Your Life - Inspired

One of my biggest daily struggles is with email. My problem is that I sometimes suffer from FMS ('Fraid of Missing Something). If you aren't familiar with it, it's a not-so-distant cousin of JustIn Case.

My inbox is overflowing with newsletters, updates and notifications that I keep getting because there might be some good information in there. The problem is that it tends to pile up in my inbox, until I can't stand it anymore and then I madly delete and respond and get exhausted, annoyed and more frequently than I like to admit embarrassed by important emails lost in the detritus.

Last week, while strategically ignoring my inbox and checking in on my favorite blogs, I read Christine Martell's post Getting Control of Email. Unlike Christine, I'm not sure I'm brave enough to know exactly how much time I'm spending on email right now, but, I loved reading about what she's doing, how it's helped, and oh the beautiful paintings!

Duly inspired, I started deleting and unsubscribing and messing around with rules and folders. There went a few hundred of the 500+, but I had a long way to go. And, it was still agonizing.

The next day, I was having a chat with my mastermind buddy, Kat Miller* that completely shifted things.

She asked me to imagine my inbox as my living room or office, and wanted to know what it would be like to invite all that email in.

[Insert Horrified Gasp]

I immediately felt panicked. I don't want all that crap in my space.

Kat talked me down, and guided me to think about my email as a special place, a literal place, place. This idyllic little Tuscan villa came instantly to mind. It was beautiful, welcoming and private.

Unfortunately, instead of being the gracious lady of this beautiful home, I was acting like a security guard at Ellis Island. Scanning over the wretched refuse looking for the sick and troublesome to get them handled.

Not a pleasing metaphor.

So Kat and I ran with the little Tuscan Villa metaphor for awhile. I decided to create a Library where I could relax and browse through newsletters whenever I wanted. Most importantly, I realized that setting aside focused time every day to greet visitors, or spend time in the library, or otherwise hang out with people who dropped by was a really wonderful way to be.

I'm practicing this new way of being with my email. It'll take some getting used to, changing of habits, and I already like how much more spacious and friendly it feels. Almost like when I got my very first aol account.

* BTW, Kat is an amazing person, with great talents and abilities. Unfortunately, she's not taking new clients right now, but when she is, and/or she has her website up, I'll be the first to share!

The Fix-It-All-Now Flu.

And it's a bugger. I've talked about clients that have it, in fact, it was the topic of my first newsletter.

And as I'm sitting here, back at my desk, after traveling for awhile I realize I have the symptoms. While traveling I had lots of time to dream. Time to percolate new ideas, to come up with a whole list of things I wanted to do when I got back home. And now that I'm home, I'm not magically completing my dream list.

I'm bouncing around from project to project, doing a little unpacking, catching up on email, doing a little decluttering, looking at my Autofocus list, click-click-clicking around online, saying hi on Twitter and Facebook, being busy, but not really getting anything done.

I'm frustrated. I hear Veruca Salt's voice in my head, "I want it NOW!"

So it's time to remind myself of the cure…thinking small. With that in mind, I can feel the frustration ease up a bit, and a small opening to do something. Not just do it, but complete it. At least in some small way.

Last month I received a journal for my birthday. It's beautiful, handmade and local. The paper looks and feels wonderful. It's a nice size. It stays open. I was excited to write in it. Now, that might not seem revolutionary, after all, that's what journals are born to do, be written (or drawn) in. However, when I opened it up and felt excited to write in it, it felt different.

In the past, I'd feel a strange combination of excitement and angst. Love for the paper, the book, the place — a beautiful place — to house my thoughts. Then the angst would kick in.

It was always difficult to just start writing. I'd start several pages in, leaving blanks in the front, or wait until I came up with the perfect purpose for the new journal. If I did start writing, it wouldn't last long. No great surprise there, it just wasn't fun! It was too damn stressful.

So, I accumulated a collection of mostly empty journals. Most of them gifts, lovingly chosen and offered gifts, that I stashed away, because looking at them left me feeling a bit sad.

A revelation

I didn't really realize I had been doing this most of my life until recently. I read something somewhere, I wish I could remember where, about the angst someon had when they had a new journal. Until I read that, I hadn't given my journal habit much thought.

When I started reflecting, I realized quickly that this angst was at play. But why? Or perhaps more helpfully, how?

As I think about it now, it seems a lot of it was about "getting it right." I've explored this in the past, when I talked about having fun while I was making lots of mistakes and when I fired my internal editor and hired my dead uncle. So, yes, this is a theme for me. And for lots of my clients too.

So, I started to wonder about how "getting it right" was influencing my feelings about journals. First I thought about the power of the written word. I love books, loved them since before I could read. The written word has been very powerful for me. And, it seems that I had the same belief for my own writing. If I was going to write it down, it should be right, right?

A pretty funny belief to have about, or to question, in your own thoughts. They're your thoughts. No right or wrong. They just are. Your thoughts I mean.

So over the last few years I've been challenging these beliefs that keep me from being anything but my honest self, and was thrilled by the surprise experience of getting a new journal and being excited to write in it. In fact this post, was started in that journal.

Well good morning Mr. Block. Lovely seeing you again. Just in case you aren't that swift, that last sentence was indeed dripping with sarcasm. Well, I can't stand it anymore. I have things to say, and you are blocking me. What's the deal?

I close my eyes and I'm nose to nose with this great, dark wall. This huge insurmountable thing, it obscures everything. It's dark and scary and seems like it could engulf me, if it wasn't so solid and thick.

Well no wonder I'm having trouble getting started! That is one big freaky writer's block. And then I notice my competitive streak is waking up, "Insurmountable, pshaw. We can do this, don't be a wimp, let's pound it to a pulp and breakthrough to the other side!"

Wait, wait, wait. Now how can beating myself up help? Because yes, despite having all these conversations with all these different things, I realize this is all part of me. I don't want to force myself, I don't want to be mean to myself, I don't want to make myself do it.

I close my eyes again and take a step back. A sliver of gorgeous blue sky appears. Another step back, and another, looking all around me. I'm standing in the middle of this beautiful meadow, with a creek running behind me. Lovely trees, wild flowers, mountains in the distance.

That big dark foreboding block? It's an old falling down rock wall. The mortar has turned to dust. A gentle tap and the rocks tumble down. It only seemed like a big, horrible, insurmountable wall because I had my nose pressed up against it. A step back, a little perspective, some gentle questioning, and like magic, I write.

Image by hball via flickr, used under a creative commons license.

Do you ever just wake up sometimes and feel sad? No reason, no easy to figure out reason anyway. Just there you are feeling a little down. Or anxious. Or just out of sorts, a bit stuck. What happens next?

Do you think, "oh no, what is wrong with me, I'm feeling this again?" Or do you remember that this feeling you're having, will come and go. There's no greater meaning in it. I love when my clients begin to understand that the less they fight, the less they push, the kinder and gentler they are with themselves, the quicker they move out of the stuck space.

This is a tough one though. It so often brings up a fear of, if I don't push, if I don't make myself get out of this place, I'll be here forever.

There are a gazillion cliches I could share now: This too shall pass, What you resist persists, you know, you've heard them, and I don't need to go through them all. I'll share something with you, while they may be true it still pisses me off when someone says them when I need to hear them the most.

So, rather than that, how about a little kind curiosity?

Notice what it is that you're fighting against. What if it were a person, a friend, a child? What would you say to that friend? What would you do for them?

Perhaps you'd just listen. Let them pour their heart out on your kind shoulder.

Maybe you'd suggest some physical comfort: a nice cup of tea, a quiet walk, bowling (sometimes you need to throw heavy objects at things and knock them over).

Sometimes a healthy distraction is in order, like a movie or a book.

It doesn't matter so much what you do, but rather how you approach it. It's NOT about never getting stuck again. It's about how much kindness can you offer yourself when you do.

Have you started practicing this? Do you do something else? Share your experiences in the comments!