Impatience

I have been scarce.

My husband and I have been wrestling with big decisions lately and after much deliberation and back and forth, we've decided to put our house on the market. We have been really busy spiffing and shining and running amok and, while it is certainly impossible to live anywhere but in the present when resembling a headless chicken, it is very hard to live MINDFULLY.

So, the glory of a new day and a new beginning. Today, I am going to listen to the third session of my on-line course with Geneen Roth (since I was so tired during the live session that I couldn't stay awake until the end) and I'm going to focus on slowing down and being in the moment.

Just now, I took the dogs outside to throw the ball for them and tire them out and I stood among my garden beds and felt this unbelievable impatience as I looked at all of the green tomatoes and the tiny ears of corn. I want home grown garden produce NOW!!

It's a good metaphor for life in the modern world that I want everything fast and on demand. I'd love to be whole and healthy and thin and at peace and I want it all NOW. But Nature knows better, see. Nature knows that everything happens in season and when we mess with growing times and fake additives, you get tasteless tomatoes and genetically modified corn that may or may not kill you sooner.

Everything in its own time. That's my focus today.

Perennials

I have such a good metaphor for today!  I love it when my garden gives me visual aids.

See this?

Those were a total surprise to me this year.

Last year, I planted some lilies after buying one of those foil wrapped little containers of them for my kitchen table.  Once the blooms were spent, I planted them into a pot that was full of annuals and promptly forgot about them.

Until they started poking their little heads out of the dirt in early April this year.

I've been watching them ever since. I've tended them and weeded them and given them a bit of plant food.

Today, they look like this:

It seems to me that Nature herself is reminding me of resilience and renewal. And also? Reminding me that I, too, am a perennial.

Today, I'm going to focus on remembering that I am worth a little care and tending in order to continue to bloom year after year.

Promises Kept

I think my heart may have grown two sizes today.

Somehow-- amidst all that is broken in me, and a world with oil spills, and the inhumanity of people who are often armed with guns-- the fact that my garden is giving me the promise of this tiny green tomato has filled me with hope.

Today, I am going to live inside that hope. I'm going to return to it whenever I feel knocked back. 

Today, I choose hope.

Playing Ball

So, last night was the second session of the online conference with Geneen Roth, author of "Women Food and God."

Yesterday, on this blog and also my main blog (So, The Thing Is...) I tried to make an oh-so-clever parallel between the behavior of my (completely neurotic) Border Collie Mix and my own behavior.

Judging by the fact that many people sent me dog training advice, apparently I wasn't very clear. What I was TRYING to say is that my dog (Scout) wants to play fetch more than anything else in the world and something keeps stopping him from bringing the ball back to me. Eventually, he remembers that's what he's supposed to do if he wants to play and he starts bringing it back and we lavish him with praise and he is happyhappyhappy until the next time we start to play Fetch when he cannot seem to bring himself to bring the ball back again.


I want to live healthily and mindfully and wow, I want to be kinder to myself. I want to reap the benefits of a life lived fully and not numbly.  I want to once again feel at home in my own body--happy and strong and living every day in that state of grace that comes when you live in harmony with yourself and your body and the world.  I want to do all the right things and lavish praise on myself. I want to freaking play Fetch all day long. But something keeps stopping me from bringing the damn ball back.

Last night, as I got ready to sit down to listen, I wish you could have seen how many ways I didn't bring the ball back.  I poured a big old glass of wine, I ate a handful of marshmallows.  When the call started and Geneen was leading us through a centering exercise, I cleaned my kitchen sink.  I did everything I possibly could not to show up with the damn ball and play.

And then I spoke to myself sharply (because that's all I know to do) and I sat down and Geneen Roth blew my world wide open.

Geneen talks about The Voice (which I call, "The Editor") and she gave such a spot-on impersonation of the voice in my head and the way I talk to myself that I just put my head down on my desk and started to cry. It was so vicious and horrible and she said all the things I say to myself every day.  Things you wouldn't say to a dog --that *I* wouldn't say to SCOUT. About what a failure I am and how dare I think that I can change myself or my life? Who do I think I am, wanting more?  Everyone knows I'm too lazy and stupid to achieve anything.

Under the weight of those words--MY WORDS--I couldn't even lift my head.

And then she gave us some tools for shutting up The Voice.

Can you imagine how freeing it is to be able to tell your inner Editor to shut the heck up?  It's AWESOME.

Today, I am going to concentrate on that.  Every time I start to talk to myself without respect or in some sort of demeaning fashion, I'm going to do something kind for myself.

After 45 years, it stops today.

Anyone else here feel like jumping up and down?

(I just have to say that if you have any extra money and you deal with some of the same issues I deal with --especially a disconnect between your body, your brain, and food-- this conference is worthy of your consideration.  It's not too late to join.  You get the replays of the sessions for download (for me this is vital because I don't take everything in the first time).  You can easily listen to the first two session before the third and if you can't commit to sitting down every Tuesday night for six week, you can listen to the replays at your leisure.  Here's the link. I am not affiliated with Geneen in any way, nor this conference. But it has been so worth it for me to put aside all of my preconceived notions of what I understood about my relationship with food and try to embrace an entirely different approach.)

Fetch

We have two dogs.

Our older dog, Scout, is a Border Collie mix.

Scout is an interesting animal because, although for a long time I complained that he was dumber than dirt, he's really not.  Actually, he's probably too smart.  He's just so fearful and nuerotic that he is his own worst enemy.

Take, for example, the game of Fetch.

Scout really loves the game of Fetch.  I mean, REALLY, REALLY loves it. I used to say he was the best dog I'd ever seen at bringing the ball back.

Then we got the puppy.  (Who, I guess, we will still call "The Puppy" after he is toothless and on a walker.  Really, he's no longer a puppy.  He is 18 months old.  His actual name is Austin.)

Austin just loves to play.  Anything.  Playing = GOOD in Austin's world.  Austin is smart but he is NOT neurotic.  He's a very simple creature and let me just say, the dog is Big "H" Happy.

He LOVES to play fetch.  When my husband is traveling for business and unable to take the dogs running, the way I  exercise the dogs is to use this thing called a "chuck it" to throw the ball to the far ends of our acre lot.  We do this a LOT.  I've gotten really good at throwing the ball.

Which is a good thing because I have to throw it now so that Scout doesn't get it.

I know, it's just...

If the puppy gets the ball he comes running right back to me and drops it at my feet so that I can throw it again.

If SCOUT gets the ball, he brings it back half way.

And then he just stands there, waiting for his engraved invitation to bring the ball all the way back.

No amount of cajoling will make him bring it back.  In fact, what I have to do is get all threatening and call him names.

Sometimes we just give up and go inside until he brings the darn ball back.

The thing that's so frustrating is that Scout really WANTS TO PLAY FETCH.  But he's so afraid that someone else (Austin) will grab the ball OR that maybe Austin will get credit for returning the ball, that his fear, confusion, neuroses stops him from doing the very thing he loves the most.

I feel like I am doing exactly the same thing with living mindfully. I want to be in the present and listen to my body and live healthily and fully. And yet, again and again, I find myself bringing the ball only half way back out of fear and uncertainty and habitual blindness.

(I'm posting this on my regular blog, too, because it was a lot of work to add text to the pictures and now I feel the need to show it to everyone!)

Astonishment

Last night was the first of the sessions in my on-line conference with Geneen Roth, author of Women Food and God.  It was a powerful hour, that's for sure. I am still processing many of the things I heard. I wasn't thrilled with the idea of this conference taking six weeks but now I'm glad I have a week in between sessions to really absorb the information.

One of the action items for this week was to be astonished by what I already have.

This is the perfect action item for me, especially today.  My foot is terribly painful and I had to cancel having coffee with my friend Sherry because I of it. My older daughter had clothing issues this morning, which threw off our schedule and we ended up forgetting her lunch.  I'm mad at my lawn guys, which makes me feel impotent and like I'm not a good manager.

So, deep breath.

By having a little extra time to make my daughter's lunch, I was able to first go to the grocery store and buy things that she might actually, well, EAT. (I KNOW!) I had money to do so and I had the luxury of time to pick the perfect strawberries for her.  I was smiling as I packed her lunch, aware of how blessed I am and also, how blessed she is to have me as her mother. I delivered the lunch to her school and did so with a glad heart.

Sherry and I made plans for her family to come over for dinner on Saturday.  She understands my chronic pain issues and is always unfailingly flexible in accommodating them.  I am so blessed to have her as a friend.

I'm calling the yard guys today, which will make me feel all brave and efficient.

So then I started noticing all of my blessings. I would enumerate them but suffice to say, I am probably the most blessed person on this planet. And you know what else?  I am so unbelievably loved.  It takes my breath away to think of it, really. 

I'm going to spend the rest of my day feeling this amazing feeling of abundance --reveling in it, wearing it like a crown, paying it forward in my every interaction.

Joy

Look what came out of our garden yesterday.

It doesn't matter that it's a little misshapen.  It doesn't have to be perfect to fill my house of aspiring farmers with great joy.

And then I put it in my daughter's lunch today, the ultimate present.

How great is a world where we can grow our own strawberries?

Rest

I spent a great deal of yesterday just resting.

I had a lot to do but since I was in so much pain, I was kind of wiped out so I just rested.

Today, I am still in a bit of pain, but nothing like yesterday and apparently, my sense of humor and appreciation for the absurdity of life is intact again.

It's something to think about, this idea of actually resting.  Our world and lives are so crazy and there is so little downtime.  I think we need it. I KNOW I do.

I wonder what ways I can build rest into my lifestyle so it doesn't take a day of pain to make me slow down?

Pain

This post deals with God.  Most of you know I have a very strong belief in God but am not very enamored of organized religion.  I almost never talk about God stuff because, frankly, I don't want to sound like the religious nut jobs that are constantly in the news, pointing to God as definitive rationale for their hatred, ignorance, bigotry and petty mean-spiritedness.  That has NOTHING to do with the God I know. Those people do not speak for me.

I am in a great deal of pain. I have a very messed up foot which gives me a great deal of pain from time to time and this is one of those times. It's excruciating. I can barely hear myself think.

Years ago, I heard a sermon by Tim Cook, who is the minister of the Church of Conscious Harmony in Austin. (I know, I know--the name. But there is nothing implied. It is a church dedicated to conscious living--MINDFUL LIVING. And the minister is simply the best extemporaneous speaker I have ever heard.) In this sermon, Father Cook spoke about how St. Teresa said, "Oh, how I love my suffering for it brings me so much closer to God." He preached an entire sermon about the idea of suffering bringing us so much closer to God.

I didn't "get" it.

I bought a cassette of the sermon and I played it over and over and over again in my car.

And I still didn't get it.

I still don't get it.

Mostly, I connect the most with God through my joy.  I feel the closest to my Creator when I am joyful because I think it's the way we could feel all the time if we had an unbroken awareness of God.  It feels like a taste of heaven. It feels like what I could feel like all the time if I wasn't so broken.

I'm going to think about that today.  And I'm going to think about how I can find my God even in this enormous pain. What am I supposed to be learning? 

Also, I feel like I might do a little crying.  (It really hurts.)

(I am leaving the comments open but this is not the place to debate religion, to point out the error of my ways, nor to demean others for having differing views.)

Struggling

"Despite writing down their self criticisms during the first day of the retreat, despite naming The Voice's presence, almost every student gets reentranced by it over the next day or two.  Since The Voice feels so much like you, and since you are utterly convinced that without it you would romp through your life without restraint or morality, releasing yourself from its grip takes a bit of time; it happens in stages." Geneen Roth, Women Food and God

I'm really struggling with the whole concept of checking in with myself every few minutes.  Checking to see how I'm feeling.  It feels narcissistic and indulgent and I realize that I don't think I am worth it.  I think this is normal back-sliding but I was kind of hoping for  Epiphany=Instantly Whole Barb.  What do you mean there's more work to all this?  I don't have time for this!

Um.

Yesterday, I signed up for an on-line conference with Geneen Roth.  I was absolutely AWASH with anxiety afterward.  But also?  Electrified at the thought of making real progress at regaining my joy. The conference begins Tuesday and will last for six weeks, an hour and a half every Tuesday night.

This morning, I was in a very depressed, tired mood despite the gorgeous weather and all I accomplished yesterday.  So I came home and threw the ball for the dogs for 45 minutes.  By the time they were too tired to bring it back, I was laughing out loud at how happy I'd made them.  I remembered how great it felt to be right in that moment, to laugh with joy.

Oh yeah, it's definitely worth it, this journey.

Shards

It was stormy and windy last night and when I came down this morning, our umbrella was by the side of the house and our patio table had blown over, dumping all of its contents on the stone pavers. The delicate pots of impatiens I had planted were broken, the luminarias were strewn about, a small blue vase that my daughters used to gather fallen buds from the trees had shattered.

I felt...sick. Honestly, it looked like some horrible act of destruction had been wreaked on my little patio.

I sat with my coffee and felt so sad.

Resigned, I put on my sneakers and I went out to address the carnage.

I righted the table and chased the umbrella.  I picked up the chairs and stepped back.  Really, the mess wasn't so bad.  I picked up the luminarias and then found that the only really damage was the two Italian ceramic pots that held impatiens.

(Warning: Big Metaphor for Life Ahead:)  Isn't it amazing that what seemed like an insurmountable, depressing tragedy turned out to be only a small bit of damage under scrutiny?  And that by taking each piece of the mess and examining what needed to be done to each piece, the work needed to reclaim my patio was actually not so overwhelming?

Today, I'm going to concentrate on taking baby steps in reclaiming the joy of my life.

Rain

It's a rainy and humid day here and I couldn't be more excited.

Instead of letting the gray invade my very soul today, I am concentrating on what all of this gentle rain is doing for my garden. On my way to drive my daughters to their schools, I imagined the grateful conversations of the flowers and grass.  (This is VASTLY different from hearing voices in one's head.  No.  Really.  I don't actually think the shrubbery talks--I was just imagining what it would say if it COULD. See, not crazy.)  (Much.)

Isn't it amazing how one's mindset determines so much of the day's outcome?  On days like today, nothing can keep me down.  On other days that may look exactly the same as today, I find it hard to get out of bed and every single raindrop is an annoyance.  I think the trick may be figuring out how to get to this mindset ON PURPOSE.

Roots

This morning when I went into Jane's (9) room to wake her for school, she said, "Noooooooo...I can't. I'm rootbound."

Which made me laugh and kiss her whole head.

And then I started thinking, "You know, I know just what she means."

I've been rootbound for a long time myself.  It's hard to move and it's especially hard if you're bound to a spot that's comfortable.

Today, I am going to breakfast with a group of other moms.  (I know!  Me!) I'm going to work hard on just staying in the moment and not feeling like I have to "perform" in order for people to like me. I'm going to let myself feel some pride in doing something out of the norm, something that requires courage for someone as introverted as I am.

I'm going to work on developing a set of traveling roots.

Eyes

We've had house guests this weekend.

The best sort of house guests--old friends coming for some male bonding time with my husband.  It was the first time they'd been to our house in New York.

Somehow, seeing the house through their eyes made me even more appreciative of the home we've made here.  It's just spectacular weather here, too, which adds to the expansive feeling of contentment.

I'm going to try to hold on to that feeling for as long as possible and capture it for those days when my contentment is hard to find.

Friends

Last night, I went over to have drinks and appetizers with some new friends.

I had the best time.

The. Best. Time.

Then I came home and it's just freaking amazing how the old tapes started running through my head.  You know, how I'm not good company and so shy that I can't speak half the time.  And dangerously lonely. And I just talked and talked too much.  I said all the wrong things and divulged too much of myself and stayed too long.

This time, though, I'm not letting those tapes get away with it.  Today, every time I start beating myself up over imaginary offenses, I'm going to stop, take a deep breath, and bring myself back to the present and what I really know. That I AM good company and that I wasn't the only one having a good time last night. That even if I made mistakes and talked too much and did all of those other things, in the end, it's not a moral failing worth the kind of abuse I am heaping on myself.  Today I am going to keep reminding myself that sometimes a good time is just a good time and doesn't need to be dissected and analyzed and rehashed endlessly.

And I'm going to try to not roll my eyes at myself.

Phoebe

There is this fabulous live web camera trained on a hummingbird in California named Phoebe.

I got interested in her back in February because she had laid two eggs and it seemed like the world was waiting for them to hatch.  One egg proved nonviable and the other chick died trying to hatch.

So Phoebe laid two more eggs.

Those eggs were stolen by a crow.

So Phoebe laid two more eggs.

Those eggs hatched this week.

I almost couldn't bear to watch.  My heart was just broken after the first eggs I saw and I was worried the whole event would send me right over the edge and into depression.

But Phoebe, see, she never gave up.  She didn't let her past sorrows get in the way of being fully present and trying again.  The past can't hurt Phoebe. The past is past.

And now the world is richer by two little hummingbirds.

Today, I'm going to remember that the past is in the past, and the only way it can hurt me is if I let it. I'm going to just keep moving forward.

(Photo of Phoebe from her Facebook page.)

Green

The rain has stopped.  The sun is coming out and it's like the whole world turned green over night.

And then I got hit by a mighty migraine.

Sorry no thoughtful post this morning.  I AM feeling much better now, though!

Present

Yesterday, I drove to Queens and back to get the results of the MRI of my foot.  The results showed no probable cause of my pain.  The doctor had some theories but nothing really supported by the information of the MRI in combination with the X-rays.

I must say that I consider this a setback, even though it really just means we have to start over looking for answers.  I mean, I am in pain and the fact that we don't know what causes it doesn't make it go away!

Today I am going to let myself feel discouraged if I need to, but I'm not going to wallow in it.  I'm going to go on about my day and not let the non-news rob me of the joys I find in it. I'm going to check in with myself a lot today to make sure I don't let this disappointment translate into self-incrimination.  In fact, I'm going to remind myself that this whole foot odyssey is not due to some large moral failing on my part.

Humor

 Not the barker.  Much.

Yesterday, someone left an anonymous note in my mailbox complaining about my dog barking.

In the past, I would have internalized this as a great failure on my part and also, my feeling would have been hurt that someone was mean to me.  As I've begun to get in touch with my feelings and reactions through mindful living, I am learning to stare right back at these feelings and take them apart.  For example, the fact that my dog barks is not my FAULT.  He is my responsibility but lord knows, we are trying hard to get him to stop barking.

Also, there is something very funny and pathetic that the retiree who left the note in my mailbox had to resort to a snarky anonymous letter.  This, too, is not my fault and honestly, there is nothing these people can do to me, even if they don't like me.  Their disapproval can't hurt me in any way.

Today, I'll focus on keeping my sense of humor and kindness.  I won't let the writers of anonymous notes/mean people have any control over the joy of my day.

Recharged

It was a wonderful Mother's Day weekend --a great combination of family time and productive action.  And laughter --oh my goodness.  Laughter really fills my cup back up.  I am so blessed.

Today, I am going to count my blessings mindfully, and laugh whenever possible.