Struggling vs. developing my voice in these blog entries
When I look at my last post I know what I am saying but it also seems too complicated. When I'm talking with someone directly I am more to the point. I'm ok dealing with complex issues, in fact, I really enjoy them but only if I can find a simple design contained within the complexity. But when complexity becomes complicated, well, yuck!
Writing for my blog is a new process for me. It's like I'm still finding my "voice" and my primary drum beats. It's ok that I don't have it all together already in the sense that this is just the way it is. Trying to get it right - right away - misses the reality that this process develops over time. Grappling with something is fine and actually fun for me. Struggling, a habit I know too well, is self defeating. Struggling ultimately reinforces the trying, not the learning. Struggling puts more energy into the struggle and it is all an energy game.
The strategy which makes sense to me is to catch myself as soon as I can in the struggle, and then acknowledge the struggle, watch it for a few moments, then "release it." " How to release," you ask? By letting go, by bringing your attention to your next exhale. Do that for a few moments / minutes / decades and then place your energy on something which draws your attention and which is appealing. That way I / you are not putting more energy into a process which has already stopped being a lively experience. It takes practise but it is a way out of the struggle.
In that way then, the struggle becomes a cue to watch and experience differently. It becomes an opportunity to lighten up and then the struggle is accepted for what it is, a short circuit which blocks further and easy development. A struggle is then just part of the process, like a punctuation point which gives a hint that there is rushing going on, a trying to make it go faster. Better to ease off the throttle and shift gears before getting back on track. Better yet to refresh the compass direction before setting out again.
I feel better now.
And the gift from this is an awareness that the original intent is still there:
- To talk about shifting consciousness from rushing and hurrying to a pace dictated only by the reality of the current situation and not impaled on the demands of the external system, which for sure seldom has my / your best interest at the forefront of their agenda.
- To hear from others about how they came to a shifting point and how they followed through with it.
- To recognize and share information about the perilous times we are in from the point of view of impending changes which will occur to our society as climate change continues and the peak oil process progressively plays out the reality of how utterly dependent we have become on that substance.
- To recognize how we have been ultra conditioned to over-consume and to hand our lives over to specialists and how we give away our life-time to make money to pay for all that.
- To reconnect and rediscover basic skills necessary for self and group sustainability.
- To explore how people form new circles of common interest around the sustainable process.
- To integrate complex issues and to say it in plain english.
- To cultivate our inner sense.
- To clarify our values.
- To live the good life and to be in harmony with our surroundings
I suspect that should keep me busy for a while.
8 comments:
Tim,
I understand the challenge of transfering the thoughts and concerns that sweep around my head to the screen in a blog. For myself I have found it best to write and not overly concern myself with the outcome. There is always the next post to revisit any fogginess of writing or thinking.
Release is a stong method but for me only arrives after acceptance of a situation, idea, or feeling. Once I accept I can release it from my mental desire to conquer and go forward to experience.
While my own blog grew from my purchase of a Vespa scooter over time it has developed into a forum for larger issues that all seem to shine on a simpler life. Riding safely requires focus and attention and as I began I started to recognize how much noise was in my life that made it difficult to focus. Hence the beginning of conscious simplification.
I can't say I have mastered this but I am on the road.
Steve Williams
Scooter in the Sticks
Steve,
Well said! I like the growing awareness that comes from "conscious simplification." And the non-desire opens to awareness of subtlety which directness and action may miss.
Tim
Steve,
Well said! I particularly like your phrase: "conscious simplification."
Interesting how that leads to a greater awareness of subtlety and how things come about.
Tim
I just found this post of yours and am glad to read the thoughts of others who are "getting it". While I am still on the path of seeking, I am seeing the possibilities and want more.
Here is my dilemma. I am an artist, and very right brained. I can get lost all day doing what is just in front of me, very child-like, happy, and free. Enjoying, discovering, experiencing, feeling.
Trouble is, my mission is to help other people to do this, too, and I need to do some very left-brain things to get started. I have plans, and see the way, but keep being distracted by "the moment".
I could be diagnosed with ADD, I am sure, but I prefer to call it the 'hunter brain' (as in Thom Hartman's book, Beyond ADD) or the Ancestral Mind (as in Gregg D. Jacobs book "The Ancestral Mind"). In these writings, this type of brain is an asset, rather than a condition needing medical treatment.
My job, purpose, and path are beginning to be outlined in my blogs at Art Experiences. The top has pinned posts to different blogs explaining how my art programs help to slow down the pace of life, open the spirit to intuition, and a reaching out beyond self.
If I keep playing and do not begin rushing, how am I to get this program out there to where it is needed?
To re-use the motto of an old tv show that will easily reveal my age: "Have Imagination Arts program for health and well-being, will travel" :)
Kristen,
It was Palladin, wasn't it?
I also respond very positively to the hunter-farmer hypothesis promulgated by Thom Hartmann. It makes perfect sense to me. One of the implications of it is that systems work because of that division of talents. We don't all have to be good at everything.
A few examples may be helpful. In my practise, my life became ever so much more enjoyable when I hired a secretary who loves doing accounts receivable. She aslso does many other things in her life, but she really loves making those numbers line up properly and behave themselves! I can also do that, and enjoy it at times, but most usually I prefer doing other things which better fit my skill sets.
I read a book about Buckminster Fuller once. The co-author was the "farmer." Bucky was the "hunter / artist of ideas and images and structures." How they wrote the book was fascinating. They would agree to meet in Florida for a week every few months. The other author would take in all of Fuller's ideas, etc., and then put it in a coherent form, nicely typed and organized and virtually ready for publication. At the next meeting he would present the "gallies" to Fuller. No sooner had he seen the first, or any page, when he would start making marginal notations and sketches which took what was in essence his previous words, and create new work product.
It would have gone on and on until the co-author realized that it would never stop. He just went ahead at some point and published a book. Not the book, but a book.
For years I have walked around with a small tape recorder. I talk into it regularly. Most of the time I erase it and just talk over it again. It helps me to come back to points which are important to me. Then I translate them to the written word. This blog is an example of it. Each posting is a small unit of expression. But by putting it up on a blog, it adds to itself cumulatively. I find that pleasing and I hope it is useful to others.
Let me know how things turn out for you with your project.
Different blog link but still me.
Thanks for identifying Palladin for me. All I could remember was the slogan!
Today was another example. I woke eager to do a cleaning/sorting job but spent the day working on my 5 blogs and finishing an application for a women writers retreat. The day is gone, and I am still tripping over the mess that needs to be organized. When business is up and running, a secretary is an excellent idea!
Thanks for your response.
Tomorrow is another day. :)
PS
I discovered that although I had to step over piles of things to be organized when I went to bed last night, I drifted off to sleep with a great sense of accomplishment for having created 5 blogs that work like a website, and the feeling was still with me this morning.
And then it dawned on me: Doing the blogs was what I was supposed to be doing to get my business going!
Spirit guides do have a job overriding the small world of the self, but they did a great job yesterday.
Kristen,
Good for you!
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