What if You Did it All Right But You Were Looking at it All Wrong

It’s not as if I don’t try. As Sara Bareilles sings in her song Armor, “You make me try, try, try, try … it’s all I ever do.” But what if the efforts you make are good, it’s just your expectations of what you can humanly accomplish are off ? What if you’re so used to never getting it right and never doing enough that you can’t see how much you’ve accomplished. You can’t see the forest for all the trees.

You know I’m talking about myself. When am I not?

I have been told many times by many wonderful people that they are amazed at how much I seem to accomplish. I have admittedly called myself the Energizer Bunny and written here that my coping mechanism is Industrious Over-focused. But what I wasn’t understanding was why their view of my accomplishments wasn’t the same theirs.

What would I give up if I acknowledged all that I do? The concept that I’m failing at life? The constant definition of me as a failure? Jeeze Louise! How is it possible to be so attached to the negative self-definition of not enough that you keep creating ways to prove it?

Smaller goals and smaller celebrations for smaller progress. This is the way I see myself truly making progress that I can acknowledge. Because if all I have is today to live, than the acceptable celebrate-able enoughness of my efforts needs to happen today. Not “next time”. Not “when I have more time”. I need to work in a way that I can appreciate my efforts and feel proud of them in small ways.

I will continue to work hard. But instead of always dangling the carrot so that I can never reach it, perhaps I need to change it to a rutabaga. Or place it in my hand to begin with and then move on to the work. I don’t need to change my systems as much as my vision. It’s all in the way we look at it.

Change nothing and nothing changes.

Wisdom gained is only as wise as it is applied.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.

Drops in the Bucket Fill the Bucket Up

I realize that I have been an all or nothing girl all my life. I want the pretty garden immediately. I want the pounds to come off overnight. I want world peace or else! And this thinking renders all of my efforts worthless. If I only get part of the project done, with this mindset, it wasn’t enough. And this is like trying to drive with the parking break on.

When I truly started to believe that drops in the bucket fill the bucket up, then I started to enjoy and appreciate my own efforts. Even 15 minutes of concerted effort to clean a closet or weed a garden can make you feel so productive that the next day you want to come back and keep feeling that high.

The trick is to allow anything to be better than nothing.

15 minutes to sort your mountain of mail may actually make a huge dent. The trick is to schedule and allow for not doing the whole task but just enough to make progress.

In that same thought frame, I am aiming to do less but in well planned spurts. We all know that if we left cleaning the bathroom until we felt like it, it would remain dirty. But if I cleaned the sink today, the toilet tomorrow, and the shower the next day, eventually, my bathroom would be clean.

Drops in the Bucket fill the Bucket Up.

Tomorrow is my daughter’s first day back to school. Besides an exercise class in the morning I promised I’d do, I also plan to knuckle down on some thought work I’ve been putting off. At the end of the week, I’m going to celebrate me and my hubby’s anniversary and myself!

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.

Reframe Your Slow: By Choice or By Force ?

Two women I know from my online community, and for whom I have great respect, both spoke in their newsletters about how they felt twitchy about feeling slowed down and awaiting things. The global trend to embrace the slow life as a way of living sounds so lovely but it’s a whole other thing to feel forced to slow down. Anna Lovind, the teacher of my Creative Doer course, said,

“I find it incredibly frustrating to not be able to create swift change the way I’m used to. But maybe slow is what I can handle right now”.

To have children who’s needs you have to negotiate and to be in search of a new home are real stress factors that she and many people have to deal with on top of global pandemic problems. Honoring where we are will help us move on.

Michelle GD of Michellegd.com was speaking about impatiently awaiting her cosmos flowers to bloom. And when they finally did, she pondered,

“I feel like there’s some kind of message for me, tucked into these late-blooming cosmos. Some message about allowing for surprises, or maybe a message about being patient. Though what if the feathery cosmos stalks hadn’t ever bloomed?? Well, I think the message would be the same: allowing for surprises, or maybe being patient. Also, maybe there isn’t a message.”

The messages are what we translate them to be. And if deep down we wish for more patience and more space to think and create, we need to honor that. That might be slowing down we need to do for ourselves that has nothing to do with the outside world. This whisper may speak to honoring our being instead of our doing.

Michelle ended her newsletter with this quote,

“Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise.” –Alice Walker–

Expectations will mess with you every time. But there’s one thing I have discovered from my slowed down life: you have to plant the seed for the idea or project or plant to grow. It may grow on it’s own terms but it needs to be started and nurtured. Life is born of intention.

You have to plant the seed and nurture it with hope for it to grow at all.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.

I Carry the Shame

I carry the shame

Of the impoverished upbringings of my parents. Abuse and neglect. I can’t wear stained or torn of illfitting clothes when I leave the house. We don’t do that.

I carry the shame 

Of the unwanted weight on my body.

Not maintaining my appeal for men and equally, for caring what anyone thinks of me, especially men.

I carry the shame 

Of not fixing my anxiety

Of passing it on to my child

Of not being enough.

I carry the shame 

Of staying stuck

Of not rising, using my talents for more.

Of not burning brightly like they all say I can.

I live my shame within my large body 

In the darkness of pain and of blame.

It is embodied in my name.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.

Stay Strong and Let it Be OKay to Not Be OKay

At the bank today, I overheard a woman say “Stay Strong” and I said, “I prefer that to’stay safe’.” The teller said that the woman who said that was starting a campaign to promote mental health awareness and depression support through this time. And I said, “I can totally support that. I’m spreading Stay Strong”.

I am definitely affected by the weather, by my bodily and hormonal cycles, and by what I’ve heard or what has happened to me today. Some days I have the energy and some days I just don’t. It needs to be Okay to just not have it in me to do anything but read or sleep or go for a walk.

If I do not refill my well, I will not be able to take care of the others in my life. Taking care of these others is one of my number one jobs on this earth. But so is taking care of myself. I will do a lousy job of it if I am not at my best, if I don’t know that I have my own back.

I am not the sort of person to be able to post daily quotes of inspiration. And I don’t always write in my journal to ground myself daily. But I do know that if it hurts, physically or mentally, I need help to make it stop hurting. And that absolutely everyone on the planet has fear. It’s how we deal with it that dignifies and honors us.

Tell anyone that you know, including yourself, that they are entitled to hurt and to be heard. And tell them to Stay Strong and that you are there as part of this strength. Compassion to all of us in this time of confusion and strain.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.