Three Breaths

I've spent more time than I care to admit reading inspirational articles on sites like Zen Habits and Tiny Buddha; neurotically perusing stress reduction techniques and "how to know if you're burned out" checklists on WebMD and HelpGuide and Psychology Today. I've read books on mindfulness and wistfully wished I could go to UMass for the mindfulness-based stress reduction program. I've read and re-read books by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

I haven't always been great at implementing the techniques in any sort of regular fashion, though I know I would be healthier if I did. The excuses are increasingly ridiculous: "Who has time to lie down for a 30-minute body scan?" turns into the ludicrous "Who's got time for the Three-Minute Breathing Space?"

Evidently there is a very persuasive part of me that thinks I can't simply sit there for three minutes, never mind the fact that I may spend thirty or forty minutes reading internet articles about sitting meditation or stress or whatever. This makes no sense.

BUT. I came up with a nearly foolproof (the fool being me) method of centering myself and slowing myself down, of stopping the mean mental voice that likes to castigate me for every little thing. I can't really take credit for this, since it's basically distilled from all that reading I just talked about. But here it is.

Three breaths.

You really can't rationalize away the time it takes to breathe in, breathe out; breathe in, breathe out; breathe in, breathe out. Because look! It's already done. Sometimes it actually IS challenging to sit in mindfulness and serenity for three minutes. Or there's some external situational reason that makes it difficult to do. But surely I can do it for three breaths. Surely I can stop that inner mean voice for the space of three breaths. Surely I can follow my breath in and out, slowly, without criticism, three measly times.

Sometimes that's enough.

Affirmations

I'm trying to fight one of those funks where I keep thinking to myself, "Geez, I'm not really that great at anything." Part of the rumination that keeps bothering me has to do with the role of difficulty of a task, or perceived subjective difficulty, and whether and how that relates to ability, aptitude, potential, success, etc. That is: if I feel like something is difficult, does that mean I'm not really that good at it--that I don't have a noteworthy ability or aptitude for it? Or does it mean that I am actually good at it because I'm trying to struggle through problems that others aren't willing or able to tackle? Or are the two completely independent, nothing to do with one another at all? [Something is difficult] AND/OR [I'm good at it or not good at it] but there is no causal relationship.

Mostly, though, instead of tackling the why and the self-analysis, I end up going through this list of things I like to do (or even things I don't like, just things I have to do or could do) and sort of checking them off, like, "Nope, I'm not all that great at that; oh, playing the ukulele? not so good at that; singing is fun but I'm really not that great at it; I could go back to working in a corporate environment but I'm not so great at stuff like meetings and getting to work on time and grown-up shit like that; I used to be pretty good at picking up languages but I don't think I am any more and hardly ever have time to practice;" and on and on.

So I decided to try to list a few things I am good at, to make myself feel a little better.

• I'm really amazingly good at sitting on the couch with a purring cat on my lap. Making the cats happy is something I can do.
• I can kick ass at cleaning out the refrigerator. In fact, I did that just yesterday. Now it's cleaner than it's been in many moons. (Of course, I don't know if this counts, since I was also at least partly responsible for failing to clean it for many moons...) 
• I'm generally pretty good at things related to our household food management: grocery shopping, putting the shopping away, cooking or otherwise assembling the food into yummy form.
• I am amazing at filing. You wouldn't really know this from the current state of *my* office, but while working as a temp, I once reorganized an entire file system for the City of Modesto Wastewater Treatment Facility--at least a half dozen large filing cabinets that had last been sorted sometime in the 1980s. In fact, that's how I met Joe Barretta, although he probably doesn't remember me. We had a long conversation about how he was taking his son to a Green Day concert.
• I am good at consuming mass quantities. 
• I am good at fading into the background (except in India, where I apparently stick out like a sore thumb--hence the many photo-ops people insisted on having with us).
• I am good at being quiet. Too good, sometimes. In fact, sometimes that quietness extends to this blog, for which I apologize, because I do go through vast epochs of silence from time to time.

 I will try to be less silent. Bust out of the box! We'll see how well I do...and whether "busting out of the box" is one of the things I'm good at, or one of the other things...

Blogging Thoughts

I've been giving a lot of thought to the problem of what purpose I want this blog, this particular one right here, to serve. I haven't been posting a lot. That doesn't mean I'm not blogging, because I post twice a week to Finding Wonderland, rain or shine, and as the Cybils blog editor again this year, I put up between 3 and 5 posts per week there. And then there's my paid blogging/article writing gig at A Place for Mom, which has been upped from 2 posts a week to 3. At about 500 words apiece, it's no small potatoes. I blog a LOT.

Just…very little of it is what I'd call my personal thoughts. I tend to save those for short bursts on Twitter and Facebook. I am also constantly battling questions like Who really cares? What purpose does it serve? Are my thoughts really that interesting? Does anyone even "read" blogs anymore or do they just go surfing for specific topics? I mean, I haven't been doing much blog reading lately myself. I hate to admit that, especially as someone very much enmeshed in the children's literature blogging community. I've gained a lot of treasured friends and writing connections by reading their blogs. But my blog reading is no longer regulated by Google Reader; I read a handful of random posts in any given week, clicking through from e-mails or tweets or Facebook. I haven't been commenting. Everyone else has plenty to say; they don't need to hear my two cents.

So then what? That's the question I've been asking myself, over and over. What do I have to say, here, that hasn't been said a million times and far more eloquently? What do I have to offer that's unique, and that I haven't posted elsewhere? And do I have enough of it to offer on a thrice-weekly basis or whatever? Am I helping, or at least entertaining, anyone by doing it? Myself, at the very least? Do I have to have a special "thing" that my blog is known for? How can I create something sufficiently individual, or is BEING an individual and posting about it enough?

I've wondered over and over if I should say goodbye to this blog; if I should stop blogging, period. I haven't gotten to that point yet. But I'm definitely doing some thinking about the why of it all.

WFMAD Day 1: Getting In My Own Way

Today’s Prompt:  What things do you allow to get in the way of your writing? Be specific, detailed, and brutally honest.

Today is the first day of the Write Fifteen Minutes A Day Challenge. I'll be posting my fifteen minutes on this blog. I need to post here more (and I promised to do just that several weeks ago, after which I failed miserably to keep up with my promise). I need to do more regular writing and in order to both of these things I need to get over my fear of posting personal writing in public.

It's not just the normal fear of having other people read my writing. I always have that. You just get over it, more or less, or ignore it. It's the fear that nobody is going to care what I have to say. It's the fear that I'll regret having posted something too personal, that it will feel self-indulgent or too revealing. That I'll be boring. That not even my friends will care about what I write. That I compare unfavorably with other writers--I spend a lot of time comparing myself to others and coming up short. Hey, the prompt said to be brutally honest.

A lot of these same fears apply to my writing in general. Maybe it's because I didn't grow up planning to become a writer, didn't grow up knowing that was in my future, but I often feel like an impostor. I didn't think of myself as a writer, just someone who enjoyed writing stories on occasion.

So, yes, fear. Fear gets in the way of my writing--all kinds of fears. And really, when I think about all the other things that get in the way--procrastination, time management issues, failure to prioritize, not having time, not having energy--I begin to realize how many of the things that get in the way of my writing are related to fear, at least at some deep-down level. Fear that if I embrace being a writer, I'll cease to be an artist. Fear that my efforts will ultimately never live up to my expectations and hopes for myself. Fear that I'm not going to earn enough of a living simply by writing and making artwork. Fear that I don't have what it takes, that I'm not disciplined enough or devoted enough. Fear that I don't want this writing life enough, or that I want it too much.

I wish I were the type of person who could let go enough to embrace the artistic, creative life wholeheartedly. But I'm just not. I can't leave behind practical issues. Issues of money, of survival, of fairness in our household. There is a simple joy and relief at having a partner who understands what it is to be an artist at heart, because he also is one. But I also feel tension at the inherent inequity that results from one of us having the "real job," and I end up feeling like the opportunity to do my creative work is a luxury, rather than the gift that it is.

I need to give myself this gift once in a while.

Too Much Information

--commence infodump--

Today is International Women's Day. What are you going to do about the increasing disappearance of colossal megafauna? Drink 8 8-ounce glasses of water every day. Don't drink too much water during meals as it may upset your digestion; drink the water between meals instead. Don't ingest too much caffeine or you'll have trouble sleeping. Don't ingest too much alcohol or you'll have trouble sleeping. If you have trouble sleeping, try these other pills instead. Or meditate. Meditating can promote habits of mindfulness in your daily life and positive emotions like compassion and forgiveness. If you have trouble getting your thoughts to focus on loving kindness toward yourself, change your thoughts. If your thoughts focus too much on negative interpretations of events, change your thoughts. Your thoughts are not you. Also, too much telling is bad for your fiction writing. Too much description is also bad. Social networking can help increase traffic to your blog or website. But don't make your search engine optimization efforts too clumsy and overt. When Savonarola ruled Florence he perpetrated the Bonfire of the Vanities. You only need to know 3 chords to play "Rock This Town" by the Stray Cats on the ukelele. There is a cat version of Prozac and it is basically the same as regular Prozac. The giant Pacific garbage patch is not the only gigantic patch of decomposing plastic in the ocean. Boxwood hedges can smell like cat pee, and not necessarily because a cat peed there. Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Dick Dale, and Brian May started off as ukelele players before taking up the guitar. The Sassy Gay Friend stereotype is SO over. Dystopian fiction is also over. Or it's just getting started and will replace zombies, which were the new vampires. Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. That line is from "Me & Bobby McGee," which was written by Kris Kristofferson, who has been a prolific songwriter as well as an actor. Oh, and there's going to be a Doctor Who/Star Trek crossover comic book.

--end infodump--

This glimpse into the chaotic inside of Sarah's brain was brought to you by Stress: Causing Insanity and Burnout in a Brain Near You.

Just One Resolution.

"Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual." - Mark Twain (source: this WebMD article)

I don't know if I'm going to make any resolutions this year. I'm not sure resolutions are a great idea for me. Not just right now or this year, but in general. You see, I have this problem, which is that I tend to set unrealistic goals for myself ALL OF THE TIME. Then, inevitably, I can't accomplish them, and the less progress I make towards the goals, the worse I feel. And I don't seem to have a good sense of what's realistic in the first place. I'm forever making to-do lists I can't complete—I'll start with a short, achievable list, and then I'll tell myself that this or that MUST get done, or that the short list of tasks is lazy and unambitious, and the list will grow until it's not something I can actually do in a day, or even a few days. And I tend to blame my inability to do all the things on myself rather than a faulty list, and so I feel bad about it.

So perhaps I ought to have one resolution this year and one only:

TRY TO SET MORE REASONABLE GOALS. 

Corollary #1: Do not disparage small, achievable goals, or belittle their accomplishment by piling on additional work into my justly-earned free time.

Corollary #2: If I fail to achieve a goal, consider whether the fault lies with me or with the goal as stated (e.g. an unrealistically long to-do list).

Corollary #3: Don't underestimate the time it takes to do things—but don't beat myself up over how long it takes, either. It takes as long as it takes. That doesn't mean I'm slow or lazy.

So. That's where I am when it comes to this year's resolution. We'll see how it goes.

Doo or Doo Not

This may not seem like the most incredible of revelations, but it has occurred to me (in the shower, from whence all my ideas flow, apparently) that Yoda's famous platitude "Do or do not. There is no try." is basically the same thing as "Shit or get off the pot" (as my Gramp used to say).

What has also occurred to me is that this is quite good advice for those of us who tend to be paralyzed by doubt. The doubt, for me, often comes from too much trying--trying to be perfect, trying to plan everything out ahead of time, trying to be as creative as I can, whatever. Everything becomes effortful, and I'm frozen in place from all of my trying. And, of course, then I'm not DOING.

I'm not just talking about my fiction writing or my artwork, either. I've noticed this also applies to my blogging. I get freaked out by worry that everything I put out into the ether has to be brilliant; I manage to convince myself I don't have anything interesting to write. Then I don't blog. But THEN I feel guilty for not blogging. (I know. My head is a frustrating place to be.)

So while I was in the shower I was thinking, "Y'know, Me, if you took the time you spent fretting about blogging and actually just sat down and wrote something without worrying about trying to be awesome, you'd at least have dealt with the parts of the equation that you have actual control over--the unrealistic expectations and the unnecessary guilt. Oh, and you'd actually produce a blog post, too."

That's not bad, when you think about it. Easier said than done, though, and something I seem to need to constantly remind myself of.

As you can see, though--at least temporarily--I've told myself to shit or get off the pot, and I've made my choice. There is no try.