The Thought of Something Better

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As I "Show Up, Sit Down, and Type" today, I am reminded of the thought of something better that often haunts me as I write. It is part of why it is so easy to be distracted from writing, so easy to judge oneself for any fault whatsoever, real or imagined. 

I will often share with the students in my meditation classes that the mind lives in the realm of ideas and ideals, which is not always connected with the ground of right-here-now. The mind helps us in many ways, especially when we need to use logic to accomplish a task. However, it is not the whole story. 

When you have the thought of something better, whether it be as mundane as an insight in rearranging or the life-changing consideration of what your life would be like with a different partner, see if you can recognize the most crucial truth of all:

It is just a thought. 

It might be a wonderfully indulgent thought, or a thought that makes all sorts of sense. But that doesn't negate that it is a thought. And thoughts are just projections of the mind. And the mind is not the whole story. 

Joan Tollifson beautifully demonstrates in her book, Bare-Bones Meditation, that "Thoughts are not facts," though they make great cases to persuade us to believe they are. 

Next time you recognize a thought of something better, see if you can emphasize the thought part of it, and see if it changes your sense of the something better part. 

New Beginnings, New Endings

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Many of us have a preference for beginnings. I know I do. It's the first of the month. I have a *new* resolution to write something everyday. I am excited about a new challenge and about the possibilities of what will emerge. But the real test is to see how I still feel about this venture in a week, month or year when it no longer becomes new and instead is just the way things are. 

It seems that not as many of us have a preference for endings. Some do, but I feel that many of my friends and colleagues also lament the "can't get myself to finish what I start" tendency. But there is something comforting about a bow on a package, the last page in a book, or a tidy room. 

The thing is that anything "finished" will suddenly become something new again. The unwrapping of the gift, the finding of a new book, or the living in the tidy room is what automatically follows. It's like breathing, one breath always leads to the next until the final exhalation which is hopefully many breaths away for most of us. 

So can I diffuse the excitement of new beginnings and the weight of finishing something simultaneously so I fully enjoy the totality of the process? 

Let's see.

Almost a Year

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It has been almost a year since I had my last post on here. Ironically, it was about why we have interruptions in writing.

It has been quite a year for sure. Since last August when we opened our first "store" and started to move forward with our vision of the Upward Spiral Center, we've manifested our own space in our home neighborhood of Seminole Heights. We've been building this vision throughout the summer and our now ready for a full Fall season. 

I've been inspired by Seth's Blog post from today on SUSDAT - Show Up, Sit Down, and Type. For someone who teaching the virtue of "just sitting down to write" I could use more of this discipline in my life. 

So let's see if the next year will show more time spent "just writing" on my side and we can see where it gets us. Or I can see where it gets me. Because let's be real, I'm not writing for you (no offense), I'm writing for me. 

writeus interuptus

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In the middle of writing a post for my business website, I am suddenly distracted by the urge to write a post on this blog about how I'm suddenly distracted to write something else. [You know, now that I have this window open and am writing this post, I am thinking of going back to the first one...or write about the whole things on Facebook]

WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN???

I see this tendency in all that I do. Well, most of it. To date, I haven't actually just stopped a massage session because I remembered that I needed to make a phone call or suddenly wanted a piece of cheese. But when I'm by myself, able to construct time the way I want to, it seems that between what I am doing and what I am planning to do next is this incessant voice that the "thing to do next" is somehow always better than what I'm doing now, more so enough that I should just abandon what I'm doing currently. 

It happens in yoga and meditation. It happens in cleaning (if anyone ever videotaped me cleaning the house, I'd be afraid to actually see how many times I go in and out of all the rooms). It happens, I dare say, in intimate moments where the sensible part of me is appalled at the fact that I could be thinking of payroll at a time like this?!?!?!

And it happens in writing. Actually, now that I am observing, I've written most of this in just one sitting. I guess when you are so engrossed in a topic, it just spews out. Until you get to a point like this where I'm not sure what to write next. ... [maybe I should go back to that other blog post...?]

NO. 

I'm in the middle of a few days to myself at the beach. Its a time when I can do literally, whatever I want. This means way too much work for vacation and then giving into impulses that are very far away from work (lets just say I've eaten more doughnuts in two days than I typically eat in an entire year...). But it also means for an extended amount of time I can just really look at myself. This is what those moments of reflection afford us. This is also why we distract ourselves away. 

Life is like a constant game of tetherball - I feel continuously flung around, moving away towards something else then being pulled back again to the center and eventually unwinding away again. 

Can I see the distraction as just a part of a process? Can I not judge it? Can I revel in the dance? 

going to finish that other post now ..

Gratitude Guilt

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It is funny how the same feelings emerge and re-emerge over and over again. I've started to recognize that each time I go to write or post a blog, this intense churning feeling arises in my stomach and often keeps me from posting. 

What is even more funny is I teach classes on this idea of "just sitting down to write," and yet I struggle with it regularly. 

And by "funny" I mean ridiculousness in the sense that I need to just get over myself. Life is full of contradictions and I am no exception. 

I created 101 Days of Gratitude originally with the idea that it would help me to post more regularly on social media. It worked the past two years though this year it has fallen away far more than before. I haven't posted in many days, weeks...possibly longer!

It has been so long that when I think about posting, guilt comes over me. I hear some voice in me saying, "You started this project and then abandoned it? How hard can it really be to post everyday? Everyone will think you can not follow through with projects..." and on and on

But then a calmer voice inside, one that seems a little more like it is worth listening to, starts to remind me that I am posting about what I am grateful for. It reminds me that I tell everyone else that "you can't do this project wrong." The voice tells me to just post and post often! Hey, I could post twice a day, who cares! That would at least take care of talking myself out of posting because "maybe there is something better to post about."

Now I am rambling. And feeling a little better. Maybe I will go post after all!

The Process of Becoming Never Ends

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There was a quote that I had on my wall for a long time:

Something in the process of becoming both is and is not.

I got this from the book Sophie's World and it's an idea that's followed me around for a long time because, well, it's ever present. Though we tend to think of the world as something seemingly unchanging, its is changing all the time. All the time.

Even from the time I started writing this post my life has shifted in so many ways.

We've opened the store at the new "center," which turns out to be a reinvention of the place we were the whole time we were planning the Upstairs Dream Center. It is funny now that I think of it. The symbolism of planning this thing upstairs that never ended up happening. "Upstairs" representing the realm of thoughts and ideas. Thoughts and ideas are so plentiful that most of them will remain thoughts and ideas. This contrasts with the realm of reality; not imaginings but what is really here. That's more the realm of the ground, earth, first floor. We decided to "bloom where we are planted" and it seems growing will be effortless. 

We had our grand opening for the store last weekend. A few days beforehand I came to the realization that everything wasn't going to get done; meaning, everything I had planned to do (with my thoughts and ideas!) wouldn't all be done. 

And you know what? It was totally okay. In fact, it was still a great success.

I once thought that at a certain point my business (or any other aspect of my life for that matter) would finally be all neat, organized and tied up in a nice little bow. Nope. Life is messy. 

It is not good or bad it is just a part of this whole process of becoming. Seeing it as that, I just marvel at the unfolding. 

I am truly blessed to be on this journey. 

 

 

The Adobe Plunge

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In the 5+ years that I've been in business for myself, graphic design as always been a place of struggle. It's a creative art that is necessary for building my business, but doing it in a way that is aesthetically pleasing and effective is incredibly difficult. It's difficult even if you have someone else doing the actually design for you. But this comes with its own challenges. 

The past few years I've gotten away with designing most of my flyers myself with a mixture of Word, Powerpoint, and iPhoto. I turned to other designers on occasion and knew that quality-wise, I was getting a much better product from them. 

The thing is, its difficult to find good, consistent, dependable, available and affordable designers. Perhaps I am asking for too much. The designers I've worked with in the past have been great and all of them have taught me a lot. But they didn't always get my aesthetic or brand image, or get back with me on time, or be available when I need them. 

After great debate, I've decided to see if I have what it takes to at least minimally to what they do. What do all my designer friends have that I don't?

ADOBE SKILLS!!!

Some might think that I need to be delegating my work, not creating more. And yes, I do believe that is true to. However. I think it will also benefit me in the long run to know the basics of these programs so I can at least make the small changes I want when I have someone else working for me again. 

Plus, its just been super empowering. I think that's why I take on so many new projects, there is such a thrill in seeing how you actually CAN do something that you once thought you couldn't. 

Here's what able to do for our grand opening:

Looks pretty good, uh? I'm proud!


Poetry :: The One

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At this time of the Summer Solstice that the sunlight begins to slowly decrease in our days, I am reminded of this poem I wrote for my dear friend, past roommate, and soul sister who is devoting her life to the study of solar technology. Her dedication inspires me. 

I wrote this poem right after we first moved in and she was on our local community radio station taking about the Solar Home Tour she organized. 

The One


Every day we see the light.

 

Few have the knowledge

to capture it, contain

the life power of a distant star

before night, its absence, arrives.

 

Some revel in the darkness,

the cool blanket of overall shade

and the unknowingness of objects

even in proximity.

 

But I am like those others

who honor the gift of morning

and even in my package of pale

skin that needs protection,

 

I soak in rays of the one

and wonder how long

we can take our

God for granted.

 

Another Turn of the Spiral

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If the last year and half of my life was a movie, this would be a significant and climactic plot twist. 

I've begun to realize over the past few weeks that the healing center I've been envisioning happening doesn't have to be in the location in which I was envisioning it. Once I saw the location, I fell in love with it and got tunnel vision. It's an ideal location, the best neighbors I could ask for, super unique layout, room for expansion...sounds great, right? Yeah, it's super great. 

So much potential. 

But at what cost? At first, after I realized that it would take a decent sum of money to get the place up and running (my probably still too low estimate was $50,000), I continued to move forward because I know that I can create, if I work hard enough, the money it would take to make this place happen. It was too perfect to walk away from.

I can see now how I have been working really hard to create a life that can't sustain me, would have me stretched more thin than ever before, and though it would be a labor of love, it still might kill me. 

It was starting to look like the life that I DON'T want to create. 

For over the past year I've chipped away at what it will take to make this place happen, got a great team together and created a lot of momentum around this idea of "Finding our Center." But I see now that the Upward Spiral Center isn't any particular place, it's within us, within you, within me, which means that the Center will be where ever we are. 

So I'm relieved, and a little embarrassed, to realize that everything that I really need to expand my business to next level is exactly where I am at already. 

On August 1st, 2014, we will open the Upward Spiral Store in the front room in our current location. Please join us! for the opening weekend.