Welcome back...to the world, that is!

Today I have completed one month on my new temporary assignment.  Two days ago I went back to my home agency to spend a few minutes with each of several people with whom I had loose ends to tie.  It was unanimous:  "You look so relaxed!" each of them said.  I actually had to sit for 15 minutes outside the office of one of them, waiting for her to be free.  And, I just sat there...relaxed, breathing.  What a difference a month makes.

How did I get here in just 30 days?  Well, let's start with where I was a month ago.  I'd been working 12-hour days for years.  I almost never got to eat lunch unless it was grabbing a bite, quite literally on the run.  Meetings were scheduled back-to-back, every 30 to 60 minutes, with no breaks, meaning that drinking water and bathroom stops were luxuries about which I'd forgotten.

When I walked out of the office at 7:30 most evenings and commuted home, I usually hit the door, headed to the kitchen to make coffee for morning, prepare lunch for those fleeting pass-throughs of my office when I might grab a morsel on the run, and cooked dinner, which I then tried to eat without falling asleep in my plate.  (Usually, but not always successful.  Success was usually contingent on the day of the week.  Higher likelihood of staying awake through dinner on Monday than Friday.)

That had been my life for years. So, when I started this new job which allowed me to work a "normal" workday and then walk to a Metro stop that was closer to home, My old programming was still in place.  One of the first evenings, I came home and did all of the above without falling asleep, and when I was cleaning the dishes from dinner, I glanced over at the clock, and it was 7:00!  I had done all that stuff, and it was still earlier than I had been accustomed to leaving the office.  I literally heaved a sigh...and then laughed out loud.

I quickly adjusted to being able to do things after work--run an errand or two, go to a dinner at my church or with a friend, go to a movie, volunteer for a local theater and see the play without falling asleep, do my laundry or pay bills on a week night, leaving time for more fun stuff on the weekend.  And, I started breathing and moved at a normal, rather than break-neck, pace.

When each of my appointments acknowledged how relaxed I looked Monday, I felt  acknowledgement that I was back in the world--I am a real person again.

On September 29, just days after starting the new job, I wrote in this blog that I had discovered that my accelerator had stuck in high gear, and I pledged to use these four and a half months to remember how I used to live.  I have to admit that early in my career, I had been a workaholic, and like any addiction, once an addict, always an addict.  When things got tight, in the early 2000s, I just fell right off the wagon and back into those old habits.

But, I do remember a very long time when I lived a sane life, stopping at the gym on the way home from work, having a drink and going over mail with my partner, and cooking together joyfully in the kitchen.  After it was established and when my business was going well, I both exercised and danced almost every day, and I took time to write. I cooked for fun and even played the piano occasionally, although never well.  My life was full but relaxed much of the time.

I have proven that I can reclaim that part of me again.  I have yet to prove that I can sustain it.  I do know that I need to be clearer about my boundaries, and I am optimistic that with a new boss when I return, I can maintain them.  Yet, I know the Universe abhors a vacuum, and the Universe of a recovering workaholic certainly abhors a vacuum.  I am being very intentional about identifying and exercising practices which will solidify my resolve.  Writing regularly again is one of them.  So is exercising. Pleasure reading is up there too.  I want to learn to do those things so regularly in the next three and a half months that my new healthier habits will sustain me when I go back to my old job.

I understand that having a life is a choice, and it is a choice that I am going to make, each and every day in the future.

There was Water Out There

When working with groups, I've often focused the attention of participants on one part of the room, and then asked them a question about a different part of the room.  Rarely can anyone recall anything for the part of the room away from where they were looking.  What we focus on truly determines what we miss. 

I worked out of town this week at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.  By the time I stowed my car, gathered my luggage, and arrived at my room, it was long after dark, and I had a call to make.  The draperies in my hotel room were drawn, and I had no reason to open them.  I slept.  I awakened, got ready, and went to work. 

Tuesday evening I returned before dark and threw the draperies open to get light.  To my amazement, my hotel room looked out over a beautiful estuary.  I believe it was the Pearl River.  The water was as smooth as glass, accented by sailboats at a small marina.  The view literally took my breath away.  I'd had no idea there was such a beautiful view. 

 

 

My discovery really made me think: what else in my life am I missing, just because I'm not looking?  I'm failing to throw back the draperies that conceal magic.

 

Yesterday I spent the day with a fairly new friend, learning to make tamales and talking for hours as we made the ingredients and then assembled and cooked them.  Although a crush of pre-holiday have-to-dos were awaiting, I chose to be present and totally focused on our fun.  It was relaxing and joyful.  I was so pleased with myself and having had the consciousness to turn away from the lists and just be with my new friend.

 

This evening, my focus was on old friends.  The annual task of writing Christmas cards turned joyful as I reveled in the opportunity to stay in touch with people who have been special in my life for decades, some going back to college days.  Once again, I allowed myself to be present to the joy instead of distracted by others things I might be doing.

 

My intentions for the new year are pretty much the same as they've been for a couple years: write more, get more exercise, and spend time building meaningful relationships.  What has distracted me from these important things in the past has been that I focused on the have-to-dos related to my work instead of the choose-to-dos in my personal life. 

 

In 2015, the vivid imagery of the estuary behind my hotel room will remind me to focus on the sources of beauty in my life and be joyfully present to them.

Hopefulness

As the sun goes down today, I notice that the days have become visibly longer now that we are a month since the winter solstice.  Each year at about this time, I make the same observation, which is inevitably followed by a sense of hopefulness as more light comes into each day.  In a few more weeks, I will be able to leave my workplace in the daylight instead of the darkness.  A few more weeks after that I will be able to walk in the daylight after I get home. Hope...the hope that will get me through the long days of winter.

I now stand on the precipice of diving into writing a new book.  To do so implies hope: why else would I start?  If I put in the time, creativity, perseverance, determination, focus, and patience, I have hope that a book, which will touch the hearts of thousands, will be born.  While the hope for longer days requires nothing of me except the passage of time,  I know the hope that births books is at least as much sweat and work as it is trusting something good will result.

Leading from the Heart demanded over four year of writing, rewriting, taking feedback from friends who read it,  rewriting, writing, editing, tearing it apart and putting it together differently...and that was before the real work began.  Months, then years, of attempting to find an agent and/or a publisher were followed by more rewriting and editing. Then, one day a miracle happened: the book lay in my hands with my name on the cover.

I walked into a Barnes and Noble near my home in North Carolina, and by the front door stood 100 books, quickly flying out the door.  The store called and reported that they'd sold out of the book before a book signing the next day. A Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection.  Letters followed from people who had been touched by the book.  Executives wanted me to coach them so they could lead from the heart. Keynote addresses offered the opportunity to reach audiences that may not have found the book otherwise. As recently at 2011, I met a woman in Washington, who recognized my name and related that she and her co-workers had been inspired by my words a decade earlier. My hope, and all the determination that went with it, was well placed.

With Choice Point...not so much.  I still feel it is my most important writing, but 16 years after I "finished" it, the manuscript still sits in my computer, now badly dated.  I haven't given up hope, but I have to admit that hope for Choice Point  has been tarnished by time.

Standing ready to surrender myself one more time to the hope that my words will touch and inspire the hearts of my readers, I wish for the hope that just requires the passing of time, but I know one more time that I am committing months or years of sweat and determination in support of hope.  Perseverance and determination in service of hope is required many places in life, from buying the first home to a well-funded retirement, rearing children who become responsible adults, and especially a lasting relationship.  The shining light of hope demands the grittiness of thousands of acts of intention along the way before, like a miracle one day, hope lays realized in our hands.