation that defies description.  Even more remarkable is when I imagine the breath coming through the front of my body directly into my heart.  All I need to do is 3-5 of these "heart breaths" while saying "I AM."  It reminds me that I am here to reflect God.

Every bit of tension melts from my body, my jaw relaxes, and suddenly I am able to be present only to what is in front of me. 

What is really remarkable, other than a part of my body that isn't supposed to be involved in respiration actually "breathing" is that I don't do this more often during the day.  I am back to work again today, and as much as I had pledged to stay present--to reflect God and receive God from others--I quickly slipped into autopilot.  I was nearly home when I noticed the tension in my shoulders reminding me to breathe into my heart.  Almost as fast as I had the thought and started to breathe, the magic happened, as it always does.

This should be a no-brainer, but clearly the only "no brain" part of it for me is no brain between my ears engaged in remembering how simple it is to connect.  Another choice point for me--that time and place when I become conscious, recognize that I have a choice, and choose differently...in this moment.  For this moment, I am choosing differently.