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.

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.

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.

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?

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 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 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!

When I turned 35, about 7 years ago, I got a tattoo. I’m not actually cool enough to refer to my tattoo as ‘Ink’ but let’s just pretend that I am.

It wasn’t so much that I felt a burning need for a tattoo, it was that I wanted to wear a certain symbol. So, after a lot of consideration of design and of placement, I got the eye of Ra, tattooed on my right upper arm/shoulder area. I had thought about getting it on my upper leg or somewhere hidden, but I changed my mind.

This is a shot of me and my handsome husband goofing around at my 40th birthday party a couple of years ago. You can’t tell from the photo, but I am wearing a fancy dress. 🙂

Now, you can see it when I wear fancy dresses and I get a kick out of seeing who gets thrown off by it. Some people are thrown off because I ‘don’t seem like I’d have a tattoo’ (whatever that means) and others are thrown off when they ask me what it is and I have a big story to tell them.*

The reason I got that particular symbol is because of the story of the Egyptian Lioness Goddess, Sekhmet. She was created as a tool of vengeance, the Eye of Ra, but once she was created, her father (Ra) couldn’t control her – she had a will of her own. It took a team of people to trick her into stopping her plan. I’m not much of one for vengeance (although it is probably better if you don’t cross me – heh heh) but I like many aspects of her story.

For starters, in some stories she is referred to as the ‘Goddess of Necessary Destruction’ – How badass is that? Sometimes, you do just have to get rid of what is and start over completely, and she can totally get behind that.

She is also known as ‘The Force Against Which No Other Force Avails.’ Who wouldn’t want to channel that kind of power? I know that having a tattoo that represents that force isn’t the same as being that force but I’m inspired by it all the same.

Also, I found one of the prayers of Sekhmet to be incredibly powerful ‘I am the phoenix, I am the fiery sun. I am consuming and resuming myself. I will what I will.’

I will what I will! Doesn’t that phrase just fill you with power? Don’t you feel like you are calling on the energies of the universe when you say it? If I find myself feeling down or overwhelmed, I sometimes repeat that like a mantra to get myself energized for whatever lies ahead.

And don’t you just love the idea that you can recreate yourself? That you can just start over? That you will rise from the ashes of what was and become something else? I loved (and still love) the idea of wearing a symbol of all of those powerful statements on my arm – it was like an outer manifestation of my inner spirit.

I don’t like that her story is about destroying part of the human race for mocking Ra but it is the story of an ancient goddess after all – very few of them are serving tea and cookies. And it isn’t the details of what she was up to that impresses me, it’s her self-determining power. And, I like how, in her story, the Egyptians were honouring the destructive power of the sun, and the desert, even as they were recognizing how important they both are.

There is a also a sense of balance there that appeals to me, a recognition of the forces of nature, that we often think that we have control over.

So, all of that adds up to my pourquoi story – Why Christine has a tattoo of the Eye of Ra on her arm.

And just for fun, here’s a link to a video of me telling the story of Sekhmet. I just propped up my phone to take the video when a friend of mine couldn’t make it to the event, so don’t expect a fancy movie. 🙂

PS – Lately, I have actually been considering more ‘ink.’. When I go to TKD, I have to take off my wedding ring so I don’t hurt my hand (or anyone else) when I am punching. I hate not having my ring on, I miss that symbolic connection when I’m not wearing it. So, I’ve been trying to think of something I could get tattooed on my finger that would have the same symbolic importance for me. I haven’t figured it out yet, but when I do, I may be booking another appointment. 🙂

*Note: Storytellers make everything into a story with important meaning. Engage at your own risk!