Every day is a new beginning, and presumably, I'll have a new thing to say. (At least that's what Seth Godin has to say about it.)
I do have a new thing to say because I always have something to say.
Lately, I've been working on saying more by saying less. This is one of the keys to good writing. So why not try again? Every day, find something worth sharing, something worth saying. Say it in the least amount of words possible. But say it (or write it!) nonetheless.
This is the only appropriate title for this blog post.
It's a funny story, this little journey to India. Let me begin by saying that I am not the most traveled person. I'm not the most untraveled person either, but I'm not affected by a chronic wunderlust like many others that I know. I love my home and I love being at home. I have never lived anywhere other than Tampa. (Yes, I was born here!) And I'm only a 20-minute drive from that home that I lived in from the time I was six-months to almost 21.
But at the end of a particularly stressful week, one of my best friends sent me a message. She said she was planning on going to India for a wedding, and that she thinks it would be amazing if we traveled there together. Any other time, I'd be like, "I don't have time for that!" But there was another part of me that was screaming, "Get me out of here and go have fun for once!"
I mentioned this idea to my partner when he got home, and he immediately encouraged me to do it—swatting down excuses like a pro. So, I began to look into the logistics of a plane ticket, and I checked in with my inner committee on its overall opinion. Within about two weeks, I booked the two of us a flight. My friend was working in rural Haiti at the time, on a micro solar grid (because she's a bad-ass!), so I had to do most of the flight research and booking. We were on the phone together when I decided on the final fight. Having lived with me for five years, she knows how much I stay at home. (During the time that we lived together, she traveled to, I don't know, at least three different countries on at least five trips—including to India!) As soon as we made our trip "official," she exclaimed, "I can't believe you did that."
One word Jamie, YOLO ... YO-LO.
That became the theme word for the trip. I was writing our proposed itineraries with the subject, "YOLO 2016." But then later, I realized that in India, they don't believe "you only live once."
So, I decided that it would be YOLTLO: You Only Live This Life Once.
Another way that I've been learning to lighten up is by really tidying up, which means mainly learning to discard. The book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, has been instrumental in this process.
Yesterday, I began to work through my clothes, discarding everything that doesn't "spark joy" and only keeping what's left. It's now a joy to get dressed because I choose from only things I love.
One of the best parts of this experience was that the clothes I discarded just disappeared! Well, what really happened was that several of my female friends brought over a surprise birthday cake for my birthday. As we stood by the almost barricade of bags by the door, I asked if anyone wanted to look through some clothes. They ended up taking every bag with them! I secretly had hoped someone would just take them off my hands, and before I knew it, the floor was clear.
I'm beginning to believe there is magic in tidying. As we are willing to shed what is no longer a part of our lives, the universe stands up to help us in this process. By letting go, we make room for our lives as they are, not as they were or as we thought they should be.
I saw a friend yesterday who said, "So you are going to be "turdy-uno" tomorrow..." I like this reference to turning 31.
Last year, it felt like a much bigger deal. Turning 30 means one is no longer in the fun-loving decade of the 20s when one was still young, beautiful, and trying to figure out the world. Transitioning from 29 to 30 felt serious, and a bit dreaded. But now that I am turning from 30 to 31, I feel not so serious at all. I see that where youth and beauty matter most are truly in the heart and that figuring out the world is a forever journey, so the things I thought were "ending" can actually never end.
So calling this birthday Turdy-Uno feels so appropriate.
The wisest among us are also the most playful. I'm glad to be embracing age with a light and open heart.
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As a note, my blog from a few years ago was attempting to get to this place with the title, Not So Seriously. Check it out. I was still a bit serious back then, and glad to see I've lightened up.
Every new habit has a "honeymoon" period. As I get deeper into this commitment to SUSDAT (Show Up, Sit Down and Type), it starts to have a little less thrill and a little more weight of "What am I going to write about?"
This is a very early morning of a full day and I know if I don't do this practice right now, it won't happen. So I'll take this moment to acknowledge that I already feel good about several of the posts done already, which would not have been written without this commitment.
My first poetry mentor encouraged me to write a poem a day because statistically, that's how we begin to grow a volume of good work. It might only be 10% of what we've written, but we also have gained experience, tons of salvageable material and the feeling that we can do it.
Well, this is just showing myself that I can do it.
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.
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.
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.
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 ..
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!
