Boundless joy arising

I have to wait a few minutes before I leave for Curves this morning, as they don't open until 6:15 am on Tuesdays and Thursdays. My only complaint about Curves is that the hours are so limited. It's not a real gym, but a storefront pocket of a place, so typically they close at lunch time, at around 7 pm in the evening, and at noon on Saturdays.

Here are my updates so far:
I did go to Curves last Friday.

Saturday: I was somewhere where they had a few flights of stairs, rather than just one, so went up and down 4 flights 11 times (I woulda stopped at 10 but I mis-counted). That makes 44 of the condo-equivalent. And I was still not hobbling the next day.

Amazing what you can do if you go slow enough.

Sunday I walked a lot but didn't measure it.

Monday, condo stairs X 30.

Today, Curves.

My t-shirt this morning shows a beautiful fish jumping out of the ocean with the motto in the title of this post.

It helps remind me of what the hell I'm doing at this ungodly hour.

Except, when I'm feeling joyous, I tend to bound more, not less. So maybe it should be "bounding joy approaching?" Well, I guess my name would have to be Joy for that to work.

The story so far...

Whataweek, whataweek,whataweek!

I don't remember why, but somehow I was too busy to go to Curves or to climb stairs.

But that was last week.

This week I'm doing better:

Sunday: hiked the blue trail at Sleeping Giant (not the whole thing, just the steep bit at the beginning). Then I took the red trail and the violet trail back to my car.

I was concerned because my ankle was still bothering me. So I put two support braces on. Oddly enough, I was better on the up than on the flat. Well, my ankle was better, anyway.

But going up a mountain is a little different from going up the stairs. For one thing, you use your whole body and not just your legs. For another, you don't get to go back down after 13 steps. Well, not intentionally, anyway.

Tuesday: Curves. Yay!
Wednesday: Stairs. I only had 15 minutes free, so I only did 25 trips.

Tomorrow, I can't go to Curves because I have to get to work early and they don't open until 6. Then I have a function to go to after work, so instead I'm going to get up at 5 and walk around outside. Luckily, I live on the other side of Sleeping Giant, (the rumpled bedsheets) so the road goes uphill.

Friday I'll do Curves again.

My inspirational quote for today: "Those who do not find the time for exercise will have to find time for illness." ~The Earl of Derby

Assault on Sleeping Giant #1: Giant=1, Me=0

Things did not go so well yesterday, as I attempted the blue trail at Sleeping Giant. Here are my future action items:
#1. Get more than 5.5 hours sleep the night before.
#2. Wear ankle brace when doing stairs so that I don't accidentally strain ankle, thus ruining myself for a real mountain.
#3. Go early enough so that a church group doesn't come along and "adopt" me. Sheesh!

I'm taking today off to recuperate, and hitting Curves tomorrow morning. I'll try the stairs again on Wednesday. Ever since I fell down the stairs in 1998, my right ankle has been wonky as hell.

I'm down but not out!

Onward and upward

Hello to anyone who actually read Brian's email!

So far, so good on the exercise front. I went to Curves in the morning, and then did 30 flights of stairs when I came home from work.

Rosemary's cat, Georgia O'Keefe, could not figure out what I was doing -- once she woke up from her snooze on the couch, that is. At first, every time I went up the stairs, she started to follow me to see what was so exciting up there, and every time I went down she thought I was about to play with her, so she scampered towards her favorite toy, Chomodley, the well-chewed string. (That's pronounced "chumley;" she's very particular about that.)

Finally she just sat under the coffee table and looked on in amazement. People, huh! So inscrutable.

It's 6/6/6, and I wish I were in Hell

Hell, Michigan, that is. Sounds like they have a hot time planned.

Moving up....and down....and up....and down....

Inspired by a recent visit to my friends the Model Executive and the Cockney Sparrow, I have started training for Mt. Washington a bit more seriously.

Yesterday I walked up and down the stairs. I wasn't sure how many I could do without being completely crippled the day after, so I decided to start with 25 round-trips of 12 stair steps. I didn't record the time, either.

Of course, I was doing laundry yesterday, so I could add at least another 10 trips, but they weren't all in one session, so I won't.

It wasn't that tough to do, although I did slow down somewhere around #10, and go to serious "escargot mode" around #18.

Today I don't feel too bad, except when I've been sitting a long while. And of course, in my job I have to sit a long while.

I'll try to walk around outside later, if it doesn't rain.

Tomorrow, Curves in the AM, and stairs in the PM.

Trucking down the highway

Ok, so I'm feeling a little stressed out these days, for a number of reasons.

Bieng the proactive gal I am, I decided to not listen to the news this morning and instead listen to nice calming tunes from Jimmy Buffett.

Here's how that went:

Ah, I'm on a warm beach somewhere, tropical breezes, palm trees swaying, some BASTARD CUT ME OFF!!
KILL! KILL! KILL!

Ok, calm down, you can't really kill him.
But now I want to drive REALLY FAST!! I'M ANGRY!

But that wouldn't be nice to all the sane drivers on the road, now would it?

No, but life is SO unfair! I'm already stressed and I'm trying to relax and now some jerk cuts me off and makes me slam on my brakes and gets me all riled up again. Waaaah! Sob. I can't handle this, I really can't, it's too much!

Listen to the music, listen to the music.
Ah, back on the beach. Whew! Whatever happens, I'll handle it.

Ok, so it's hard sometimes to stay on track when I'm already feeling stressed. Sometimes I'm not so much relaxed as just in-between-trigger-points.

I can laugh about it now, and be all "moving towards joy-ish." Recognizing the patterns is the first step.

But if any of my friends reading this make a joke about it, their asses are grasses.

Who's the boss of me?

Boss Me: You said you were going to have your taxes finished today.

Slacker Employee Me: Well, I got to the good part of this book I'm reading and I couldn't stop.

Boss Me: You're fired!

Some days, it's all I can do not to resent reality. I mean, it's a good idea and all, but it can sure be a pain in the butt!

I guess I don't realize how spoiled I am. I have no kids, no hubby, no one to be accountable to. I can do what I want, whenever I want, except at work.

One thing that a lot of the self-help books talk about is managing yourself. I'm still working on that.

As a personal manager, I suck. I'm too easy on myself, I don't plan ahead, I never give constructive feedback or coach. I have no personal development plan.

While I actually cringe at the thought of a personal development plan at my day job, it's not a bad idea for my whole job, the toughest and most dangerous job out there -- being me.

But the thing is, I need to do it my way, in ways that cover all the things I think are important --exercise, finances, diet, all that stuff, but fun, too, and time for thinking, reading, and just enjoying the day.

I'm not the type of person who can march through the day like a soldier. I have to be able to skip and dance, too. My PDP and my manager-me have to accommodate that.

Otherwise, why bother?

Affirmations?

Don't shoot me, but I've started using affirmations. EEK!

I don't belive, like Scott (Dilbert) Adams does, that saying something a bajillion times is enough to make it happen.

However, they seem to help me be less stressed, and more positive.

My life seems to go like this -- something goes wrong, like getting sick. It depresses me. Then I get depressed at how hard life is and how rotten it is that I have to keep doing stuff even when I'm feeling sick and depressed. Life sucks, and it's not fair and I need a vacation and waaaa!

It always ends in tears.

I go along like that for some period of time. Then I get tired of being depressed and start remembering that I can do something about it.

So I take a step or two, like remembering to relax now and then, and to not make such global statements as "I can never...." That reminds me that I can change how I feel. That reminds me that I haven't done any affirmations for a while. Then I add some into my routine, and start feeling even better. Pretty soon I'm humming along.

Now, it may be that affirmations have nothing to do with feeling better -- that just doing something positive is what turns the corner on the gloom and doom thinking. That's fine.

But for now the positive thing I choose to do is to say a few affirmations to get me going.

Nothing fancy, nothing unrealistic.

My favorite one is an uber-affirmation I got from Susan Jeffers, in her book Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway -- "Whatever happens, I'll handle it."

That one says it all, really. It says, "No need to panic and get depressed; whatever happens is handle-able."

I have to admit, that I don't actually spend a lot of time repeating these affirmations. I recorded myself saying them ten times each, put it on my Palm T3, and now listen to them from time to time.

I mean, let's not go overboard on this stuff.

Put the puppy back on the paper

In one of the productivity blogs I read regularly, I came across a great post that resonates with me, as I regularly fall off and climb back on the diet/exercise wagon.

It's about nurturing yourself, and not beating yourself up.

I’m really attracted to the idea that our minds are not others that need to be subjugated or punished for non-compliance; to see yourself as somebody who could benefit from a little stewardship and patience is really not such a terrible idea.

The good news is that, yes, I am back on the wagon -- went walking twice this week so far, and pumping iron twice a week.

In the productivity line, I've been busy, busy, busy with a project I will be announcing to my pals soon (hint: not what I've been obsessing about lately). And a certain writer I know has been cranking out pages, too. But don't tell her you read it here. No pressure, just glad she's in the groove!

Being good.

I haven't been sticking to my diet or my exercise regimen for the last month. My main two reasons were:

• it's too hot
• I'm too tired to exercise and/or too stressed to stick to my diet.

So once again I'm booting myself back onto that good health wagon. I've done well so far today (but it's only 3:45 PM).

One of the things I'd forgotten is what a rush it is when I actually stick to my resolutions! After my walk, I felt invigorated, and my legs felt looser and freed of the jammed-under-a-computer-desk-all-damn-day feeling they usually have. And after my low-cal/fat cookie I felt like "YES! I rule!"

Among the work-related and other things I can feel proud of today, here are the healthy things I did well:

• remembered sneakers & socks to walk at lunch
• ate a 1/2 banana instead of something higher calories for a snack at 11 am.
• actually went on that walk!
• had more fruit for dessert, saving my official cookie for my 3 pm snack.
• actually waited til 3 pm to have my snack.

Yes, I do rule! And who knows how many more good things I'll do today -- after all, it's only 3:45.

Values 101

This morning I woke up as usual, bleary eyed, nose stuffy, too early, but unable to get back to sleep.

The LAST thing I wanted to do was go for a walk. So I did that first, to avoid the rush.

And as I was filling my water bottle, looking out the kitchen window over the sink, I felt a sudden burst of, not quite happiness, or even joy, but maybe... contentment.

Now, I don't know if contentment can be said to "burst," it's more like something that comes in on soft paws and jumps up next to you on the couch, purring and asking for scritches.

But that feeling was my reward, and my incentive. It got me through the yucky bits of getting going, and onto the road.

And oddly, even though I don't have quite that same feeling now that I've actually done the exercise, I do have a feeling of contentment over having felt content, if that makes any sense.

I'm listening to the Sures' book on Ayn Rand, and one line comes to mind -- when Mary Ann Sures said about Ayn Rand, "She really valued her values."

I did something that was important to me, however small, and the doing of it is even more important to me.

Keep movin'

I had a phone interview for a job yesterday. I think it went well, but I got a tad depressed when the interviewer reminded me that, since they worked for a state agency, it would take a while before the next step.

Today I got an email from a pal, who might have a job opportunity. Just responding to him that I was interested lifted my spirits tremendously. It reminded me that I do have other options, and other pans in the fire, and that the only way to move towards joy is to keep moving.

I realized that I'd been feeling powerless, as if my only role was to wait for someone else to do something that would affect the rest of my life. But that's just not so.

There's just so much interesting stuff in this world, and so many possibilites, to keep me down for long!

Making a good noise

Here's how I bootstrapped myself into a good mood this morning:

1. Took picture of my flower boxes (after the rain)
2. Put on my "marching music."

What's my marching music? That's what I call the music I listen to when I don't want to do anything but lie around and mope.

This morning, lying around and moping seemed like a really really really good idea. I wanted to, badly. Going to work seemed like too much work. I needed a day off, even though I wouldn't get paid for it. I just needed some time to myself, to regroup.

Dammit, I deserved it!


Boy, did I come close.

Instead I took some pix, and then had fun loading them to Flickr. As I did so, I started thinking about tunes I like to hear to keep me going when I'm down. It was but the work of a moment to find the digital versions and put them on my Palm T3.

One of the tunes was "Good Noise" by John Gorka. I like this song so much that even hearing it in my head puts me in a better mood. *

Putting it on in the car, and singing along at the top of my lungs as I drove to work, was even better.

______________________________
* What I get out of it is not exactly what Gorka meant, I think. He talks about "helping your fellow man" and junk. That's ok, but I just like making noise. That's part of who I am.

Springtime hopes

Flower says, "Now,
The wait is over." And dreams
Itself up through the shell of
Winter, "Yes."
Against all the vast, bleak and
empty, each stalk is
A green thread drawn
Heavenward...

(from Bloomsday, by Mary McDowell Keck)

Listen to yourself

A while back, I gave a speech for Toastmasters called "Get rid of your buts." I based this on a conversational quirk I've observed in most people (including me). Instead of listening, acknowledging, and confirming understanding when someone says something that we don't agree with, we tend to immediately rush in with our rebuttals. This is true even for personal statements, such as "I'm so nervous about that test tomorrow," and not just political statements such as "I hate Democrats!" You can read the whole speech at the above link.

But "buts" are not just about conversation.

Sometimes it seems like any idea I think up is immediately followed by a "big but." It can be mundane, as in "I need to get batteries, but I can't do it right now so forget it." It can be personally important, as in "I need to ask X if what I said was inappropriate, but that's too embarrassing to even think about."

This is not a good way to keep the flow of ideas coming. That's like calling your dog when she's wandering too far and them reprimanding her when she comes bounding up to you. She might keep coming when you call, but don't expect enthusiasm or joy. And she just might stop coming altogether.

Writing that speech got me thinking about how often I do that to myself, and if it's affected how I think.

I don't know how many times I've had a thought, and just dismissed it without comment or action. Something like "Oh yeah, I have to get a card for so-and-so," or "I should really be exercising now, instead of reading." Whether it's something unpleasant, something that I can't do immediately, or even some doubts that I'm having, it's a small blip and then it's gone.

So one day I decided to try to pay more attention to the blips. Ok, not every thought is worth the effort, but I do dismiss or ignore more than I should. As I went through my day, I jotted down as many stray thoughts as I could. At first there were a lot of silly ones, like "my nose itches," but my brain soon got the hang of it and I could safely omit the truly momentary and trivial thoughts. Good thing, too, or I would never have gotten anywhere.

This can be taken to extremes, as in this example:
BBC NEWS | Magazine | This man wrote down his every thought - why?

But for those of us who could be more efficacious and maybe have a teensy bit more self-confidence, I think this is a valuable exercise to try.

What I found is that not only do I sometimes dismiss potential ideas immediately, instead of jotting them down and thinking about them later, but sometimes I don't even listen to myself at all, or acknowledge what I say to myself.

I found that jotting down the important stuff using David Allen's "Getting Things Done" methodology helped clear my mind of a lot of free-floating junk. I'm not there yet, but I'm beginning to understand what he means when he talks about "mind like water." *

And sometimes just listening to the doubts or negative emotions and acknowledging them is enough to let me move on. For those, I use some tricks from Susan Jeffers, as in saying to myself, "Yes, I am nervous about that. That's normal -- I'm trying something I've never done before, and I'm learning and growing."

Lion Kimbro, the Seattle programmer who wrote down every thought for 3 months, says of his experience:

It may feel that for the first time in your life, you really have a clear idea of what kinds of thoughts are going through your head....And you find answers. Basically, it feels like watching Atlantis come up.

Even though I only did it for a day, I felt excited by my discovery, energized by the positive results, and even, yes, more self-confident about my own voice.

And that's what I call moving towards joy.

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* Here's what David Allen says about the "mind like water" simile in Getting Things Done, as quoted in an article by Ana Maria González.

In karate there is an image that’s used to define the position of perfect readiness: “mind like water.” Imagine throwing a pebble into a still pond. How does the water respond? The answer is, totally appropriate to the force and mass of the input; then it returns to calm. It doesn’t overreact or underreact.

Even passion has its crappy days

One blog that I subscribe to and read regularly is The Occupational Adventure (sm), written by Curt Rosengren.

One recent post, entitled "Even passion has its crappy days," resonated with me.

Part of the misconception about passion is that it means that life is always like skipping through a field of daisies. The reality is, pursuing your passion is probably going to be more of a challenge than jumping on the treadmill and following where it leads. But it is also going to be infinitely more rewarding.

There are going to be crappy days when you pursue your passion. There are going to be days when you wonder what in the hell you´re doing. There will be days when you will be tempted to skulk back to the treadmill and jump back on.

I've been under the weather lately, and feeling stressed from all the commitments I've made. They're all good commitments, but I was starting to doubt my abilities to do any of them, and thinking how much easier it would be to have no ambitions or dreams. Then there'd be nothing to hurt, right?

Well, maybe, except that feeling no pain because you're numb is much worse than the occasional pain that's a part of growing and stretching. That's what Curt's post helped me realize.

That also ties into something a friend said a while back, that I've been chewing on. He said,

"Happiness is the goal, not the standard."

What that means to me is that, while not everything I do in pursuit of my dreams will make me happy at the moment, doing the right things will make me happier in general and in the long-run. And also that something that may make me temporarily happy might not be the best way to achieve the goal of lifetime happiness.

It's a good thing I've got blogs and friends to help keep me moving towards joy!

Planning Joy

This past week was a miserable one for me - sinus infection got me down and I was convinced that life is just one damn chore after another in a life filled with fatigue and misery.

But in my perpetual search for joy, I came across a web site with some ideas for putting pleasure back into my daily slog through life.

Creating a comfort list and pleasure program is the page I wound up on. This woke me up to the fact that I've been forgetting to have fun, lately. When I look around, all I see are the chores and what I "should" be doing. Somehow I think I can't have fun until I've gotten out from under those chores.

In an effort to squeeze in some fun, I bought a jigsaw puzzle and set it up on the dining table. Not a good idea. While I do enjoy a bit of that from time to time, I can't say I really think of that as fun, as in make me laugh and spark my imagination. Plus it's in my way when I eat (which is a lot more fun to me than any old puzzle!)

What I like about this list at the Straight from the Heart website, is that you can plan fun things of different time requirements, so that there's always something you can squeeze in if you want. Also, looking at the example list reminds me that I do some of these things already, but don't remember to enjoy them as much as I should -- I think of them as escape, which invokes guilt and resentment, instead of as respite, renewal, and comfort, which I so richly deserve.

This list also reminds me to think about what I really like. And one of the things I'd forgotten about was -- novelty. I don't like doing the same things over and over, even fun things, such as reading a good book. I need to see new places, or try new things. That's a big jolt of fun for me.

But what I really like about this list is that it reminds me that I can have fun if I want to. And that gives me the most hope and joy -- to remember that it's all under my control.

Objects in motion will not stay in motion all by them-goddamn-selves

I remember back when I was learning to play squash. Tiny room, hard, bouncy rubber ball, running people, flailing rackets. I spent a lot of the time getting:
a) round bruises from being hit by a ricocheting ball, and
b) footprint-shaped bruises from being run over by my teacher.

This is because I was so astounded every time I actually hit the ball, I would stand in place and look to see where it would go.

"Get out of the way," my teacher would yell as she shoved me aside. "Stop admiring yourself and keep moving!"

It's good to celebrate what I've done, such as write posts in this blog. I'm proud of them.

It's not good to keep reading and re-reading the posts over and over, marveling at my brilliance (but it sure is a nice, cheap thrill). That way I'll never move beyond just writing, to writing better. I'll never get enough distance from the writing to finally see the flaws and less-than-perfect phrasing, so that I can move towards improving and getting stronger.

I used to think, "I don't want to be a writer, I just want to have written."
Now that I've started writing this blog, I've changed my mind. I want to write, and keep writing better and better.

Otherwise, what's the point?

Get rid of your buts

Here's a speech I gave at a Toastmasters meeting a few months ago:

There’s a big but problem in America today, but it’s not what you think.

You’re probably thinking I’m talking about smoking, right?

Or maybe you think I’m talking about losing weight?

Well, I am. I’m talking about losing a weight that really drags a conversation down. You see, in Toastmasters, one of the things we try to do is to get rid of what they call “verbal crutches” – ums, ahs, you knows. Those get in the way of clear communication.

In my never-ending quest for the secrets of clear communication, I’ve become aware of something like an um or an ah – a phrase we interject a lot in conversations that’s definitely an obstacle to communication. I call it -- “the Big But.”

Here’s an example:

I was talking to a friend a few weeks ago.

“Gee, I’m a little nervous about the conference call I’m having in an hour, so I’ve been doing some deep breathing, and getting myself calmer.”

“But you don’t have anything to be nervous about,” she said. “You’ve been on lots of conference calls before.”

“Yeah but, this time my boss wants me to lead the call, and do the introductions. I’ve never done that, so I’m a little nervous.”

”But, you’re in Toastmasters, you should be used to that by now.”

"Yes." I said, "but this is in front of my bosses – I’m leading the call. It’s something different, so I’m a little nervous.”

“Well, I don’t think you should be nervous.”

Yeah, but that’s how I feel.”

Do you see what was happening? Did you hear how many “buts” we used?

When I said something, and she responded with a “but...,” I felt invalidated. To me, it sounded like she was saying, no, you’re wrong – you don’t have the right to feel this way.
So my natural reaction was to come up with more reasons to be nervous –which did not help me calm down at all.

My friend, on the other hand was trying to help me by giving me reasons why I should not worry. Yet I was buting her, same as she buted me, which had the effect of saying to her -- my reasons to be nervous trump your efforts to reassure me.

My friend and I aren’t the only people doing that.

Here are a few more examples:

A child says “I hate school. I’m not going.”

Mom says, “But you have to go – you’re not sick and I can’t leave you home alone.”

What’s Mom saying to her child? It doesn’t matter what you feel! While it may be true that the child has to go to school anyway, it certainly isn’t true that it doesn’t matter how he feels.

Or a woman says to her husband, “I don’t feel like watching that movie tonight, honey.”

And he replies, “But you’re the one who told me to get it at Tommy K’s. It cost $4 bucks, you know.”

Well, he might be missing out on something even better than a movie if he doesn’t shut up and listen!

When a but is brought in too soon, it doesn’t aid in communication – it obscures it. When you but in right away, it’s a sign that you’re not letting the other person fully express his or her thoughts and feelings.

Steven Covey, of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, says that in conversation, you should “seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

In other words, when someone says something, don’t just jump in with your objections, counter-arguments, and opinions. You may have a good viewpoint, you may even be right. It could happen! But if you chime in right away, you might be missing the real message.

One way to do that is to stop yourself before you’re about to say “but…” Remember: buts don’t belong in front.

Instead, really listen to what someone is saying without thinking about your counter-points. Respond instead with something that shows you understand what he or she has said (you don’t have to agree.) Or, respond with a request for clarification.

This may take a little more time – you’ll have to wait a little longer for your turn to straighten that person out! Steven Covey also says, “With people, fast is slow and slow is fast.” In other words, if you really want to connect, take some time in the conversation. You’ll connect sooner than if you rush in with a big but.

And there’s another plus -- when your conversational partner feels understood, she might will be even more receptive to your viewpoint, because you’ve given her time to explain hers.

For example, when the child says "I hate school; I'm not going," her mother could have responded with something like, "It sounds like you're angry about school."

"Yes, I am. Tommy called me a name! I hate him."

This way, she can get to the root of the problem, which is not that her child hates school.

And how about this alternative to the movie conversation:

Wife: "I don't feel like watching that movie tonight, honey."

Husband: "Gee, yesterday you told me to go get it -- what changed your mind, honey?"

Wife: "Why you, big boy!"

And here’s how the first conversation could have gone:

Me: “Gee, I’m a little nervous about the conference call I’m having in an hour, so I’ve been doing some deep breathing, and getting myself calmer.”

Friend: “You think your nerves might interfere with the call?”

Me: “Yes, it’s an important call for me – my boss will be there, and he wants me to lead the call.”

Friend: “You’re nervous because you’ll be performing in front of your boss.”

Me: “You bet!”

Friend: “Are you afraid you won’t do well?”

Me: “A little. So I’ve been preparing – got my notes; and I’ve been rehearsing. Plus I’ve been doing deep breathing exercises.”

Friend: “It’s good that you’re working to control your nerves. Yet it seems to me that you’re focusing on the negative. Have you thought of any reasons why you might do well?”

Me: “What do you mean?”

Aha! Then she could bring out all the same reasons as in the first conversation. The difference is that this way, I’d listen.

I’m not saying you should never say “but” -- that would be impossible! But’s a good word, and we’re all attached to it.

I’m saying with every conversation you have an opportunity to really communicate and not just talk. So, from now on, remember -- if you want to really communicate, you’ve got to kiss your buts goodbye.