The 100-Day Project
Week Three
1. Such a simple thing to take a shower. I am so grateful for having hot water, a secure and private space, good smelling products, and soft, clean towels. Much of the world does not. I felt so calm and peaceful after my morning shower, it got me thinking about cleaning my mind. I have adopted a practice of looking at my thoughts on a regular basis, though I haven’t done it every day. Cleaning my mind is every bit as important as cleaning my body. Taking stock of what I am thinking and if the thoughts are ‘clean’ or ‘murky.’ I want to flush out the ones I don’t want or need and polish up the ones I do. Putting them down on paper helps me see them objectively so I can choose what to keep and what to send down the drain.
2. Procrastination: I woke up with this desire to procrastinate today. Partly because I didn’t sleep well the night before. Having encountered poison ivy while raking leaves from the yard, the rash was relentless overnight. For the last two weeks, I have worked on my two 100-Day projects and today I haven’t wanted to do them. I even started washing the master bathroom floor to get away from my commitment. Having washed the floor and returned to the kitchen table for a drink of water, I sat down at my computer and it came to me. Procrastination was my topic of the day. By taking a break and doing something ‘mindless’, it took my mind away from the projects and opened it up to something new.
3. Session three of our workshop was this morning and I loved it. A few more and different people came this week, and the discussion was rich. Larry spoke about how Zoom has allowed us to connect with people from all over in ways we can’t at the local coffee shop. We can connect with people in different ways in both places, but I loved his positive view of Zoom, even after a year of living in its embrace. If we imagined going through this pandemic without Zoom, what would we imagine? I would think much more isolation, fear, worry, but who knows. We can speculate but we can’t know. The just fact that I have access to Zoom has given me hope because I can use it to reach out to the world.
4. Sleep is such a mystery to me. When I was in college, I could sleep. But ever since, not so much. Over the years, I got used to rising early to go to work but still stayed up on the late side, squeezing my sleep. Then I learned to sleep earlier and rise earlier. Now that I am retired, I wake up at all hours, sometimes returning to sleep, but only for a short time. Long uninterrupted sleep does not exist. I have adjusted to this too. I get up and read, a real book, no electronics, in the middle of the night. I enjoy it and it mostly works to send me back for another hour or two. Those times it doesn’t, I toss and turn then finally get up and go on with my day. I am learning to clear my mind when I am trying to sleep. Sometimes that works and I guess I’ll get better at it.
5. I am working on an Impossible Project with Michael Neill’s program, Creating the Impossible. The project is a book about my cat, Okra, who was unique and special (I know, everyone says this about their cat.) It will be the best-selling cat book ever (that’s the impossible part.) Anyway, he challenged us today to think about small, medium, large or small, big, bigger, or easy, medium, ridiculous in terms of asking for help on our projects. I did ask a friend to help me design the book — easy. I asked the group to help with investigating publishing methods — medium, maybe or maybe not. For the ridiculous, I am thinking to partner/ask the ASPCA or Humane Society to help and donating a portion of the proceeds to the organization. Feels scary and my brain tells me so many reasons not to do it but I am going to figure it out — the best way to approach them.
6. Thanks to the wonderful Allegra Stein for this one about thermal vents. She crafted this powerful image: Thermal Vent thinking is the source of our deepest creativity and wisdom. When we look beyond the busy-ness of our minds, we can access our internal wisdom, our true nature and find everything we need. We don’t need to fix ourselves, we don’t have to improve ourselves, we just have to recognize ourselves. Our brains tell us we have to think about things, but the brain just wants to keep us safe, not take risks, over and over, nothing more, nothing less. We get caught up in this churning, like at the surface of the sea. But if we allow our thoughts to pass over us like waves and dig deep into the calm knowing center, insight will come, we’ll find the sight within.
7. Cats. Let’s talk about cats. We lost two last year: the revered Okra and sweet Abbie. Both from cancer, similar types. A few months apart from each other. They were years apart in age, with Okra being the senior. Now we have one young one, Bunny. And a visiting cat, Lucy. Lucy has been here before and I think she is starting to remember being here after a couple of days. But Bunny doesn’t seem to remember Lucy and vice versa. They are hissing and not wanting to be too close. We have them in separate rooms for now. One comes, the other goes. We can never know what goes on in the minds of animals. We rarely know what goes on in our own minds. How different would our lives be if we did?
