HungryForLife

top ten questions for 2012

I'm taking baby steps on my Planning 2012 project so here's an update from my 100 Questions post. I found the exercise to be daunting at first and only wrote curioius questions like, How does electricity work? and Why is purple my favorite color? There were broad and often unanswerable questions like, How long will I live? followed by, DO I want to know? Eventually I got down to the nitty grity and experienced a shift to focused specific questions that I truly wanted to answer.

Then I had to choose the top ten questions that resonated with me truly-madly-deeply. Ten? Only ten! I ticked and crossed off and bit my lip and then I put it away. I didn't want to choose only ten. When I was ready to come back to it weeks later (at least I came back, that's huge for me!) I decided to tick off ALL the questions that were particularly close to my heart and I came up with twelve and decided the extra were okay for now. I'm playing by my rules after all.

They are in no particualr order other than how they came to me. Here's a sampling:

What do I want to learn how to do more than anything? What adventure do I want to have in 2012 like paragliding? What do I want to create? Who are my sheroes for aging with attitude? What do I need to do to be ready for my ideal client?

 

My top twelve questions led to creating my goals for 2012. Which I divided into categories of:

Healthy Living, Learning, Biz, Creativity, Relationships, Play, and Writing

I answered this burning question: If you could accomplish only ONE thing in 2012 what would you want it to be? Why? What would your biz/life be like without it. What would your biz/life be like with it? I did this both personally and professionally . These answers gave me my Intentions for 2012.

To reach and maintain my fitest, healthist self.

Create financial freedom via a business partnership with Jeff.

Next, I considered this question: How are you going to make your intention a reality? Glenda suggests SMART goals: specific/measurable/actionable/realistic/timebound

My committment to this process is consistency over intensity! Brian Johnson reminds us, "If we work diligently, patiently, persistently, and playfully we're bound to be successful."

I will continue on to the next level of Palnning 2012 and create action steps for each of my goals. Glenda recommends three so as not to try and do too much. (Who me?) Then the steps actually need to be scheduled. This is the peice that gets me every time! Yes, I have my intentions and goals but I don't designate a time to take action on them. This planning prcocess has been extremely illuminating the process of 'making real' doesn't happen in my head—it begins there with an idea or desire but then I need to take action to begin the actualization process. I knew this logically but now I know it in my heart where it's blossomed into the power and inspiration to transform my dreams into reality.

I'm okay with that

My Christmas gift to myself was to redecorate my bedroom. I wanted paint, carpet, trim, the whole shebang. I used this project as a guinea pig to test new processes to break a task down into action steps. It felt overwhelming as a whole. When I’m overwhelmed I take no action. So I created a storyboard and the visual steps felt extremely foreign to me but were particularly helpful:

Here’s what I needed to learn again. Patience. Process. I set aside my vacation week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. We took our time and did tackled one portion a day. The first time we painted it was with a base coat Jeff had surprised me with, a soft lavender color which he thought I would love. Is there another color besides purple? When we finished Brin stood back and said, Momma it looks like a Unicorn puked in here. Sadly I agreed. It was the perfect color for a bedroom for a four year old princess. Back to Lowe’s for more paint.I was okay with that.

I agonized over shades of purple so long and completely that Jeff was able to make his escape to another part of the store without me stopping him. Once I was alone I put all the paint chips named purple mist and grapesicle back in their little slots. I took a deep breath closed my eyes and felt the feeling I wanted when I opened my eyes in bed in the morning. I started picking color brochures of landscapes: the ocean, the mountains, the forest, and then…canyons. That was the feeling—the sun illuminating the oranges and yellows in the canyon wall. Who knew? Huh. No purple? I was okay with that.

The green is called Willow Tree but as we slathered it on the bookcase it looked more and more like baby poop. So it’s a doo over—and I’m okay with that. I couldn’t be more surprised by my attitude towards the completion of this long overdue project. I’m in tune with the process and have faith I will find the ideal hue for the bookcase and have not bemoaned the expense of the baby poop paint as a waste. It was an investment in discovering what worked for me and what didn’t. Now I know. And I’m okay with that.

Have I suddenly evolved into a patient-in-the-moment person instead of the impatient, controlling, I-must-get-finished-so-I-can-be-happy person I used to be? Huh. What happened? I made a decision. I chose to immerse myself in process and be present instead of getting to done.  The walls and ceiling are painted, the trim is stained but not yet installed, the carpet has been laid, there is only a bed and a nightstand in the room, there’s no curtain on the window ( I tack up a piece of material at night), it still smells faintly of paint. The room is in transition and I am along for the ride. I’m okay with that.

Christmas without Mom

My mom loved Christmas! She would hoard little treasures from yard sales and flea markets all year long and store them in a trunk to give to us at Christmas. Presents had to be distributed one at a time and in a certain order so we could all watch the recipient open and share their joy. ;) In the early seventies she excitedly drug home her most exciting find and we assembled it in the living room: a garish silver artificial tree made of some sort of aluminum strips. Once the lights and decorations were on she added the final finishing touch by pouring white Styrofoam ‘peanuts’ over the top to simulate snow. At nine I was completely enchanted! Her enthusiastic giving continued even when she was seventy-nine.

Mom became ill two days before Christmas last year and I transferred her to Hospice the day after Christmas. We stayed with her until she crossed over on January 7^th. I’m sure we celebrated Christmas after that but I don’t recall it. And I know I must have taken the tree and decorations down and put her unopened presents away but I have no clear memory. So this year I wasn’t sure I wanted to celebrate Christmas. Did I want to put up the tree she and I found for five dollars at a thrift shop and we’ve used and loved the past seven years? We even considered traveling for the holidays. But I knew I wanted to be with Brin wherever we were and I knew Mom would not want me to give up Christmas. I gave the tree away to a neighborhood family and wished them many happy memories around it.

Our family tradition since Brin was a toddler was to get a ‘free’ live tree on Christmas Eve bring it home and decorate it, have dinner, and then open presents. Oh about the ‘free’ tree—you know those empty lots near shopping centers that pop up after November strung with white light bulbs and cut live trees lined up along a mesh fence? Well this free tree ritual began literally because in those days we could not afford to buy a tree! My parents and sister and brother-in-loveand even our neighbors always joined us. We practiced this tradition for over a decade into Brin’s teens and well after I moved on from working Christmas Day at a movie theatre and could afford to buy a tree! And over the years most of those loved ones for one reason or another join us now only in Spirit.

This year we reinstated the tradition which Brin explained to her boyfriend and we learned she never realized it started because we were broke—we all found this quite hilarious! Brin cooked for us Christmas Eve at our house and Jeff and I went out to look for a tree. Our little town used to have them everywhere but this year we couldn’t locate even one. Sigh. Soooo, Brin’s three foot tall purple pre-lit artificial tree would have to grow on me.

I set it up on a table in the living room window and dug out the Christmas decorations brought in from the shed but I could only find the bulbs mom and Jeff and I had painted together last year. Oh it was a brilliant idea but a bigger project than I had anticipated as it was too challenging for her physically. But we muddled through and had a great time. We gave each of her caretakers and family and friends a special bulb to remember us and this Christmas.  They actually looked perfect on this little purple tree and I was happy.

But I couldn’t find the box with all of our family decorations, yet the box of lights were there. I was disheartened. I had no memory of packing them so I wasn’t really sure what I’d done with them. We rechecked the shed—not there. I ran through several unhappy scenarios and decided to let it go for then (which was a HUGE stretch for me) and not deal with it over the holiday. The tree was glittering and was a perfect memory of mom—she would have been delighted with it just the way it was.

I really ‘got’ this year that Christmas, or whatever winter holiday you may celebrate, is about love. And demonstrating that love with others. We didn’t exchange presents, we had a little tree, Brin cooked a scrumptious meal, and we had each other. The people in the world I love dearly were with me and healthy and happy and I am incredibly grateful and blessed that this is so. That’s all the gift I needed.

Later that night I was leaving mom’s old bedroom, now storage and exercise room, and I felt the impulse to whisper to the darkened ceiling, still glowing from her glow in the dark stars, Happy Christmas Mom, I love you. I was at peace.

A few days later when I was taking the outside lights down I moved the boxes in her old room and there was an unopened box of Christmas decorations that I swear had not been there before! I sat down and opened it and low and behold (pun intended) it was our family decorations, the ones I thought were irrevocably lost! I appreciate the serendipity or miracle or marvel that I didn’t find them until I was ready—until I’d made peace with Christmas. Until I’d made peace with loving mom long distance.

"If you can dream it, you can do it." ~ Walt Disney

I spent the day with several AssistU Virtual Assistants on a virtual retreat on Friday. Our goal was to plan our year for 2012. I have never taken the time to map out goals to accomplish in a year and I thought this was a brilliant idea for next year: my year of action. 2011 was a gift to myself I needed to spread my wings and fly, to experience freedom and the ease of soaring but next year I want to focus on digging in and taking action in my business and personal life.

My first step was to take Kim’s advice and journal where I wanted to be in December 2012. Oh that was easy—to have one more ideal client; to be debt free again; to finish my screen play and the edits; to create a new WOWVA Wordpress website; to discover a business that Jeff and I can do together; to maintain my weight and fitness goals with ease; to volunteer with a local therapeutic riding organization; to learn to sail; to take the Weight Watchers leadership training.

A couple of those potential manifestations surprised me and spoke to stepping out of my comfort zone. Next, I knew I wanted both a theme and a word for 2012 to help me focus on my priorities, create a plan of action and processes, and stay on a clear heading for true north. I realized during this process they may not be the same word and that was a new possibility as well. I mind mapped the word action which felt like the right beginning for my theme but I wanted more.

Action as in ‘something done’ led me to accomplish, achieve, realize, and finally actualize as in ‘make real’.  It clicked. The word fit my purpose and intention exactly and resonated in my entire body kind of like a deep hum or the vibration from a stringed instrument. Thawaaaaang!  Some of the synonyms for actualize are: activate, create, begin, undertake, initiate, accomplish, bring about, produce, realize. The other synonym that came from mind mapping the word action was challenge—there it was like a clear blue day filled with possibility. The definitions that applied for me are: difficulty in a job or undertaking that is stimulating to one engaged in it. And: something that by its nature or character serves as a call to special effort.

Stretching myself out of my comfort zones both personally and professionally is a way to challenge myself and achieve the ultimate goal of living my best life—a call to special effort. Beautiful that. Sailing is something I’ve always wanted to learn to do and would be a stepping stone to the live-aboard life hubby and I envision. I’ve shifted my thoughts from ‘I don’t know how to do that and can’t picture myself doing it’ to the possibility of: what does it take to learn to sail? Who do I need to become and what do I need to do to actualize being a sailor? Amazing that.

Now that I have my theme and one little word and have generated a slew of goals for 2012 I am combining Jamie Ridler’s planning ideas with Glenda Myles’s Planning 2012 Series. I’ve completed the 100 Questions exercise (extremely enlightening—more on that in another post) and am ready to select my top ten questions and move on to writing my intention for 2012 and a plan for transforming my ideas into reality: actualizing them!

Here's to a year filled with possibility, delight, and your wild and woolly dream actualized!

Here’s a quick review of the 100 Questions exercise—you may be inspired to play:

See it. Be it. Live it.

For most of this year I have struggled with emotional eating, over eating, and craving comfort foods. In the beginning of my weight releasing journey I was focused on getting done with burning fat but I learned that it was a process and there was no way to do it but go through. The same with all life lessons from having a baby to losing a loved one. I had to wrap my head around the idea that once I released the excess pounds that maintaining my weight might be a challenge but I didn’t imagine it would be more challenging than my original journey. Oh my—it is. And I realize I have not listened to my wise self and I have gained rather than maintained.

At 140 lbs. I heard, you’re too thin from a few people—I hadn’t heard those words since I was nine years old! In 2009 when my mom and her love of sweets moved in with us I gained five pounds and I was okay with that because others thought I was too thin. I liked how I felt at 140 but I could live with the gain. When mom was sick last Christmas and died in January—I gained five pounds in a few weeks. They stuck. Every trip I’ve taken this year I’ve gained 3-4 pounds and then struggled for what felt like forever to let them go. It's not about the number but how I feel—heavier and less energized.

Since starting CrossFit I have definitely seen and felt a difference in my body (yes, besides sore muscles!) but I haven't lost weight. Yes, I built muscle. Yes, I’m stronger and have more stamina. I still have a ways to go to be toned but I’ll get there one workout at a time. But I see that I slowly gave up on all my other exercise; walking, biking, dancing, and I felt sorry for my poor sore body and didn’t I deserve a reward for all my effort? I reverted to thinking of foods as good, bad, and evil. Guess where all my comfort foods lie out of those three categories?

It has taken me all year to realize I’ve been stuck in diet mentality. My Weight Watchers leader Stacey mentioned this in a meeting last week and I had an Aha! moment. I wasn’t consciously depriving myself but now I see that’s why when I broke down and binged I could disappear a half a pan of brownies. Poof! The thinking is: scarf as much as possible because it may be months before I get this again. Then came the cycle of guilt, admonishment, feeling bad about myself, which triggers a whole ‘nother emotional food-fest, followed by the question why bother exercising after eating all that!?

I was discouraged. I was tired of the struggle. I’d lost my way. I'd forgotten that this journey is a process—not about getting to done. There is no done for this over eater/emotional eater. For me the first step to getting back on track is to pick myself up. I wanted something to lift my spirits and energy. I needed a vision. Once I became aware of my thinking I was on board immediately with letting go of diet brain—I know diets don’t work yet I had reverted to my comfort zone. I needed to stretch myself out of that supposed comfortable place of excess and ease and get back up. I needed to see it. Be it. Live it. Not a DIEt but a LIVEit. Isn’t it interesting that evil in reverse is LIVE? Hmmmm.

My vision manifested itself as a vision board with a twist. I cut out magazine pictures and words that gave life and color to my intentions of building a strong and healthy body. I added my weigh in date for each week in December and my intended weight. First I SEE it on the board. Then I BEcome it, manifest it. That’s how I LIVEit. Creating the board itself was a messy creative trial and error endeavor and reaffirmed for me how important going through the process is—not the end result.

The first time I attempted to make it I was in a hurry and resistant to the process. I ended up tearing it up and starting again the next day. I set the mood and took a pile of O Magazines and all the tools I’d need to snip and glue and sat in the middle of my bed. Once I relaxed into the rhythm of opening and receiving, the perfect photos and words popped up everywhere. I had set my timer for ninety minutes and I stopped and walked away when it beeped. I left the bed just the way it was. Oh my inner control freak wanted to clean up right now! I gently cajoled her with, No dear, we’re not finished, it’s not your turn yet, we’ll come back later and you can whip it into shape.

I went back before dinner for an hour to trim and choose my final pieces and lay them out. Oh, it was delightful! A childlike process akin to paper dolls. Once again, I walked away when the dinner bell rang. Later that night as we settled in to watch a show I sat in front of the TV wielding my glue stick like a magic wand and whisking all the pieces into their ideal places. It took all day to complete this concoction because I let it simmer and burble like a good potion maker does.

I learned to be in the moment; to connect to my creative genius; to trust my gut; to see what I want to be; to be patient and loving with myself; that mis-takes are merely do-overs to celebrate. I learned that I can enjoy the end results but not let them be the keeper of joy— happiness lies in the journey not the destination. I learned that all the lessons of creating my LIVEit poster apply to living my LIVEit life!

(I wrote this draft on Monday and weighed in on Tuesday: at a half a pound below my goal for week one! Woot, woot!)

 

 

Reading list from Learning2011

Many of the speakers and presenters at Learning 2011 were also authors and so I've compiled a list of their books and the books they recommended. Being a bibliophile and working with a group of librarians made this list a must have!

The Learning Explosion: 9 Rules to Ignite Your Virtual Classroom By Matt Murdoch & Treion Muller

The Art of the Focused Conversation Edited by  R. Brian Stanfield

Wikinomics & Macrowikinomics By Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams

Back to Work By Bill Clinton

The Big Sort By Bill Bishop and Robert Cushing

Being Wrong By Kathryn Schulz

The Indian Clerk: A Novel By David Leavitt

Social Media for Trainers By Jane Bozarth

Power of Pull By John Seely Brown

The Checklist Manifesto By Atul Gawande

Take the Lead By Betsy Meyers

The Girl Effect

Thanks Jamie for pointing the way and thanks Tara for making a difference.

That's one off my bucket list

My non Facebook friends may not have seen these pix yet. Woohoo! I decided to go paragliding while in San Diego. This is in La Jolla, Blacks Beach. The photos truly speak for themselves.

 

Enough already!

This post is long overdue. Until this moment I was hesitant to write it and be authentic and vulnerable. I had eagerly anticipated our final bootcamp session at CrossFit on August 19^th. That evening we bootcamp ladies and our coaches met for drinks and appetizers each of us stylin’ and unrecognizable to the others out of our workout clothes. Prizes were awarded to participants who had worked their butts off (literally!) and the results spoke volumes.

Yes, I was happy for my classmates’ success but I was disappointed in myself. This is a repeat lesson for me.  I did my best but could have done better—my best wasn’t good enough. How did it become so ingrained in me not to celebrate my successes but to actually refuse to acknowledge their existence by beating myself up for an imagined expectation?

I wallowed for a week. Then I realized I was using unhappiness to motivate myself. To do what? Try harder or quit.  The way I felt it was more likely I’d give up. As I wrestled with that demon I had another ‘aha’ moment. I was wallowing and beating myself up not only because I was disappointed in myself but because I was back full circle at this lesson again.  I’d dealt with this not enough issue over and over why was it back? Because I had dealt with it, put it to bed, made peace with it in those other scenarios—not this one. Ahhh. Got it.

I wasn’t dealing with actually feeling not enough in this situation but what my feelings triggered when I first decided I was not enough. Oh, breakthroughs are incredibly freeing when they dazzle you with their shiny wisdom.  And I was buying into that belief again because I’d forgotten I had a choice.  With this awakening I chose a different way—no I don’t want to wallow in unhappiness, no I don’t like self-sabotaging myself, no I don’t want to quit, no I don’t want to live as though I am not enough.

I choose to let go of expectation and be in the now and celebrate where I am. A human ‘bean’ with human issues like feeling and believing I’m not enough when those unworthy feelings are triggered. I could also delve into what ‘enough’ means to me but for now it is enough to know I am enough. Let me say that again: I am enough. Just. As. I. Am.

Advanced Bootcamp begins next Monday and I will be there with my sneakers laced, my spirits high, and my expectations left…well I won’t leave them behind—I won’t give them life or breath to begin with.

Write Now

In my old care taking life I never had enough time. I always felt rushed, exhausted, pulled in several directions simultaneously.  Self-care was the last priority on my list. This year I have been hyper aware of how I take care of myself and one of my procrastinated commitments to myself was to take time to write. No more excuses.

One piece of the writing commitment was journaling daily a practice that keeps me sane, on track, and vital to my emotional and spiritual health.

by Vidalia 11

Another slice was to carve out time every day to write a scene for a screenplay I’ve been actively working on since 2010 but have been making notes and percolating for over five years. Five! That’s too long to play with a dream and not take definitive action. The final piece of the writing commitment was to get support. As in ‘it takes a village’.  Writing is a solitary endeavor but even that’s interpretive, because for me gifted writing comes from a source I am connected to, it flows through me, and I don’t feel alone when I write.  When I allow myself to go there I flourish—I wanted support to help me show up at the page consistently. Just do it. No excuses.

My dear friend and self-published author Kathy asked Jeff and I  if we wanted to support each other with writing and so we said okay let’s see what happens. We meet once a month for dinner, conversation, hugs and laughter: WriteNite was born. We share a section of our writing and we read each other’s with the intention of answering these questions: does it engage me, is the story clear, are the characters someone I care about? We don’t critique or edit unless the other person wants that feedback.  We also report daily in a FaceBook group when we’ve written that day and how it went.

We have asked each other to stretch ourselves. I was only showing up to the page when I was happy and having a good day.  My fellow WriteNiters challenged me to show up anyway and give myself permission to write poorly or even badly. Just write. I did. I even enjoyed it, as there was no pressure. And some of those scenes ended up being perfectly useable! Jeff needed our support to stop editing and just write and stay in the flow of creation.  Kathy needed our support to write a few bold romance scenes and by golly she nailed it!

We’ve met for four months and my screenplay is now 138 pages. One day at a time, one scene at a time, one sentence at a time, one word at a time. This is how a dream is actualized. I call myself a writer because I write. The point is not how good the writing is or if it is marketable—but that I WROTE.  I get that now. It’s taken me years to arrive here where I can see it’s not about the end result it’s about the process, the journey. Those blissful magical moments when I am one with the Universe or Source: that is why I write.

Even on the days when I don’t feel like writing, or I have client work to do, or I’m too tired, my WriteNiters help me show up at the page. Period.  Do it write now.  I am.  This screenplay is my thank you for believing in me my fellow WriteNiters!