missing a wishful goal

I want to update you all on my revision goal. [being done by the end of January] Yeah, that so did not happen.

Perhaps I was not very realistic about the busyness of December? Perhaps I didn't have enough support systems set up? Or it could be that I forgot about some projects that needed finishing this winter when the revision wish came to me. I'm not going to beat myself up about this however I do want to revise my work.

But revising is still so new to me I feel a bit rudderless.

I did make progress getting systems set up. The first part of the revision is working with hard copy. I realized I needed space. My big desk is now cleared off and ready. That got done. Also I found my pump so I can now sit on my ball and be comfortable. This is all helpful.

A bit less helpful -- I have a sweet idea that is just starting to grow this month and it must get some attention. It's a great idea but it will take time away from revising.

How to format my revising wish so that it is doable and filled with ease? I don't know the answer yet.

One idea I had is to set out my papers at the end of the night, so that I am ready in the morning to start revising with ease. I would love to do 15 minutes of revising five days out of seven this week. But perhaps I'll start smaller than that.

Good luck to everyone with their current projects. More about my new sweet idea later. xo

presence--deep listening

It seems fitting I am wrapping up this week with some thoughts on presence. Presence can be viewed as both the start and the foundation of all listening. If you aren't here then you can't take in what you or another are saying.

So presence became a thread running through the entire week. I would pause and remember -- presence. I'm listening and I want my heart to be open. Over and over again a gentle pause followed by remembering. Fortunately I remembered well this week but I could see that during a high stress time this could be more challenging.

I used birds as reminders to be present. The birds are very active in our mild weather so I have been watching and whistling at them. This led to enjoying natural beauty which is a doorway to presence for me. From there I opened to listening.

I enjoyed this week more than I suspected I would, perhaps this was a natural fit for me at this time. I hope you enjoyed something this week as well. xo

allowing -- deep listening

Thursdays was another day with almost no interaction with others. I never left the house due to a cough-y cold. I felt quite wretched at times both physically and emotionally-- I did not want to be sick.

So there was nothing for it but to practice allowing and listening with myself. Allowing my body to speak about it's discomfort without trying to change the subject. Allowing for the blankness of mind. Allowing for the lack of clarity as I tried to attend a work meeting from home.

Around the edges of the sickness I did feel a safety knowing that I could be with it and some ease. Which was quite nice for me but makes rather boring blogging. ah well, this too.

silence -- deep listening

If you celebrated Imbolc on Wednesday I hope it was a lovely one. We have unusually warm temps here with melting snow. It really does feel like we are halfway to spring.

Many of my imbolc hopes and plans got derailed by not feeling well. I had waves of feeling semi-normal but those usually occurred when I wasn't doing much. :) I also spent quite a bit of time with other people and I had guessed previously that my practice on Wednesday was going to centered around presence but when I reviewed my day I realized the main thread had been silence.

It may be that my sore throat made it a bit easier to be silent, to ease into that space. But I was very aware of it. Letting the silence be it's own thing that does not need to be filled. Enjoying the room that gave for the listening. Even when no one was speaking. I think I have a fever so I may not be very coherent so back to silence.

seeing goodness -- deep listening

Tuesday I woke up with a sore throat and a disinclination to talk. By the end of the day I had a killer headache. So while there were plenty of people to talk to over the course of the day it felt uncomfortable to open my mouth and my energy was low.

Once I realized this I knew my practice for the day would be seeing goodness. Sometimes in the beginning of the conversation, sometimes like a light being turned on in the middle of one, I paused and pictured the other person as a whole complete being walking their path. All the answers within them that they would ever need.

When I remembered to see others like this I felt relaxed. I dropped an artificial sense of responsibility. I did not need to tell them something, I could just remember their goodness. The side effect was that I liked people much more, even in the casual encounters in the office.

seeing innocence -- deep listening

I spent most of the day Monday working alone and at first I was at a loss as to how to practice listening on my own.

By lunchtime I noticed my large volume of internal chatter so I started listening to myself. I was judgmental and self-critical about how the past weekend had gone. It was loud. Most of the chatter was a critique of my failures over the weekend.

Once I heard what was happening I was able to turn my attention to remembering. I remembered I am doing the best that I can at any given moment and that all humans act unskillfully at times. It changed nothing to verbally beat myself up for being human. I didn't have to add harm to myself on top of my unskillful behavior. I could extend caring towards myself as I listened.

With this in my awareness there was a sense of relief and release. The rest of the day was much quieter and peaceful. Thankfully.

wonder-deep listening

As I practiced my deep listening on Sunday the quality of wonder moved forward.

I was in several gatherings with very talkative people. Sometimes when that happens I find myself responding by talking a lot as well.

This time I listened and when possible responses came up I brought my attention back to the speaker until the end of the sentence or story. If my response or question was still something I wanted to say at that time I did so. I felt free to not chatter in return.

Something about waiting to speak about things I was really wondering about made the conversation more spacious. I felt more relaxed afterwards as well. It seemed to bypass the conversation headache that I sometimes get after that type of gathering.

It's a tiny practice but interesting stuff is popping up.

awareness-deep listening

Meetings and family doings today gave me plenty of opportunities to listen to others and the quality that came forward was Awareness.

As I listened to many people relate stories and information I gently returned my awareness to what they were saying when it wandered off.

Where did wander? Sometimes I found myself lost in thought about what I should say when my turn came. Sometimes I was arranging my remarks in my head, trying to remember details I wanted to communicate. Each time I noticed, I let my inner dialogue fade and focused on what the other person was saying.

After the meeting I felt I had really absorbed what people were saying. Also I noticed when my time came for speaking I spoke with ease and clarity. There was comfort.

Later when I spent time with my family it was difficult to keep my focus. It was dinner time and I was hungry. I found it challenging to keep my attention on the speaker when my mind was trying to plan out dinner. Apparently my empty tummy is pretty loud.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow and dinner was delicious.

Starting a week of deep listening

I have been pondering and playing with the practice of deep listening most of January. At times I find just the thought of deep listening scary, and my meanies voice their fears loudly. They are sure I will either do it wrong or lose myself [never to be found]

My inner meanies are certainly drama queens at times.

But it has also been, well kind of cool. I enjoy it a lot. Much like starting a metta practice, I'll keep my focus on loving or neutral conversations. I won't be playing with the most challenging discussions first.

So here goes, I am announcing my intention to have a deep listening play dates all week. Each day I hope to play with the practice and then focus on one of the seven aspects here in the blog.

For those who may want to play along here are the seven aspects:

Awareness

Presence

Silence

Wonder

Seeing Innocence

Seeing Goodness

Allowing

corned beef and patterns

I had corned beef today and it was awesome. That's one of the things I love about St. Patrick's Day, it's soooo easy to buy corned beef for lunch. Warning: the above is the coherent part of the post.

So about that last post where I realized I was in a pattern. Seeing the pattern was pretty awesome [and funny] and I wasn't surprised that the realization gave me more space around the whole situation. Even though I still have to correct stuff at work, I don't feel like I am being hated for it. I correct and try to move on. A bit like being a teacher, grade the test, it's part of the job.

So my brain? awareness? story mind? has been nibbling at this realization in a relaxed way and gently wondering "so is there some kind of meaning or gift behind this pattern" and I may be seeing something oh so dimly. So now I'll try to put it into words.

I sometimes want to be 'right' In fact a query I have been using this winter is "do I want to be right or free?" When I look at most situations in this way I realize I would rather be free, it cuts through the ego or something...

Correcting at work is like the flip side of this dynamic. I don't actually want or care about being right in this situation. Or to put it another way, I would like the people I work with on projects to all be right. And yet frequently I am stuck being the one who is right. And for the success of the project I have to communicate that.

Suddenly I can clearly see the downside of being 'right'. And it seems such a gift.

you're wrong, it's a pattern

Sometimes I am critical and I notice things about myself and others that I think are 'wrong'. But that's not what I am talking about here.

This thing happens at work, it happened again this week in fact. I'm working on a project with someone, not a new person, and they are doing things wrong. This isn't an opinion thing it's a real mistake or misinformation. Like someone writing red + yellow = blue, instead of orange. In terms of our business it's incorrect. It will break something or perhaps cause something to not work at all. So it would be worse to ignore it. And there isn't a question of deliberate sabotage or malice.

The first few times I mention the corrections in passing, no big deal we're all human. By about the 6th time I am getting irritated, mostly because I take it 'reverse personally'. I start thinking that the person in question must be hating me because I am noticing and correcting their errors. I start figuring out which errors are safe to ignore [at least for a time] and which have to be communicated right away to stave off bigger errors [hopefully].

Some people make the same errors over and over again, and I start to feel like I am doing all their work and that I must suck at communication because why didn't they understand the process the first 11 times? It causes delays and problems for projects.

But you know I don't want to 'narc' on them. [am I twelve years old?] Sometimes I feel guilty when I don't say anything, I feel guilty for with-holding knowledge.

Mostly I feel all weird about it. *sigh* I have the toughest time negotiating it. I get stressed about it. It takes up time and energy that I keep telling myself I would like to use elsewhere.

I was venting about this to my wife and asking advice 'should I say something this time...' when suddenly I realized this is a freaking pattern.

It's been going on for about 3+ years, and it keeps on happening with different people. And I have no idea why. [covert psychological experiment?]

I try to coax some sense out of the pattern and it goes fuzzy. I really have no ideas right now. I don't think it's about expectations or fairness or speaking out or being realistic about intelligence...

But I am giggling because it took me this long to see that it was a pattern and I do feel hopeful now that the 'why' of the pattern is coming to me at some point and maybe I'll even get to stop running this pattern even though I don't know how that would happen. But it could.