I know that attention is a limited resource and I want to work on leveraging it. I am using mindfulness to direct it more towards life promoting, vibrant activities, mental patterns. I want to notice when I put my attention into minor and major pathological, energy sucking thought and behavior patterns and immediately redirect it. I can choose in those moments where I will spend my precious allotment of life energy, my attention. I can, in those moments, ask myself 'What can I do now to take more responsibility for my own happiness?' And also 'What can I do, right now to express appreciation for and support of another's higher purpose and striving?'
This is helpful to me lately. It is having an effect in getting me out of certain puzzles that don't have any logical solution. I am taking a quantum leap over them. I am cutting right through them.
This is the third of the holy nights and I am cultivating my sleep and dream life for this years deeper direction. I am cultivating my relationship with the 'so-called dead' and the hierarchies with whom I create my life-story to bring my destiny more clearly into being this year. I had a dream last night that sheds a little light on cutting those entanglements that have no untangling. I was at my childhood home that had had an extensive remodel. (I often dream of this home). I was outside under a large elevated deck and was being shown some litters of newborn baby animals by my step-father. He was instructing me to pick one puppy, one kitten, and one each of perhaps three or four other increasingly exotic animals for my own.
They were semi-attractive in that 'take care of me, I'm so cute and helpless' kind of way. I felt a pull of responsibility. Then I began to feel the inner burden of that responsibility and it dawned on me...He was giving me a limited, a false sense of freely choosing, somewhat like I give my child when I say 'you may choose the red socks or the green socks' when going barefoot is not an option. I realized in my dream though that I was an adult and I could choose not to choose to take on responsibility for any of those animals. And I did, to my own relief.
I had passed a test for myself and cut through the knot, leapt over the problem that would have weighed me down day after day if I had had to care for those little creatures. I just said 'No.' Good going, dream girl.
29 December, 2008
23 December, 2008
Financial Meditation
If I want to get down to the nitty- gritty of what I am spending and what I am earning and what my financial commitments are and making and attaining financial goals I think I need to start tracking my daily expenses. Ugh. I've resisted that like I avoid making a meditation time and sticking to it each day...another behavior that would put turbo charge behind values as the engine of my life.
I was talking with my counselor/life coach about financial consciousness last week. She and her life partner have been going to a CFP/financial values coach and she says it is major edge-work for her. I was inspired to hear about her working on her edges and doing them in her relationship and in an area where I assume that she has an easier time of it than I do. And she probably does but still much work to be done towards mastery! So, she said that she'd work with me, teach me the process that she has been going through while it is fresh in her experience. So, Yes! And the first part is the boring behavioral part. Get a receipt for everything. Save them all, record every purchase and add them all up...Hmmmm, at the end of each day? Maybe. Maybe I need a little notebook and then add them up each day, each week, each month; even for a month just to see, just to bring awareness to it all.
It will probably curb some of my freewheeling latte sipping at least temporarily. Maybe I would make a choice like getting a good thermos cup and making my coffee at home. Maybe I would realize, and it is true, that I don't really like coffee every day anyway. I just want something hot and sometimes sweet to sip. Spicy chai would be great. Hot chocolate sometimes. Herb tea with honey. Detox tea like at the sauna. Ginger, lemon and honey. I would get more creative and cook it at home. Slow down and make leftovers. Share it with my kids. Invite my neighbors in for a cuppa. I think financial changes will bring abundance into my relationships and my lifestyle that are over and above having more mullah in the wallet/bank account(s)/bedside stand.
Ok. Go. Today is the day I start tracking my spending and that is what I'll start working on with my counselor. I'll take the challenge for a month and see what comes of it. Please send web links or other information that has inspired you. Bostongal is still a daily read for me. I want to learn how she does her monthly day-of-reckoning...exactly.
I was talking with my counselor/life coach about financial consciousness last week. She and her life partner have been going to a CFP/financial values coach and she says it is major edge-work for her. I was inspired to hear about her working on her edges and doing them in her relationship and in an area where I assume that she has an easier time of it than I do. And she probably does but still much work to be done towards mastery! So, she said that she'd work with me, teach me the process that she has been going through while it is fresh in her experience. So, Yes! And the first part is the boring behavioral part. Get a receipt for everything. Save them all, record every purchase and add them all up...Hmmmm, at the end of each day? Maybe. Maybe I need a little notebook and then add them up each day, each week, each month; even for a month just to see, just to bring awareness to it all.
It will probably curb some of my freewheeling latte sipping at least temporarily. Maybe I would make a choice like getting a good thermos cup and making my coffee at home. Maybe I would realize, and it is true, that I don't really like coffee every day anyway. I just want something hot and sometimes sweet to sip. Spicy chai would be great. Hot chocolate sometimes. Herb tea with honey. Detox tea like at the sauna. Ginger, lemon and honey. I would get more creative and cook it at home. Slow down and make leftovers. Share it with my kids. Invite my neighbors in for a cuppa. I think financial changes will bring abundance into my relationships and my lifestyle that are over and above having more mullah in the wallet/bank account(s)/bedside stand.
Ok. Go. Today is the day I start tracking my spending and that is what I'll start working on with my counselor. I'll take the challenge for a month and see what comes of it. Please send web links or other information that has inspired you. Bostongal is still a daily read for me. I want to learn how she does her monthly day-of-reckoning...exactly.
22 December, 2008
Where is the revolution?
Today a story about a young Cuban politician who wants to 'continue the revolution' caught my attention. The photo was of a sweet faced teenager; looked like a gently smiling Waldorf high school student and I began to wonder what revolution means when something has become integrated, has become a way of life. I can't prolong the Cuban metaphor because I am mostly ignorant about Cuban history except for a Hollywood movie I saw about the music scene in Havana during the revolution. Typical American education. Scary.
Anyway, so I thought about my life revolutions...leaving home at 18 is probably one. Moving to another country is a revolution of sorts but then when does the revolution end? I think after becoming settled, acclimated somehow so that it would be another revolution to leave as it was at the end of six years in Japan. Divorce is a personal revolution. Letting my son go to Germany was one and is one that I'd like to reverse which will be a counter revolution, I suppose. In some ways going back to work full time after being in the role of full time mother with a part-time job will be a life-style revolution. A big adjustment but surely more simple, more clear, more conservative in a way than living with so much uncertainty.
I look forward to a revolution that moves towards more stability.
I feel this metaphor didn't serve me all that well so far. I would take it further into a discussion of freedom and choice and deep democracy if I could but maybe I'm sharing a beginning of a dream process about bringing more consciousness to and then integrating my political/social values into my personal motivation scheme and then bringing those personal values out into the world in more socially participatory ways. Sounds good. We'll see where it goes over time.
Anyway, so I thought about my life revolutions...leaving home at 18 is probably one. Moving to another country is a revolution of sorts but then when does the revolution end? I think after becoming settled, acclimated somehow so that it would be another revolution to leave as it was at the end of six years in Japan. Divorce is a personal revolution. Letting my son go to Germany was one and is one that I'd like to reverse which will be a counter revolution, I suppose. In some ways going back to work full time after being in the role of full time mother with a part-time job will be a life-style revolution. A big adjustment but surely more simple, more clear, more conservative in a way than living with so much uncertainty.
I look forward to a revolution that moves towards more stability.
I feel this metaphor didn't serve me all that well so far. I would take it further into a discussion of freedom and choice and deep democracy if I could but maybe I'm sharing a beginning of a dream process about bringing more consciousness to and then integrating my political/social values into my personal motivation scheme and then bringing those personal values out into the world in more socially participatory ways. Sounds good. We'll see where it goes over time.
21 December, 2008
A root of suffering
I notice that a cutting edge inner work for me is with my attacking energy. Today, I was inwardly labeling it 'contempt' as I noticed it coming up. It comes up as my romantic relationship deepens to allow more daily contact and multiple days in a row spent together. And it is not that it is 'deserved' and not a track that I want to deepen in my thought-to-deed habit life. It is a root of my suffering karma. It is a cause of suffering for others that I want to halt and reroute and have been working just to notice and scale back. I am getting many tiny and some small successes in putting space between a stimulus and my biting, contemptuous response to it.
I notice that I get some satisfaction in demonstrating that I know something better than others in a put-down kind of way. I want to strengthen the sharing of the resource of knowledge or insight and diminish the linking of the sadistic pleasure of one-up-manship. I am pretty competitive and I want to harness that power to its higher purpose and unhitch it from the diminishing of others.
I notice also that one of my main nemesis for the past three years, Baby Daddy 'I', is really growing in skill with working with criticism. Sitting on the porch last night at midnight I witnessed a fight between he and his 8 year old and asked him about it today. Of course I am both critical of how she runs the show in so many ways and his lack of boundaries around basics like sleeping times. Both of those criticisms were implied in my bringing it up with him. He calmly explained that he had 'had her out too late' at a party (his office party) and she was upset about not bringing her bike home. He then said that she wouldn't accept his promise of getting the bike the next day because he 'doesn't keep his promises' and that he thought that was an interesting conversation.
I had many inward reactions to this story. One, undiminished contempt, two, admiration for his skill at disarming one of my main criticisms by naming it himself (up too late) and agreeing with it. I also like that he has interest in a criticism leveled at him of not being trustworthy. He isn't, in fact, trustworthy. He doesn't uphold his own word, but I do think his interest, and his openness to hearing that from her is authentic. Maybe he would even take that in as an area of inner work because of its source. Which I also, on the other hand, don't think is healthy, really she parents him in so many ways, it is ugly, and it sucks. I don't want my daughter to be in that role.
So, a mix of contempt and admiration in that particular relationship. But the work of my own that I'll take with me from place to place is working with my antipathy reactions and buffering or channeling them with more awareness and freedom.
I notice that I get some satisfaction in demonstrating that I know something better than others in a put-down kind of way. I want to strengthen the sharing of the resource of knowledge or insight and diminish the linking of the sadistic pleasure of one-up-manship. I am pretty competitive and I want to harness that power to its higher purpose and unhitch it from the diminishing of others.
I notice also that one of my main nemesis for the past three years, Baby Daddy 'I', is really growing in skill with working with criticism. Sitting on the porch last night at midnight I witnessed a fight between he and his 8 year old and asked him about it today. Of course I am both critical of how she runs the show in so many ways and his lack of boundaries around basics like sleeping times. Both of those criticisms were implied in my bringing it up with him. He calmly explained that he had 'had her out too late' at a party (his office party) and she was upset about not bringing her bike home. He then said that she wouldn't accept his promise of getting the bike the next day because he 'doesn't keep his promises' and that he thought that was an interesting conversation.
I had many inward reactions to this story. One, undiminished contempt, two, admiration for his skill at disarming one of my main criticisms by naming it himself (up too late) and agreeing with it. I also like that he has interest in a criticism leveled at him of not being trustworthy. He isn't, in fact, trustworthy. He doesn't uphold his own word, but I do think his interest, and his openness to hearing that from her is authentic. Maybe he would even take that in as an area of inner work because of its source. Which I also, on the other hand, don't think is healthy, really she parents him in so many ways, it is ugly, and it sucks. I don't want my daughter to be in that role.
So, a mix of contempt and admiration in that particular relationship. But the work of my own that I'll take with me from place to place is working with my antipathy reactions and buffering or channeling them with more awareness and freedom.
Jane Yolen
I have a book written by Jane Yolen on my kitchen table, Hippolyta and the Curse of the Amazons, which I mean to send to 10 year old Esther. Dear Friend Lisa, also a teacher and book lover was over and we chatted about Jane Yolen. Off the top 'o my head I said I thought she'd written 150 books or so. I just did a little Wikipedia research and found her online journal. She says 317 books so far including 20 or so in the pipeline.
It is and interesting blog which includes, just in a quick peruse, financial experiences both personal and larger reflections of current state of things (layoffs of bigwigs) in the publishing world and many, many other topics; family, literature, daily work, and etc.
I'll add her to my blogroll and keep her close as an inspiring model of a woman making her way worthily in the world. Somewhat reminds me of Madelyn L'Engel in her expression of literate spirituality and being a matriarch of a large family. Wonder what Madelyn is up to these days?
Underlying my interest here is an old and persistent dream to both be a writer and have a large extended flock under my fold that come and go from my home where I have my writer's garrett.
It is and interesting blog which includes, just in a quick peruse, financial experiences both personal and larger reflections of current state of things (layoffs of bigwigs) in the publishing world and many, many other topics; family, literature, daily work, and etc.
I'll add her to my blogroll and keep her close as an inspiring model of a woman making her way worthily in the world. Somewhat reminds me of Madelyn L'Engel in her expression of literate spirituality and being a matriarch of a large family. Wonder what Madelyn is up to these days?
Underlying my interest here is an old and persistent dream to both be a writer and have a large extended flock under my fold that come and go from my home where I have my writer's garrett.
04 December, 2008
Break down by profit margin
And assumed in this is that they are high profit books. How ‘bout if I break this down and say I want to add 10 $30 or more profit books per month. Maybe too ambitious but its what I’d really like to do. I did one this week and have scouted several more. I have my new online search strategy and can keep at that. It works.
Then the other 10 can be in the $5-$30 profitability range. That is much more acomplishable.
See more progress on: Add 20 books to my shop inventory per month
for three months in a row...
I’ve already done this, np, this month, in just a week. Now I want to make it a habit; do it every month for three in a row and I’ll considfer it a met goal. Then I want to move towards selling at least 40 per month.
See more progress on: Add 20 books to my shop inventory per month
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