Sitting comfortably at the beginning of a yoga class, I hear the calm, all-knowing teacher suggest that I choose an "intention" for my practice. My first wise-cracking thought is, "My intention is to get through it." But I keep hearing this invitation and gradually the idea takes hold. It helps when the teachers use examples, such as compassion, love, forgiveness. They mention the intention throughout the class. Tell me to check in with myself (like, am I still on track?). Finally, I get it. I can get what I want out of this. Now there's a breakthrough.And maybe a burden too.
But being a "big picture" type, I can't leave it at that. I begin to think about an intention for the DAY. My intention flows out of the end of my pen while I write in my journal each morning. I have no idea what is going to come out. I am amazed at how intuitive my pen is. After a day of beating myself up for being impatient, my pen tells me my intention for the day is self-love, compassion for myself. Forgiveness for not being eternally patient, grateful acceptance of a new day, another chance.
All this is well and good at 6:30 (or later, I admit) in the morning. But what about at noon at the stoplight in the middle of town when, just as I have a chance to turn, a pedestrian strays in front of my car? (Under Vermont law, pedestrians rule. Period.) Well, actually, it's an ideal time to check in with my intention. How is that compassion going? Where am I on that impatience meter? The idea is to recognize a chance to STOP, BREATHE (maybe more than once), and then CHECK IN.
It helps to figure out what might trigger a "check in." Red stop lights would be perfect in Washington or Boston, but in Montpelier we have only one stoplight. So in the absence of having a personal Yogi to toll a bell for me every two hours, I have been looking for other transition moments that might work. How about when I start the car? Turn off the car? When I move from one room to another (too hard to remember)? Whenever I use my credit card? When I step into the shower? Some of the above? All of the above?
My first thought was to "send" myself a chime message every two hours. I carefully selected the sound from those available. Great idea. But my iPhone and I are still discussing how to achieve this. We apparently disagree. No chimes have been sounded despite my efforts to set this up. Now I am just grabbing whatever I can. Unfortunately the credit card option seems to be winning. Lots of opportunities to check in there. So far, my "check in" has not stopped any purchases. But I am thinking maybe this could be a strategy for reducing thoughtlerss spending.
After all, this is all about being mindful. Intentional. Thinking about what I am doing. Giving myself a chance to reconsider what I am about to do or say. Checking the alignment with my intention. Recognizing and accepting how far off course I might have strayed since I last checked in. Feeling grateful for this moment when I can steer myself back on course.
A dear friend told me he thought this sounded like a To-Do list (God forbid). Au contraire. It feels like painting a backdrop for the day rather than one more thing to do.But I admit, it is work. And it seems to be working for me.
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Resting Open is Not for Sissies
Some might call it coincidence, others "synchronicity." Maybe even the Holy Spirit. One thing is for sure, it happens. Things come together. For a reason, even if the reason is not always crystal clear in the moment.
Here I am cleaning out the dresser of my life, feeling grateful for the opportunity Lent gives me to pause, thinking I am working toward something that looks like both physical and mental space to create things, to work on ideas. Instead I watch one parent succumb to congestive heart failure and another parent face-to-face with an existential crisis.
They were married over 71 years and fell in love on their first date in 1937. As a survivor of two marriages/divorces, I feel like I am in the Mars Rover trying to decipher what life looks like on that planet. There is no way I can really get it. Their time sweeps from the Roaring Twenties through the the Great Depression, is marked forever by World War II. They have seen first party line and private line telephones come in, then direct dialing in the early 1950s, and now push-button and mobile phones that are as good as computers. They lived through the Cold War, the Viet Nam war, the onslaught of technology. They saw a world rocked by terrorism. Their time together included rearing three children who gave them a normal ration of grief but whose achievements and children made them proud and happy. And they suffered every parent's worst nightmare, losing a child before his time.
Not exactly what I had in mind when I embraced Lent, but how grateful I am now for the clean dresser, the resting open, feeling if not strong at least nimble enough to respond. Every day delivers a new set of challenges, from the mundane and even ridiculous to the Big Questions of Life.
As the trustee for my dad's will, I am finding a whole lot of paperwork is involved. Faceless institutions have unique procedures for closing out a person's account at life's end. Who knew they cared? Plus, Dad did not leave a tidy desk. Everything Mom ever feared about Dad's paper management is true. And it's also true that if she had her sight, things would be different. Just sayin.' The fact is they were a pair like many pairs, made up of a saver and a thrower.
The good side of this is finding the treasure trove my dad saved, including menus from their honeymoon to Chicago in 1941, where you could get a Delmonico steak at a swank ballroom restaurant for $2.95. There are photos and a championship ring from his semi-pro baseball career, his Pilot Log from World War II and what appears to be every single typed order he was ever issued. He wrote detailed accounts of key bombing missions over the Philippines and life on the base deep in the Pacific. On one mission where his plane came under potentially mortal fire, he acknowledges that he thought to himself that it was a helluva place to die. Happily for our family, his plane limped back to base that day and he eventually came home to live a full life and to die knowing he was loved dearly and that we all thought he was a hero.
Resting open is not for sissies. You never know what might come up. But no matter what arises there is some element in it for which I can be grateful. This one is easy. I am simply and profoundly grateful for my dad.
Here I am cleaning out the dresser of my life, feeling grateful for the opportunity Lent gives me to pause, thinking I am working toward something that looks like both physical and mental space to create things, to work on ideas. Instead I watch one parent succumb to congestive heart failure and another parent face-to-face with an existential crisis.
They were married over 71 years and fell in love on their first date in 1937. As a survivor of two marriages/divorces, I feel like I am in the Mars Rover trying to decipher what life looks like on that planet. There is no way I can really get it. Their time sweeps from the Roaring Twenties through the the Great Depression, is marked forever by World War II. They have seen first party line and private line telephones come in, then direct dialing in the early 1950s, and now push-button and mobile phones that are as good as computers. They lived through the Cold War, the Viet Nam war, the onslaught of technology. They saw a world rocked by terrorism. Their time together included rearing three children who gave them a normal ration of grief but whose achievements and children made them proud and happy. And they suffered every parent's worst nightmare, losing a child before his time.
Not exactly what I had in mind when I embraced Lent, but how grateful I am now for the clean dresser, the resting open, feeling if not strong at least nimble enough to respond. Every day delivers a new set of challenges, from the mundane and even ridiculous to the Big Questions of Life.
As the trustee for my dad's will, I am finding a whole lot of paperwork is involved. Faceless institutions have unique procedures for closing out a person's account at life's end. Who knew they cared? Plus, Dad did not leave a tidy desk. Everything Mom ever feared about Dad's paper management is true. And it's also true that if she had her sight, things would be different. Just sayin.' The fact is they were a pair like many pairs, made up of a saver and a thrower.
The good side of this is finding the treasure trove my dad saved, including menus from their honeymoon to Chicago in 1941, where you could get a Delmonico steak at a swank ballroom restaurant for $2.95. There are photos and a championship ring from his semi-pro baseball career, his Pilot Log from World War II and what appears to be every single typed order he was ever issued. He wrote detailed accounts of key bombing missions over the Philippines and life on the base deep in the Pacific. On one mission where his plane came under potentially mortal fire, he acknowledges that he thought to himself that it was a helluva place to die. Happily for our family, his plane limped back to base that day and he eventually came home to live a full life and to die knowing he was loved dearly and that we all thought he was a hero.
Resting open is not for sissies. You never know what might come up. But no matter what arises there is some element in it for which I can be grateful. This one is easy. I am simply and profoundly grateful for my dad.
Rilla's Big Parking Lot of Life
I love a good list. In fact, it's my go-to way of coping when everything--absolutely everything--in my life is OUT OF CONTROL. Virtually anything can trigger list-making. A good list can go a long way toward reestablishing the illusion that I could be in control. In 1992 after being robbed on the street on a sunny spring day in Strasbourg, I found myself in a French police station. I wasn't happy. First, there was the robbery and then, because of it, our dinner plans were canceled.I was hungry. It seemed to be beyond very important in a French kind of way to report this crime. I was sitting there listening to my French-fluent daughter ask rapid-fire questions of the police on my behalf. Me? I started to make a list of what I thought was in my wallet before it left my purse. We still laugh about how we each resorted to character under stress--lots of questions from her, list-making by me.
Not all lists are born in crisis. Every day lists play a part in keeping me on track now that I can find myself in a room and not remember why I went there. And I even use my iPhone to make lists, especially shopping lists. There is no cross-out function, but I can delete an item--almost as satisfying. Imagine my best list--organized and prioritized, maybe even numbered in the order in which I plan to attend to the items.If it's a list of errands, it's even likely to be charted to be sure I don't waste time or gas and can accomplish the list most efficiently. You know, do all the Main Street tasks at the same time sort of thing.
At one time, I might have said a list could organize my life. Yes, there would be some things more important and/or more urgent than others. But every aspiration could be on the list. What I have realized of late is that some things--even things that feel urgent and important--don't ever need to get done or be on the list. Like Christmas cards or ironing pillow cases. But how about "doing something" with all the family pictures? What if I never cleaned out my under-deck storage?
These kinds of "shoulds" need to be dealt with or they just keep cycling back. For me it's best if I see them written down. That somehow forces me to make a decision to do, delay, or plan never to do. So now I have Rilla's Big Parking Lot of Life (BPLL). It's my list of things I have decided for now I will not do either because the thought overwhelms me or they seem unimportant.
The idea for the BPLL is borrowed from too many years of facilitating group discussions where we used a flip chart or a white board to make diplomatic note of pesky diversionary topics and ideas worth considering another day (but not today). I admit that there were occasions where certain items went to the parking lot to die. But others were gems that deserved at least another half-life of consideration.
My BPLL has both kinds of things in it.Right now, it looks like a random list. There is no need to organize or prioritize because I have no intention--currently--of doing these things.They are not lost. In the words of the immortal Fats Waller, "One never knows, do one?" But they are good reminders about what is not important in my life, at this moment, in this place. Where I can let myself off the hook. The BPLL makes it possible some days to rest open, to be fully engaged in right now.
Not a bad accomplishment from a humble list.
Not all lists are born in crisis. Every day lists play a part in keeping me on track now that I can find myself in a room and not remember why I went there. And I even use my iPhone to make lists, especially shopping lists. There is no cross-out function, but I can delete an item--almost as satisfying. Imagine my best list--organized and prioritized, maybe even numbered in the order in which I plan to attend to the items.If it's a list of errands, it's even likely to be charted to be sure I don't waste time or gas and can accomplish the list most efficiently. You know, do all the Main Street tasks at the same time sort of thing.
At one time, I might have said a list could organize my life. Yes, there would be some things more important and/or more urgent than others. But every aspiration could be on the list. What I have realized of late is that some things--even things that feel urgent and important--don't ever need to get done or be on the list. Like Christmas cards or ironing pillow cases. But how about "doing something" with all the family pictures? What if I never cleaned out my under-deck storage?
These kinds of "shoulds" need to be dealt with or they just keep cycling back. For me it's best if I see them written down. That somehow forces me to make a decision to do, delay, or plan never to do. So now I have Rilla's Big Parking Lot of Life (BPLL). It's my list of things I have decided for now I will not do either because the thought overwhelms me or they seem unimportant.
The idea for the BPLL is borrowed from too many years of facilitating group discussions where we used a flip chart or a white board to make diplomatic note of pesky diversionary topics and ideas worth considering another day (but not today). I admit that there were occasions where certain items went to the parking lot to die. But others were gems that deserved at least another half-life of consideration.
My BPLL has both kinds of things in it.Right now, it looks like a random list. There is no need to organize or prioritize because I have no intention--currently--of doing these things.They are not lost. In the words of the immortal Fats Waller, "One never knows, do one?" But they are good reminders about what is not important in my life, at this moment, in this place. Where I can let myself off the hook. The BPLL makes it possible some days to rest open, to be fully engaged in right now.
Not a bad accomplishment from a humble list.
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