Blogging A-Z Challenge

O is for Ordinary

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I really, really, like an ordinary day. The sort of day where you get the kids to school, do your work, have supper, hang out with your family or read or do household stuff, and then just head on to bed. You don’t want every day to be exactly the same, of course, and it’s not good to get in a rut, but it is pretty damn good to have a routine, and it is perfectly okay to enjoy it.

That sort of life seems to be dismissed by a lot of people. There is a sense that it is dull, or that it lacks challenge, and that might be the case if you did the exact same thing every day and shied away from anything that deviated from it. However, I think the real danger is in being unconscious about what you truly want and what makes you happy, so if you are acting that way, then there is just as much of a problem in ‘going big’ or always seeking variety for variety’s sake.

I see this a lot in the coaching world. There is so much emphasis on going BIG, on being extraordinary, on things being epic, that it makes me ornery (bonus O word). What about if you don’t want or need an epic life? What if you just want to have something ordinary that makes you happy?

I get that some people feel drawn to this huge projects and huge ideas and they love the excitement and the adrenaline rush involved with that lifestyle. However, I don’t think everyone feels called to live big and that is just fine. I want to be sure people live to the edges of the life that they want, that they take up all the space that they need to thrive, but I don’t give a damn if they go big or go home, or if they try to be a superhero.
I get where these coaches are coming from, and I respect the energy they bring to their work, but it makes me feel a little alienated sometimes. I am not encouraging people to clip their own wings or hide their skills, but I think that all the focus on the epic makes people feel that they couldn’t possibly measure up. Or it makes them feel that the things they want are not important enough. And I don’t want ANYONE to have that feeling.
I think that there is a lot of joy and passion to be found in the ordinary, in living the life you want to live, and living it very well. I think the real joy is in being tuned in to what is going around you.
That’s part of the reason that I don’t spend a lot of time rushing around to expose my kids to all sorts of new things all the time. It’s a conscious decision on my part to curate the things we spend energy on. It’s hard enough to make choices about what to do these days – there are so many options all the time and our brains were NOT designed for this variety – without adding additional complication.

Now, I’m not suggesting that people operate from a sense of fear, or that they try to confine themselves to minutae, that is not a life well lived at all. What I’m saying is that they can find a way to celebrate the things that happen for them all the time, that they can see the beauty in the every day instead of always seeking to go bigger all the time. Constant expansion does not guarantee happiness and it seems to keep the focus out there, in the space between here and there, instead of in having you look around and just be where you are.

I can imagine that a lot of people are turned off by the GO BIG GO BIG people, so I’m here to tell you that it’s okay to be soft, it’s okay to have a tight focus, it’s okay to choose your experiences, it’s okay to be ordinary. I love ordinary things.

N is for No

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I’ll bet I’m not the only one to choose No as my word for today.

It’s funny, you know, it’s not that I have a hard time saying no to things I don’t want to do. That is rarely a challenge for me.

I have a hard time saying no to things I want to do but I don’t have time for, or things that are important to do but I may not be the right person to do them.

NO

I thought I’d explore some ways to say no to things. The one at the top is a weird-ish way of refusing things that some people around here might say. I am pretty sure the sentence structure is Irish. It would happen like ‘I’m going to borrow your book here. ‘ ‘That’s what you’re not!’

I’ve been thinking lately, though, about different ways to say no to things.

When my kids were toddlers, I read something about how you shouldn’t spend all your time saying No to them, you should try to tell them what to do instead of what not to do.

I know this is easier said than done but it makes a lot of sense. Just think about when you are learning something new, what feels easier to hear ‘No, that’s wrong.’ or ‘Try this instead.’

I think we easily get our backs up about No * and I think that it is just easier for us to integrate a slight change in direction into our systems. No throws up a wall and then we operate in reaction to that.

So, if you had been around when my kids were toddlers, you would have heard a lot of ‘careful steps!’ ‘book on the table please’ and other concrete suggestions about what TO do instead of what NOT to do. That doesn’t mean I didn’t shout NOOOOOO at them a bunch of times, too, of course I did, I’m not a robot Mom, but I found the suggestions for different activities to be much more effective.

I still find it pretty effective actually, telling my kids what I want instead of what I don’t want. But, you’ll still hear me bellowing ‘Nu-uh, back up the bus. That is NOT happening.’ from time to time. Why do I phrase it like that? Because I find me funny. It’s a side effect of being a parent, I think. A ridiculous sense of humour.

In fact, a ridiculous sense of humour might be our only defense mechanism against the weirdness that is parenting.

Anyway, back to the No.

I think the reason we all have so much trouble with the word no is that it a boundary issue and we all have trouble with boundaries. Some of us set them too firmly, some of us set them too loosely and some of us don’t feel that we have a right set any at all.

I’m not sure what the answer to that is. I don’t know where someone else’s boundaries should be but I think they should make people comfortable. That beig siad, I think people with too tight boundaries are comfortable they just don’t ge tto experience everything that they could. So perhaps that it should be tight enough to prtect you without being so tight that they restrict you. Only you know where your Nos should land.

And I want you to know that it is okay to say No. That’s a lesson I want to pass on to my kids. You don’t ahve to make yourself miserable so someone else is happy. you don’t have to deny yourself the life that you want to live so someone else gets a bit more space.

*I can’t help but think that that is related to how many times we heard it as children. We all struggle to separate criticism of our behaviour with criticism of ourselves, but kids really internalize that stuff.

M is for Mystery

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I love reading mystery books but I rarely consciously try to figure out whodunnit. Obviously my brain starts to try to put it together because my brain works just like everyone else’s – trying to find meaning wherever it can. But it’s not like I stop and puzzle it out, I like to travel along with the characters in the book and just enjoy the journey.

A friend of mine hates when she figures out the murderer in the first part of a book, it usually puts her off so much that she can’t actually finish the book. That never happens to me. There have been lots of books that I haven’t finished* but I don’t think I have ever stopped reading because a book has been too obvious. Perhaps I naturally gravitate toward ones that don’t have automatic guessing built in.

I have tried to write mystery novels before, and I love the idea of writing one, but I am not sure that my outlining and plotting skills are up to it yet. I kind of like writing the kind of stuff that has you in on the plot from the very beginning.

Hmm, maybe I need to write something from the criminal’s point of view then. Never really thought about that before even though I have written many a monologue from the bad dame’s point of view.** Anyway, I don’t know if I have the pacing ready to set up the slow reveal that works so well for the books that I enjoy.

Although, I do murder mystery game parties with a group of improv friends (and I could write one for you to do with your friends – I have reasonable rates. ;))and I have no trouble creating a plot and set of clues for that stuff. I wonder if I could translate that into writing for a mystery story or novels? It seems like the skills would be transferable, doesn’t it? A three act structure, back stories, clues that must be revealed. This is painfully obvious now that I am writing about it.

This was the most mysterious photo I could find. The real mystery is why my scarf matched the couch at the museum so closely. photocredit: Deborah O'Rielly, Supreme Ruler

This was the most mysterious photo I could find. Is like a nature challenge but inside: Can you spot the lady in this photo?                  The real mystery is why my scarf matched the couch at the museum so closely. 
photocredit: Deborah O’Rielly, Supreme Ruler

You know, speaking about mysteries, I love the ‘mysterious’ process that happens to me when I write out issues that are bothering me. When I can’t figure something out, I often just need to write about it because somehow I tap into my subconscious and drag out stuff I already know but I hadn’t applied in that way before. Yet, if you had asked me about it in the first place, I wouldn’t have been able to give you that answer.

This entry is a case in point. I have been working for ages on my challenges with outlining, I only just realized as I wrote that I already know how to outline – I just need to figure out how to transfer the skill.

My writing work and my mystery game work are two different areas of my work life so I hadn’t thought of the underlying skill as being the same. And, since the writing seems to come from a different part of my brain, I hadn’t thought of accessing the organizing skills I use for mystery game structure for the writing process.

This, of course, is ridiculous, because what other damn part would you use for creating a structure? The content of the structure may be creative, the structure itself is clearly an organizational issue. I feel a bit like this fact is smacking me in the head right now. No wonder I was having trouble – I was looking in the wrong toolbox!

Sidenote: My struggle with outlining is obviously also tied into the fact that I hate to prepare to do work. Even though I now know that preparing to work counts as work, it is taking me a long time to get that fact into my subconscious.

*Makes me think of that review by Dorothy Parker – ‘This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly, it should be thrown with great force.’

**Note: Never trust my self-righteous monologue deliverers, they have a skewed worldview.

K is for Kind

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One of the biggest challenges I have as a re-story-fier* (life coach, to the uninitiated) is to guide people to be kinder to themselves.

And isn’t that the hardest lesson to learn?

It’s often difficult to be kind to other people – especially when they are getting on our nerves, but it is mind-bendingly difficult to be kind to ourselves. It’s like we’re afraid that if we are gentle with ourselves, we’ll somehow slip off into madness and get totally out of control.

I had the prose poem Desiderata hanging in my room for years. I think I should get another copy.

Isn’t this quote lovely? I had a poster of the prose poem Desiderata hanging in my room for years.
I think I should get another copy.

We aren’t taught how to be kind to ourselves, either. Instead, we get positive reinforcement – in school, at home, in commercials,and in society in general** for being tough on ourselves, for being unforgiving. We are always being told how to be hard on ourselves, and the messages we get mix up discipline (training ourselves to work in effective ways) with punishment (being hard on ourselves for falling short of our plans).

I know I’m hard on myself that way sometimes, wondering if I am just not trying hard enough, wondering what I’ve done wrong, wondering why I just can’t get it together. The good thing is, though, that because I have spent so much time reminding other people to be kind to themselves, I usually catch myself pretty early.

Because I know how hard this is for all of my clients, I have been working hard to make sure that my kids learn to be kind to themselves. It’s tough to be a kid, there’s a lot of pressure to excel at everything and not so much consideration for kids who want to try things just for fun. It would be easy to get caught up in the swirl and let them pile pressure on themselves for not being enough. I try to stay conscious of it, though, and I remind them of times they can make choices to support themselves, I tell them they are enough just as they are, and I try to give them tools to help them see themselves in a softer light.

Are you kind to yourself? How did you pick up kindness habits?

If you aren’t kind to yourself, do you think you could try it out for a while?

 

*I call myself a re-story-fier because I like to help people change the stories that they automatically tell themselves about their experiences, so they can cast themselves in a more positive – KINDER- light.

**Don’t even get me started on the fitness inspiration posters that are supposed to be cheering you on, but seem to be really telling you that anything other than Olympic effort is a waste of time.

J is for Journal

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I have varying success with keeping a journal. The main issue is that I am terrible at keeping a bedtime routine so I end up waaaaaaaaay too tired to actually write an end-of-day recount of what happened. I’m pretty decent at morning pages that I use sort of in a journal way – at least in a working ideas and feelings out kind of way.

Today, I tried a whole new kind of journalling – art journalling. And I REALLY like it. It wouldn’t be a

My first page with colour. Recognize that quote from yesterday's post?

My first page with colour. Recognize that quote from yesterday’s post?

daily record kind of journal, obviously, but I like the idea of it for working out specific problems or for figuring out a visual response to something important or to inspire myself. 🙂

I signed up for the class on a whim weeks ago and I was very nervous about it – my automatic response to anything new is to be extremely nervous, I’ve been at that response so long that I just accept it as a part of the process and move through it. I am even starting to know the difference between nervous because something’s wrong for me and nervous because it’s new. I hope that that gets even more refined with time and I will gradually frop the nervousness at all. I’m not counting on it, but I live in hope!

Anyway, my nervousness dropped considerably when I discovered my friend Deb was doing the class too. Deb is one of those people who makes me more – more myself, more able to step up, more into whatever it is I am doing. She’s a good influence that way. (Note to Deb: You’re a bad influence in several other ways, my partner-in-crime, so don’t worry – you aren’t losing your touch!)

Anyway, when we went into the class, I was extra glad to have Deb there because I realized that my out-going but actually an introvert self would have had to make sure that everyone else in the class was doing okay – so I would have flicked my switch to ‘ON’ and the energy to do that would have sapped all my energy to actually get into the activity.
Anyway, when we went into the class, I was extra glad to have Deb there because I realized that my out-going but actually an introvert self would have had to make sure that everyone else in the class was doing okay – so I would have flicked my switch to ‘ON’ and the energy to do that would have sapped all my energy to actually get into the activity.

Anyway, I was nervous as hell because even though the teacher explained things clearly, there were no rules, no structure for how to get into the actual project. There was just the blank journal and then a bunch of art materials. I felt kind of excited, even though I was terrified.

Now I am not so much one of those people who has to get things RIGHT, but damn it, I hate to get things WRONG. I didn’t want to do this wrong, I didn’t want to try to go too deep or worse, I didn’t want to try and stay too shallow. It felt like a bit of a minefield.*

I like a good spiral, apparently.

I like a good spiral, apparently.

I figured out something to work on though, something I am conflicted on for my work, and I gradually got started, I picked something familiar for my cover – a kind of variation on a Zentangle. And then I decided to do one side of the journal in black and white – because I keep seeking certainty about uncertain things and what’s more certain than having things in black and white?

The other side was going to be in colour as I worked through different ways to solve the problem. The beauty of the colour side was that I realized that it doesn’t matter how I try to solve the problem, any answer will move me forward. That was a comfort.

I was really pleased with how the black and white side came out but I ran out of time to do the side with colour. I took the project with me, obviously, but I was afraid I wouldn’t get to it again.

I did though. I came home and decided that I was going to do a little more work on it, I drew for three hours. That’s more than a little more work but I am damn happy with it.

I found this after I wrote the post!

I found this after I wrote the post!

I saw a fun image from Fit Bottomed Girls a while back about how the main thing that holds you back from new things is not what you think you are, but what you think you’re not.

I’ve spent a lot of my life thinking of myself as ‘not a very visual person’ and as someone who can’t really draw. It turns out though that I just wasn’t visual in the ways I was expecting to be and I mostly haven’t thought of the ways that I could be drawing,

I feel pretty excited about the possibilities that my little project today have uncovered. I am still not going to be a visual artist – I don’t have the training nor the inclination, but I may be a draw-er. 😉

 

 

*Yes, I know how silly it is to overthink these things. I can only stop overthinking once I realize I am doing it!