My 100-Day Project Week 7
1. I had the coolest experience today in my coaching seminar. We talked about natural creativity. I always thought I was not a creative person, but instead a financial person, a cerebral person. I have been stuck in my book project because I couldn’t see how to structure the book. Because I couldn’t see it, I let it stop me and have been in limbo with it for about a month. During the session today, I had an insight into the structure. It seemed clear, it came up naturally, and it was because I stopped fighting it. I kept telling myself I was stuck and I believed it. When Iet go of that thought, ideas began to flow.
2. Another realization I had from this weekend’s seminar was about the quiet mind or creating space. I thought the ‘quiet mind’ was something I had to find or create. I kept looking for it and couldn’t find it. What I heard was: “What that silent mind is, is letting go.” It clicked. I realized that the silent or quiet mind is innate, it’s within, it’s all around us. We just have to tap into it. It lives below the surface of thought and feeling. If we let all the noise be, we can drop into that silent place. I thought I hadn’t experienced it but during the coaching session, I realized I have and do. When I go for a walk, I let the thoughts fade away. I leave what I was thinking inside the house and soak in the nature around me. What a relief.
3. I’m thinking about my book project and ordered a book about writing for animals. It’s part of a course that begins in April. I read the first part of the book which sets the stage for writing about animals as advocates. It impresses upon me the responsibility writers have to animals and to our own nature as part of the animal world, the natural world. I don’t want to write a book about an animal character, but a book about an animal that is every bit as full and expressive as a human being. The animal stands in direct equality with the human. I want to write with humility, respect, and love and convey to readers the depth and richness of an animal’s life and how we can learn from and connect with that life.
4. I’m struggling with sleep again and its mostly because I continue to worry about the cost of my Medicare premiums. I still don’t have a solution and I have less than 2 weeks left to finalize my enrollment. I know it will just take time to work it through, but I need to finalize, move ahead. That’s it, but I keep running it over in my mind, including in the middle of the night. I can’t seem to let this bit of snow fall to the bottom of the globe. I keep shaking it up and can’t find my way out of it. Maybe after a couple more phone calls today to try and sort it out, I’ll find my way to a clear mind and a better night’s sleep.
5. We had the inside of our house painted this week and I love it. The colors are rich and have changed the mood in those rooms. I am sitting at my desk in the master (desk soon to be moved downstairs to the guest bedroom) and I am loving how the changing light changes the color of the room. The color is sort of a dusty blue with a green tinge. The mid-day light coming from the floor to ceiling windows from the west reveals this lovely green blue, like swimming in a shallow Caribbean sea. I can almost hear the waves, though it’s really just the wind outside. I love this room again.
6. I have a beautiful pink African violet that blooms profusely. I have rooted two other plants from this first one and one of these is putting out its first blooms. The original plant keeps growing and expanding. Its so strong. You can feel its life force reaching out. It looks happy, if a plant could be happy. This plant fills my heart every time I see it and I am so thankful for it. Anyone who thinks they can’t grow plants, I encourage you to try again. Get a small one, learn to care for it, and it will reward you with daily beauty and life force.
7. Medicare done. Something that was stealing my mind away every day has now been put away. The house is coming back into order. Cleaning, organizing, culling, simplifying living spaces to allow more spaciousness. Standing back and looking at a room that has been deeply cleaned, freshly painted, furniture moved to more auspicious places, stuff cleared out or put away, I feel an openness. We get caught up in our clutter and then not realize we’re living day to day in a messy place. It invades our minds, our thoughts, without our knowing it then we operate in a cloudy world. Cleaning up our living space helps clean up our minds. Shake out the unnecessary, let go of what pulls you down, throw out the unhelpful, see things in a new light.
