Choose Your Life Monday is an invitation to name what pattern you will lovingly notice this week and to do so in community. Of course, you can do it any day you want- you don’t have to start on Monday. Join in when and whenever suits you.
June is crazy busy around here.
- talking about self-care on behalf of a big huge wonderful company to big huge media
- a retreat with my beloved Brain Trust
- a family reunion with my beloved’s family in Oregon
- being a single mom for next three months
- getting my daughter ready to go to Mexico for a language immersion and service project (this for a kid who has never done a sleep-over camp)
- preping a workshop for the Romance Writer’s of America conference – self-care for the published author
- writing the novel that seems to be coming
- gratefully hanging with the Comfort Cafe where we’ll be talking about (thank God) taking simple action on one desire and Lisa Sonora Beam will join us for her take on how to do that.
Oh the Squirrel is in heaven!
Things to do!
Lists to make!
Bags to pack, planes to catch, people to woo.
Reasons to feel self-important.
Meanwhile, the one who is afraid of being imperfect
wants to eat gluten-free cookies and read People of the Whale and hide under the covers, way under the covers.
I spend a lot of my time swinging between being creatively adventuresome, putting myself way out there, and hiding.
Hiding? Really?
Yes!
How do I hide?
Oh lots of ways. One of my favs? Hanging out in the territory of I’m-About-to-Figure-it-All-Out.
Otherwise known as when I do figure it all out, things are going to be so easy. I’ll never feel stressed again. I’ll never doubt my work or its effectiveness again. I’ll never try to cram too much into one day again. Not after I figure it all out. What would it be? Ah, that is the golden question!
Sometimes, for variety, I visit the country right next door instead, the land of If I Could Just.
As in… if I could just do something easier and just focus on that – just be a fiction writer, just be a painter, just travel the world with my beloved, just nurture the Comfort Cafe, just garden, just do yoga.
The tempting country of If-I-Could-Just shares a border with the fiefdom “I’ll chuck it all and go ____.” That’s where, when the anxiety of creating their lives gets to be too much, people go around saying, “I’ll chuck it all and go live in an ashram” or “I’ll chuck it all and open a B&B on the coast”or “I’ll chuck it all and go write novels.”
I can spend hours and days hiding in these places.
Traveling here helps me manage my anxiety, the anxiety that comes from living my life at the edge of my abilities.
We all have our favorite comfy ways of managing our anxiety.
The question is, are you managing yours in ways that help you or hinder you?
This Week
I’m going to lovingly notice when I take a trip to the land of “If I could just” and I’m going to bring myself back to my body. My breath.
I’m going to look at this picture of me in 1970 and delight in her wide open presence.
I’m going to check in with God and hear I am utterly okay no matter what.
I’m going to dedicate my efforts to a child in our community who is very ill and all parents fighting much more real fears than my fear of being imperfect.
And I’m going to plan my days the night before and keep resisting the lure of adding in one more thing because just you never know today I might be super human.
(Another country I visit often – the super human I can work non-stop for fifty hours producing original creative work land.)
12 responses so far ↓
1 Joely Black Jun 1, 2009
When I read the phrase “Afraid to be perfect” I understood one of the biggest blocks I’ve felt to doing anything.
Thank you so much for that!
I think I’ll be noticing how that affects me in my daily life, and what I do with my day.
Love,
J xx
Joely Black’s last blog post..Monthly check-in: May – the silent edition
2 Deb Owen Jun 1, 2009
Um. Wow. Yeah. I’ve been doing that, “If I could just figure it all out” thing with one particular situation for almost two weeks now.
If I could just figure it all out….I’d get the outcome I really want. (Or the one I think I’d want. You know.
)
Thanks for this!
All the best!
deb
Deb Owen’s last blog post..nobody expects the spanish inquisition (releasing expectations)
3 Kat Jun 1, 2009
Deb – your post is so me – thanks for putting into words what I am about too much of the time…
I will notice my reactions to others negativity and lovingly release the need to be responsible for how they feel/act.
Kat
4 Karen Ady Jun 1, 2009
I hear you sister when you describe alternating being completely out there with hiding under the covers and reading. I am in the process of becoming a certified-nurse midwife and working as a labor and delivery nurse after being a SAHM mom for over 25 years. That is really out there for me. I am repeatedly tempted by a voice that tells me to throw it all in and stay home and chill with the kids and my books and all the comfortable things that have supported me in life.
Thanks for showing me that this is happening to other women and I am not just a coward but am facing new situations with a combination of courage/excitement and the fear of stretching to the unknown.
5 Chris Jun 1, 2009
Jen, not to add to the Squirrel’s List, but I was thinking, when I read your titles (If I Could Just, etc.) that I wish someone would write quickie little, children’s version books for adults with messages like you’ve just shared with us. With vibrant, intoxicating pictures that we could just thumb slowly through and text we can read easily (short sentences and big fonts!) with important and inspiring messages told in an imaginative way, the way children’s books are. This probably popped into my head because, in summer, I find myself gravitating towards hiding, as in winter, because too hot outside, and reading books from childhood: The Velvet Room, Gone Away Lake, A Wrinkle in Time, The Cricket in Times Square, Nancy Drew mysteries. It reminds me of the girl still inside me, like your sweet, sweet photograph of yourself.
6 Hiro Boga Jun 1, 2009
Jen, your posts always comfort me by making space for what is, just as it is, right now. Thank you!
You have so much going on this month. I love that you posted this photo of your radiant girl-child-self as a reminder of who you really are! Your shining heart, your beautiful spirit just beam out through that photo. May ease and grace accompany you through this month.
Much love,
Hiro
Hiro Boga’s last blog post..Swimming In the Sea of Story
7 Shannon Bowman Jun 1, 2009
Oh man. I am definitely on the creative/hidey swing right now too. Normally I can manage a little better, but it’s really picked up speed this week!
Thanks for writing a post I needed to read.
Shannon Bowman’s last blog post..Corn and Miso Soup
8 liz elayne Jun 3, 2009
i so needed to read this post today. the idea of i’m about to figure it all out resonates deeply…i settle into that place sometimes and even though i can feel it preventing me from doing (or being), i still push myself to think that is the way…
this has given me some good things to think about. thank you for that.
and love that photo of your open, radiant younger self.
liz elayne’s last blog post..a post that began one way…and turned into something else entirely.
9 Anne in Virginia Jun 3, 2009
Thanks for a humorous and for me, all-too-true post. I’ve been hanging out in the land of “Maybe I should just . . ..” It’s similar to your “If I could just . . .” and revolves around trying to force myself to focus on one activity: starting my business, working seriously on my fiction writing, or chucking it all and getting a job (yuck). Of course, when I do focus on one thing for a while, like getting the garden in, I hear from my Squirrel about all the other things that aren’t getting done . . . it’s definitely a racket, as the Transactional Analysis folks would say. I think the purpose is to prove to myself that I’m really someone of limited abilities who should just . . . take the easy way out.
10 Mahala Mazerov Jun 5, 2009
I just about fell off my chair laughing at your line “Oh the Squirrel is in heaven.” It’s like catching a funny tweet completely out of context, only this time I knew the back story.
I highly recommend against the I’ll just chuck it and go plan. There’s a saying: Wherever you go there you are.
Instead, I’m a big fan of naps, and chocolate. And love. I’m a very big fan of love.
Mahala Mazerov’s last blog post..Suffering By Desire
11 Mahala Mazerov Jun 5, 2009
PS: Precious wide open-eyed open smile sweetie face YOU.
Mahala Mazerov’s last blog post..Suffering By Desire
12 Choose Your Life Modays #25 » Comfort Queen Jun 8, 2009
[...] Hmm… Last week I practiced being aware of when I go off to la-la land of “If I could just” and bringing myself back to the present and reminding myself I’m okay. [...]