Sadness over tragic deaths on our island, school starting madness, Bob’s new job is suddenly at shazaam speed! and my big shifts and exciting happenings…

Zoom zoom zoom went my mind. Kaboom splat goes my body.

Here’s what I find fascinating: I can’t recover from stress quickly anymore.

Here’s what else: me being stressed affects everyone else around me. Mirror neurons anybody?

Oh, and my brain doesn’t function – I feel stupid. Dull. Sllllooooowwww.

Here’s what else I find fascinating:

Even though I see I’m fried, even though writing this feels like swimming upstream against hardening concrete, I keep thinking things like:

• Go on, tick a few things off your list. Go ahead, check email, it won’t hurt. Call and order the gravel, that will make you feel good.
• If you just had a better system. You need to stop and make a perfect system.
• Ditch everything and go live in the forest in a yurt and make hemp cheese. It will be so perfect and calm and…
• Tomorrow, you’ll start again. Really, it will be perfect… tomorrow. For now, scramble!

Funny when I write these thoughts out they are – absurd – yet so convincing in the moment. So seductive.

Here is what I know to be true:

• The discursive mind loves thoughts of perfection. They take me out of choice, out of being a creator, and into someday, where life is perfect, and so is my skin.
• My brain needs a reset. Thoughts do not reset it. Sugar does not. More tea – nope. Checking email – ha!

Here is what does reset me:

• Saying hello to my exhaustion. It happened. It’s here. Let’s stop pretending otherwise.
• Get up and go for a wild windy walk in fern-fronded forest. Do not wait until later. Nature now.
• Breathe now. Exhale longer than inhale, belly soft. Look up and out. Shift body into body of someone who can stop.
• Rumi. Take the book off the shelf. Read s-l-o-w-l-y.
• Remembering: my she-ro’s journey: I cannot bring back boons for my tribe if I am hobbled by stress.
• Wired for Joy app.  Use it.
• Remembering: life is hard. The story that there is some magic solution is such a huge stress creator in itself.
• COE’s darling!!  Use my own genius stuff. Rachel, a founding member of the Comfort Cafe and a mother of four (!!) in Israel posted this morning:

Last night, I was EXHAUSTED, and sitting down to finally work after the babies went to sleep. I had one article already written, and instead of coding, editing, and sending that one in, I thought, “No, first I have to write a bunch more.” Except, remember, I was EXHAUSTED… I started to feel overwhelmed.

So I said, no no no! My COE is that I finish and send in this one article.

So, I did that. And when I finished, my eyes almost ready to close, I thought, “Ok, just one more…”

I stopped myself again, and said, no no no! My COE was that one article for tonight is enough. Tomorrow is another day, and if I stay up late, I will just be sick again.

I closed my laptop and went to sleep. Yay!”

Thanks Rachel for the reminder. Set COE’S and then STOP when I finish one. Declare myself satisfied. Then do something real to recharge – like feet up the wall.

Yes, I so want everyone in the world to know about Teach Now – it’s like my best idea since COE’s. Yes, it starts next week. I want to do all sorts of clever things to get the word out. Yes, we are lining up master teachers to interview – Elizabeth Lesser, Cheri Huber, Christina Baldwin, my daughter’s amazing math teacher, and I even asked Parker Palmer… and I need to reset. That is what is here now: tired.

Yes, after 5 years, I have an idea for a book. And another day or week of not diving in won’t hurt anything.

Yes, I want to nurture the Comfort Cafe as these women – oh my god what a tribe! – and it’s okay. Life there is good.

Yes, I want to create retreats for 2011 and…. all my projects can wait.

Actually, they must wait.

So I’m off to set COE’s for the day, starting with a Grand Forest walk. I humbly dedicate myself to being human and beginning again.

Thanks for letting me process with you!

Links: Teach Now first class free, starts next Tuesday; Comfort Cafe, COE, Wired for Joy.

These wise folks said things like “You help women be effective in the world” and “Comfort is a quality of the Divine, it’s the foundation” and “If it’s killing me, then it’s killing the world.”

Wow. Okay. YES!

And then this one:

Women get into a cycle of depletion and they’re afraid to step out of it, because then they would be freed up to actually take action on what they really want. They are positive they won’t be able to create their heart’s desire. So they stay busy or scattered or overcommitted so they never have to try.”

This one landed like a slap across my face.

I do this!

I hate to admit it but I do.

See I have an ancient, crusty legacy of shame around my creative work.

I have an old stinky story of being a failure.

A public failure.

The stinky shame dates from when I did an Edith Ann impression (a Lily Tomlin character for those of you too young to remember) on stage in front of my whole school and you could see my breasts through my white shirt and I got heckled.

I think high beams were mentioned.

I was in 5th grade.

Did I mention it was in front of the whole school?

I’ve got a lot of stories like that – stories of wildly creative out-going kind-of-loud Jen launching herself at the world and things not. Always. Going. So. Well.

What creative person doesn’t have these stories, right?

I’m 47 now and I’ve done a ton of healing around this and even let my desire to murder my 7th grade English teacher go (that’s another story).

Only I didn’t see until now that

when my creative shame  gets triggered, I kick off a depletion cycle to end all depletion cycles.

It’s like I want to prove I’m a untalented goof and so I exhaust myself by launching too many projects, hiring the wrong folk, miring myself in endless details that do need to get done (thank you very much) but I suck at details so that makes me feel more ashamed plus there is no time for real creative work which would restore my sanity.

But I’m afraid to stop the cycle because then I’ll have the time to replenish and do creative work but what if it sucks again?  Better to stay busy!

Stunningly diabolical!

Michele said, “Women are ashamed to need comfort and support and love to be able to thrive.”

I would add, “We have to build the trust and heal the shame that tells us that if we get comfort and rest and ease, we’d better by damn prove we were worth it.”

So this week I’ll be loving watching my story that depletion is the punishment for being a failure, and must be maintained to keep future failure at bay.

What about you? Is depletion the story of your life these days? If so, maybe it’s just because life is crazy busy and soon you will get some time to rest, maybe a retreat?

Or are you caught in a washing machine of depletion and you feel like you can never get out?

If so, tell me more! Me thinks this could be juicy conversation.