One Thing Plus

Zen Habits is one of my favorite blogs. Leo Babauta is a simplicity rock star and I've learned a lot from him. But today, for the first time, I was disappointed in what he had to say. Today he wrote about killing your to-do list. He suggests that instead of having a list, you wake up in the morning and decide what One Thing you're passionate about for the day and get that One Thing done.

I'm not exactly sure what kind of world he lives in. But in my world, someone has to get the kids to school, do the dishes, take out the garbage, pay the bills. There are things that have to be done daily, weekly or monthly that will never, ever be the One Thing that I'm passionate about on any given day. I can come up with all kinds of great metaphors for doing my taxes but tax prep will never be my One Thing. If I followed his suggestion, I might be a little happier but I would get even less done than I already do (which would be amazing considering how little I actually get done most days).

I know that even though he didn't specifically say it, I'm sure he understands that the One Thing system won't work for everyone. (He does say you can keep a list of routine items that you can look at once a day if you "don't feel safe" without it but that's sort of insulting to people, like me, who need reminders to pay bills and stuff). Honestly, I don't think I know any normal person that could successfully use that system. Maybe I'm just surrounded by people who, like me, have relatively complicated lives (or short attention spans and an inability to remember to do boring but necessary stuff). And so the idea of totally doing away with to-do lists is terrifying and not particularly helpful.

Because I don't want to be the kind of person who just shoots down someone else's ideas without offering something of my own, here's my idea for improving on Leo's One Thing. I call it One Thing Plus. What if we kept our to-do lists but made sure to make room in each day for our One Thing? It would be great to know that when you wake up in the morning, you pick One Thing that you're excited about that day and you get to spend some time working on it. Because it's already on your list. And maybe it makes the rest of your list easier to get through if you take some time to do something you're passionate about.

I'd love to hear about your systems and whether you make time for your passions in your day to day life.

How important is being important?

While I set up my new business, I'm working part time as a lawyer. An old boss was nice enough to hire me to do some basic work. The work I'm doing (drafting board meeting minutes) was pretty much my least favorite part of my old job but people with no way to pay their mortgages and divorce attorneys can't be too choosy, right?

Really, I'm not complaining. I can work pretty much whenever I want to and they pay me well. I have plenty of time to procrastinate work on my business, do yoga, hang with friends and spend time with my kids. I can work from home most of the time but I do have to go to the office now and then. Lately I've been avoiding the office like the plague and today I realized why. When I first started to work part time, they had me in an extra office. It wasn't as big as my old office (and didn't have a window) but it was a nice, private office. They recently hired a new attorney so they moved me to a cubicle. It doesn't really matter - I'm not at the office all that much anyway. But today was my first day in the cube. And it was harder than I thought it would be because it reminded me of how much things have changed.

I'm still struggling with letting go of my old image of myself. I used to be Vice President, Associate Legal Counsel at a decent-sized, national company. I was becoming "known" within my legal specialty. I jumped ship from there to a large, well-known, national law firm where I was a Partner. (Yes, with a Capital P). Big time, hard driving, rockin' the high heels, briefcase, Blackberry, working mom, having it all, Big. Firm. Partner. I made really good money. I had an office, a secretary, an expense account. I was well-respected. And, while the market fell apart, my life fell apart. I got fired. And suddenly I wasn't a lawyer anymore. I filed for divorce. And suddenly I wasn't a wife anymore.

The past year has brought a raging river of change and growth for me. I'm starting a new life and building a new image of myself - for myself. But being back at my old office - the place where I became the person that I used to be (if that makes any sense), is really hard. I love the people there and everyone is wonderful to me. But - (and I know this sounds awful but in the interest of being honest, I'm going to say it anyway) - I miss being important. When I was a lawyer there, everyone needed me. All the time. Big parts of the business couldn't happen without my involvement. What I said and thought mattered. Clearly, I wasn't irreplaceable but I was an integral part of the business. And now I'm not. They're glad I'm there to do the stuff that no one likes to do (and I'm good at it). I'm glad to be working there so I have a little money while I create my new life. But it isn't the same and it never will be.

That's ok - I don't want to be that person anymore. I paid a steep price in terms of mental health and happiness to be important in that way. I would love to be able to say that I'm over being important. Now that I'm doing all kinds of yoga and meditation and becoming all zen-like, shouldn't I be able to tell my ego to take a hike and get over herself? That would be nice. But that isn't the case. I like being important - I like to be needed. So sue me.

Is there a way I can give my ego just a little bit of what she wants without selling out? Can I allow myself to be needed without (again) becoming something I don't want to be just to stay needed? I think so. I think - I hope - that just by being aware of that desire, by accepting it for what it is, I'll be better able to navigate situations that bring it up.

Now that I think about it, the need to be needed comes up a lot. It pops up with my kids, with other relationships, with my work - new and old. Maybe there are times that I should let my kids struggle and come up with solutions on their own but I insert myself in order to keep them connected to the proverbial apron strings. Maybe I give my friends unsolicited advice as a way to get involved in their lives and feel needed. Maybe I take a job that isn't really my thing because . . . well, you know.

I hope that as I move along my path to becoming a healer, I'll work with people who benefit from my services. And maybe they'll come back and become regular clients. I'll be important to them as a service provider they respect and like and come back to and maybe even recommend to their friends. I'll continue to build the online community I've started to build here. It's about connections. Wanting to be connected is human. Trying to get people to need me - especially if it involves changing myself - is unhealthy. But making connections and building a community of people who care about me for who I really am - that's healthy. And a lot more fun.

It's not always sunny over here and that's ok

If you've been reading here for even a little while, you probably know that I've had a lot going on over the last year or so. I lost my job. I got divorced. I'm starting a new business.

Losing my job was a blessing in disguise. I needed a kick in the ass to get out of the life I was living. I was miserable. I was taking anti-depressants and mood stabilizers and I was still unhappy and mentally unstable (not "kill-your-neighbor" unstable but, you know, really, really moody). The reality was that I made so much damn money and had such a "good" job that I couldn't bring myself to quit. Even though I knew it was literally killing me. Once I got over the shock of being fired for the first time in my life, I realized that I was being given a golden opportunity to finally do something that I was happy doing.

Losing my job - and surviving it without being hospitalized in a straight jacket - finally gave me the courage to file for divorce. (Also, being with him 24/7 was a nightmare). I knew my marriage wasn't working and wasn't ever going to work. We had been to marriage counseling but it actually made things worse. I had wanted to get divorced for years but didn't have the guts to pull the trigger. I was scared. Scared of my husband (for good reason). Sacred to disappoint my kids. But more than that, I was afraid to be on my own. I was so convinced of my inability to take care of myself and so convinced that I was nothing without him, that I couldn't envision a life on my own anymore. (Forget for a moment that I was 31 years old when we got married. I had lived on my own in NYC for years before going to law school. I was perfectly capable of being on my own. I just had gotten so far away from myself that I couldn't remember that independent person anymore).

The hardest part of it all has been the letting go of who I thought I was. I had this image of myself - successful big firm lawyer, happy wife (bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan type, you know?) - that was shattered. And even though the shattering of that image is the best thing that has ever happened to me (with the exception of having my babies), it is still very difficult to go through. It feels kind of like losing a limb. You know how amputees say that they can sometimes still feel an amputated limb? I can still see that woman - she looked so happy and confident. And I admit, I kind of miss her. (And I miss her money. I hate like hell to confess it, but it's true.)

I'm building a new image of myself now. One that I hope is truer to who I am inside. But before I can really do that, I have to let the old image go. I have to mourn the loss of that person, that life - even if it wasn't all that happy or healthy. There were good moments - more than just a few. I have to mourn the loss of my marriage and my job. I have to let the old me go before I can move forward and truly become the new me.

Lately I've been so busy enjoying the growth and energy of my new life that I haven't given proper attention to the dark side of all this change. The sadness and the anger. You can't ignore the dark side - it will come out whether you like it or not. And when it does, you might not recognize it. For me, it's been coming out in annoying rashes on my legs, severe hip pain and moodiness. It's begging for recognition and acceptance. I want so badly to be writing about happy, inspiring goodness (probably for the wrong reasons) but I've had some mega writer's block. And maybe this is why - maybe what you all need to hear is the not-so-good. The sad and mad stuff. You don't need sunflowers and butterflies from me. What you need is something real. And sometimes being real means allowing the dark sides of ourselves to show.

Remember, if it wasn't for the darkness, you wouldn't - couldn't - appreciate the light. And as a friend wrote in a great post the other day: "There is a use for all of it, a way to turn everything into compost and therefore a beautiful garden." So I'm going to allow the darkness its due. I accept the sadness, the anger - everything that isn't necessarily pretty. I'm letting go of the old me and it will be ok.

I'm going to stop trying to pretend everything is sunshine and lattes all the time. It's a perfect day for it, too. It's raining and I'm out of coffee.

Scattered . . .

Lately, I feel like all my best writing is in comments on other people's blogs and in email conversations. I say something and think "Wow, that's good. I should write a blog post." But when I get here, I can't seem to put together a coherent sentence. There seems to be so much going on in my head - so many ideas, thoughts, conversation threads, grocery lists and random song lyrics - that I can't figure out what to say in a post.

I think it's pressure - I'm starting to feel pressure to write here. It's not so much that it turns into a "should" (which, as my readers know, are evil). I love writing. As much as I love talking. And I love talking. Just ask my family. When it gets hard is when I start feeling like the writing has to be more than good (because I always want it to be that), it has to be meaningful. And not just meaningful to me. It has to be meaningful to other people. That's where I get into trouble. Instead of just writing for myself and hoping it helps someone else (which is why I started this blog in the first place), I try to write for recognition. That's when my brain freaks out and freezes. Because my brain knows that getting attached to an outcome is a dangerous thing. It could lead to disappointment. What if I wrote this post that was so full of meaning it could barely stand itself and no one read it? Or worse, people read it and hated it or ignored it. I didn't get the recognition I set out to get. That would mean I failed. Two things I don't particularly like - disappointment and failure. It's not surprising I can't write anything when my brain goes through that analysis.

A bit of this is coming from my new venture. I want to have a writing/web site component to it and I know that in order for that part of it to be successful, the content will need to be meaningful to a certain number of people. And I'll have to come up with new, meaningful content on a regular basis. That's reality. And if I can't deal with that, then maybe the writing part of this business isn't for me. To what extent do I use positive thinking to move forward here ("Of course you'll be able to do it! You're a great writer!") and, if it doesn't work, at what point do I accept that maybe I'm not as good a writer as I hoped? Now we're getting into one of the things I wanted to write about today - my response to Gina's beautiful post over at Embody Grace. But since I don't feel I can do it justice in my current addled state of mind, I'm going to let that percolate until it's ready.

There are going to be times when we do something in order to achieve a particular goal. I'm not saying that it's always bad to do something hoping for a particular outcome. But writing - at least for me, in this space - can't be about an outcome. It can't be about what someone else wants because, let's face it, I'm not smart enough to know what you people want. Or what you'll find meaningful. All I can do is share my story with you and hope something resonates. So I guess I am writing for a goal - I'm writing to connect with other people. But it's the process of doing the writing that connects me. It's putting myself out there. So, hi, who ever is out there! I hope I've connected with you in some way.

Epiphanies involving Julie Andrews, trampolines and three ring circuses

I've come to realize that some of my best writing comes when I'm commenting on other people's blogs. I'm not sure why. Anyway, was just visiting future-smiling and had an epiphany that I thought I'd share. I'm working just as hard now - if not harder - than I was during my lawyer life. But there's a huge difference. Back then I felt like a slave lugging stone up a pyramid with an overseer lashing at my back. Now I'm more like Julie Andrews dancing up the hill with the sun shining in my face. Or like the Seven Dwarfs - (most likely Sleepy these days) - whistling while I work. Or Jane Banks sipping a Spoonful of Sugar with Mary Poppins (Mmmmm, Rum Punch! My favorite!). Or any of the several other musical theater analogies I'm sure I could come up with. (I do love musical theater.)

Living your passion doesn't mean slacking off (although I'm still really good at that). Living your passion often means working just as hard but with joy instead of obligation. Just because it's work doesn't mean it can't be fun. I'm not saying that there aren't things that I really dislike doing. Filing is one of them. Tax prep is another big one. Probably because those are "shoulds" and rebels like me (ha!) really don't like "shoulds." We like "want tos" but not "shoulds." So my struggle has been how do I turn pumpkin-like "shoulds" into beautiful, sparkly, horse-drawn carriage "want tos"?

Well, first I visited my fairy godmother (and her duck). There I learned about Metaphor Mouse and the Pirate Tax Cave. Metaphor Mouse helps you work through your issues with things like "shoulds" and find a way to deal with them. That's how I got through my tax prep issues (Yeah! Got my tax stuff to the tax dude). But I was still struggling with the wide array of shoulds that pepper my to do list. So I came up with my own metaphor (with help from Bryna and Todd, my financial advisers - yes, even though I have no money I have financial advisers! They're awesome.)

My business is like a trampoline. I can jump around and do flips and spins and seat drops and have all kinds of fun. But if the trampoline mat is sitting on the ground, I won't be able to jump much. And the seat drops will hurt like hell. So doing the paperwork, setting up the systems, getting my ducks in a row - all the shoulds - that's building the framework for my trampoline. That's doing the stuff that's necessary to make the trampoline fun. And also (because I like to beat my metaphors to death), by setting up rainy day savings and insurance and all that stuff, I'm putting up a net around my trampoline to keep me from falling on the ground and hitting my head. Because concussions suck.

I'm off to tend to the elephants. Now that I have a trampoline, I've decided that I want a whole three-ring circus around it. And of course, I'm the Ring Master (Mistress?).

Riding the rapids

Last week I was having a crisis of faith in my abilities as a healer. And the universe, being the show off that it is, gave me just what I needed soon after I published that post. The next day, I went back to the Reiki training center and attended a free Reiki share given by the head of the center. She gave me the encouragement I needed and reminded me that Reiki is a slow and steady kind of healing. It helps the receiver relax and allow his or her body to heal itself at its own pace and in its own way. Reiki is not an immediate miracle kind of bodywork. Instead, the Reiki practitioner provides gentle and loving energy to her clients allowing the client's bodies to access their natural healing abilities.

Armed with my new found faith and strength of purpose, I spent the next few days agonizing over my next steps. The road block I had set up for myself was a common one - I simply couldn't do anything to start my business as a healer until I had a name for the business. You can't organize a corporate entity without a name. (And, of course, being a lawyer for 15 years I can't allow myself to do business without a corporate entity.) And since all the good company names have been taken, I knew I was doomed.

So I whined to my sister as I drove her to work last week about how I was never going to come up with a name that wasn't cheesy or boring. I meditated and tried to still my monkey brain long enough to receive some divine inspiration. All I came up with were names that were already taken or were just too foofy and out there for me. Finally, in desperation, I decided to do something that self-help gurus always say to do in situations like this (I try really hard not to do anything that gurus say to do. It's my way of rebelling against the "shoulds" I guess). I spent an hour or so brainstorming. Just writing down words that came to me when I thought about what I want to be doing. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

That evening I was walking down the street not thinking about anything in particular when it came to me. It just popped into my head. The name of my company. Maybe I should have listened to myself when I talked about the importance of releasing the tension and not striving so hard. I owe thanks (for this and many other things) to the lovely and talented Deb Owen because it was this post of hers that put the idea for the name in my head.

So I have organized the company, reserved the web domain and even got a blog address at blogger.com (so I can start writing before I get my website set up). And now the real work begins. I feel like I'm shooting the rapids now everything is happening so fast. It's scary! And fun! And terrifying! And exciting! (And it really is amazing how you kind of need money to make money - I just spent hundreds of dollars laying the groundwork for this. Which is good in a weird way. Now I know I have to go out there and get some paying clients. At this point, if I make enough to cover the costs, I'll be ecstatic. And then it will be time to set some bigger goals.

Oh, yeah - I almost forgot. The name of my new baby: True Horizon Healing and Bodywork. Look for more from me and my baby soon!

Letting go

Recently I've been trying out some Yin Yoga classes. For those of you who read the wonderful Havi Brooks, you'll know this as "non-sucky yoga." Most yoga classes at health clubs and spas are variations of hatha yoga which basically works to stretch the muscles. (I know, it does a lot more than that but this isn't a yoga theory blog so, whatever). You get in a position for a minute or two and then move to another one. While there is "resting" in poses, it's mostly movement from one pose to another. Some forms, like "power" yoga, are workouts that get your heart rate going. All that stuff = yang yoga. Yin yoga is slower and more deliberate. It works deep in the joints, connective tissues and bones. You get into a stretchy position and stay there. For what seems like for.ever. but is really only like five minutes. There are lots of benefits to it but mainly, depending on the postures you use, it works to open the hips and pelvic muscles and to limber up and protect your spine. Those are the basic physical benefits. But the mental benefits are the most interesting.

Yin yoga is about accepting things the way they are but ever so gently pushing against the status quo. It's not about forcing change but allowing change to happen. Sometimes we get so set on getting things done and making things happen that we don't sit back and evaluate our goals and methods. We could be pushing for the wrong things or in the wrong way and wondering why stuff isn't working. Yin yoga is about changing that mindset.

Here's how it works. You get into a pose - say, laying on your back, pulling your knees up and twisting them to one side. If you aren't very flexible, you could find your knees hovering inches (or in my case, feet) above the ground. Your spine is protesting. Your hips are swearing at you. But you eventually get to a spot where you can more or less comfortably stay for a bit. And you stay there. And you breathe. And breathe some more. And a funny thing happens - a release of sorts - you notice that your knees are closer to the ground, your spine isn't so pissed at you anymore. You feel muscles relaxing that you didn't even realize were tense. You let go. You stop trying to control everything. You let it happen the way it's supposed to happen. Do this with a few different postures for about an hour and you might start to realize all the places in your body - and your life - where you're holding on and not letting things be. Where you're pushing in the wrong direction. It isn't about things staying the same. You accept where things are now and put yourself in the right position to allow change to happen.

Where are you holding on too tightly in your life? Where are you resisting change or pushing for change in the wrong way? Anatomically speaking, we often tense our muscles as a way of protecting ourselves. When we try to hold ourselves together (literally and figuratively), we tense up. Relaxing our muscles can sometimes feel like we're allowing ourselves to be vulnerable. But if we continue to over-stress our bodies and minds, if we never let go of the tension, we're making ourselves vulnerable to poor health.

Pick one thing in your life that you would like to change and try letting go of any resistance or tightness you have as it relates to that issue. See what happens when you allow change to happen in its own way instead of forcing it.