potato.

I was reading the awesome book that I picked up while I was at Edward McKay called "All is Forgiven, Move On" by Janice Taylor. It's a self-help book about how to change your relationship with food, and since I'm too cheap and too picky to go to a therapist, this is a perfect book for me! It's quirky and witty - lord only knows I don't have the patience for anything cheeseball or sappy, no Dr. Phil here!

One of the exercises addresses the emotional baggage we carry around by converting the invisible emotions into a literal object, a bag of potatoes. In my case, it's anger. There are a lot of people in my past that have hurt me, and left me and anger was what kept me safe. But there comes a point where that anger is no longer necessary, and it gets misdirected. I grabbed a stack of index cards and for everyone that I harbor some negative feelings for, or would dodge if I saw them at a grocery store, I wrote their name on a card. Next thing I knew that stack of cards was sitting about an inch of the table. Not good. That's a lot of ghosts to be running from-
No wonder I'm tired! Emotionally and spiritually that's a lot of weight, and from my experience backpacking, carrying around weight is demanding (duh!) It means that you burn more calories, so you need to eat more food, which means you need to take more breaks, and use up a greater number of resources. So by carrying this invisible emotional weight, it is more difficult for me to find emotional peace or balance. I am constantly stopping to adjust. I am needy. I need a lot of emotional support, which drains others. And if I was carrying on saving the world, they'd recognize the stress that I was under, and be more apt to contribute resources, but, the burden that I'm carrying has expired! It's outdated. It's from the past, it's run it's course. My family and friends have asked me to put this load down. They've stood by and helped me unload. Yet, I keep going back and picking it up anyway. Stupid! So of course they don't want to help me! Of course I'm always running on low fuel!

I think it's time to mash some potatoes and get this show on the road.

tuesdays thoughts: more of this, less of that

Living less in want, and more in action is a wonderful way to be. My focus is finally shifting from all the stuff I want, the iphone, drinks out at the bar, etc. and towards what I can do more of, running, writing, drawing, etc. These lusts became my first priority. I dreamt about how much better life would be if only I had an iphone- it's apps would make doing everything so much easier! Yoga at the touch of a button! An easy way to count calories! A digital library at my finger tips any time of the day or night- think how literate I'd become! Instant blogability every time I had a witty thought, wouldn't the world just love me then! Oh, the possibilities were endless! Oh, but only if I had that phone! And without it- everything was just less. No happiness for me! Just another month that had come and gone with little to no "expendable income."

Time to stop obsessing over want I can't have and grab a hold of what I do have.

I quit, because I am worth it. I am enough.

I quit.

Often we refrain from using those words. Quitting has been given a negative connotation, either it means you're giving up, or you're trying to give something up (like smoking). But sometimes we need to quit just to quit.

I quit. Not I am going to quit one day... or I am going to do my best to quit...

I can't fix what's broken by continuing to use the same tools.

Everyday is a revolution. A chance to do better. To be more grateful, appreciative, generous, loving, kind. To work harder, to focus better, procrastinate less, live more. Without a to-do list we'd be bored. So I quit trying to do what I've always done. I am going to move forward with using new strategies, new methods and a fresh approach.

20 in 2010 update 2

solo goals
3. Learn more about the practice of yoga.
I went! I did it! I tried it! I loved it!!! I attended my first ever Bikram/hot body yoga class at open door studio and it rocked!
4. Post my artwork on Etsy.
I deviated slightly here... I set up a table at Traffic Jam instead... I might stick with that for a little while longer until I get some of the kinks worked out.
5. Begin training for a tri.
I've deviated here too... I am running. I'm not sure if I want to do the half marathon in >2 hours or run the full... we'll see!

group goals
2. Paint the living room, bathroom and office.
I spent all day cleaning them... we finally bought paint for the office... and we're still working on cleaning out the front room.
5. Plant a garden in my backyard.
The garden is in full bloom. Now I just need to spend more time weeding it.
6. Participate in a collaborative art project.
Sparkcon volunteer meeting monday.
group drawing the monday after.
Registered and ready to become a goodnight, Raleigh writer

things are coming along :)

January: Balance Amidst Turbulence

My cousin sent me a collection of Power Thought Cards which are freakin' awesome. As soon as I opened the box I was blown away at the power of the words that one tiny little card could hold. And I immediately recognized that adapting these thoughts into my life would yield trans formative results. Which is precisely what I have been craving. So I decided to clip them, one at a time, to my mirror, so that each day it will serve as a reminder. A reminder to meditate. A reminder that change comes one step at a time and this is the step that I am going to take first and until I've learned how to integrate those words into my life, I will not overwhelm myself with other thoughts.

The first one that I picked reads:

"I am not limited by past thinking. I choose my thoughts with care. I constantly have new insights and new ways of looking at the world. I am willing to change and grow."

These are big thoughts for me. Because I am limited by past thinking. I don't choose my thoughts with care. And I have been reluctant in accepting change.

But, I do embrace growth, and I constantly have new insights.

However, one without the other cannot thrive. So, I must change the way that I think about things. And then I will break the cycle.

I thought that I had begun to implement this into my life- I was spending more time working on my art, I was making more of an effort to reach out to loved ones...

So I picked the next card:

"I rejoice in what I have, and I know that fresh new experiences are always
ahead. I greet the new with open arms. I trust life to be wonderful."

This, now this is even bigger. Had I only known what live had in store, I wouldn't have selected this card. I would have let it rest in the box a bit longer because two weeks ago a rather shocking and unexpected turn of events occurred at work that turned my world upside down. Life wasn't wonderful and the only greeting that I wanted to give it was a knuckle sandwich and a kick that sent it flying face first into a pile of mud. Not wonderful. Not wonderful at all.

Since that day, I have woken up every morning feeling anxious, scared, unsure of myself and worried about the future. My energy was being pulled from me like water going down the drain and even though I was trying desperately to stop it, I was only causing myself to feel more exhausted. Where had my integrity gone? I picked these words and believed them to be true- but only when things were going my way. It's one thing to say that you believe something, but I was being called to act on it.

I know that there is hope in this situation, and in the end everyone will be better off because of it. I know that change is good for those of us that are involved, and that we were all dragging our feet. Accepting the decision felt like a blow against my believes. I struggled to accept that there was no way that I could fight back. I had no idea what to do next, how to pick up the pieces, what to do, where to go, how to go about living, and the fact that from the outside my life hadn't really changed at all only made it that much harder. Watching the news, seeing the people in Haiti, their lives had changed, who am I to complain? I should have known, should have expected it, should have been prepared. But sometimes we're not.

My life had changed. It changed very quickly and I didn't like it. And my actions screamed that. But I also didn't like acting that way. I didn't like knowing that when I walked into the room that I was going to have a negative impact on the people that I spoke to. That I was sharing stress, anxiety, fear, frustration and anger. That I had no joy and I did not want to see others acting joyfully.

Reading those simple words again and again forced me to recognize that I could live my life differently. I was the one robbing myself. I wouldn't have chosen for things to work out this way, but they have. All that I can do is decide how I respond to it. I can walk around behaving the way that I always have and get the same results that I have always gotten. Or I can greet the new with open arms. Because greeting the new doesn't mean accepting the decisions made by others that I disagree with, it means reaching out in a new direction, looking for new opportunities, looking toward the future, and allowing myself to move away from these broken events. What happened yesterday is part of the past. What happened wasn't wonderful, but without it the wonderful could not happen. To say that I trust life to be wonderful means that I must believe that life is wonderful, and to believe that life is wonderful means I must act like it.

January's Lesson: Finding balance in a world that is ever changing means learning how to accept change.