Productivity and Busyness don't make me a Good Person

For most of my adult life I worked twelve to sixteen hours a day.  Some of it was my job. The rest was upkeep on my home and yard, child care, and personal care.  Even when I was supposed to be having fun I was mentally worrying about whether I was doing it right and trying harder and harder to do it right.

I never stopped to think about why I was doing it.  I just grew up believing that constant effort and productivity were what "good" people do.  You know, "Idle hands are the devil's work" and stuff like that.  Just sitting around, or wandering around or whatever were the marks of a person with no ethics.

Well, I have absolutely nothing to show for all that effort.  I think almost all if that time and energy spent were a waste except for the effort I put in to being a parent.  The rest - blaah.

Now I'm only willing to put a certain amount of effort into keeping myself as healthy and socially acceptable as I can without overdoing it.  I like a clean and beautiful environment so I'm willing to put some effort into that.  But I've made it my business to find ways to simplify all of that into a meditative practice that wastes no movement or time. 

I've watched a bunch of Rachel Ray's "30 Minute Meals" and she wastes not a moment or a movement.  I've studied how to do home care in the same fashion.  I'm still working on getting personal care into a tiny amount of time, but I'll figure it out.  I'm not very attached to how I look so it's easier for me than it might be if I was trying to look fabulous - socially acceptable is all my goal consists of.  I don't want people to be disturbed by my appearance!

By eliminating as much as I can of the unnecessary, I've got time to meditate, pray, read, walk, exercise and write.  I also spend time with friends and family - a lot of time, really.  I also listen to music.  When I can I teach classes on journaling, recovery, basic finance, and "Zen" housekeeping because I believe it's my responsibility to pass on what I've learned.

Last year I got sick and in order to recover I trimmed back on movies and a lot of other entertainment stuff.  I haven't seen a movie in over a year, I haven't been to a concert in over a year.  I don't miss the movies but I do miss the concerts.  I still visit art galleries and museums and go for walks in gardens.  I've lost interest in traveling also. That's about it for my life.  And it's a beautiful, peaceful life that delights me.

The Bible and Misunderstandings

It worries me a lot when religious people quote the Bible as instructions for judging people.  Over the years I've heard verses quoted (usually from the Old Testament) that justified slavery and the inherent "less-than" status of African Americans (the Curse of Ham), justification of putting people to death who had sex in other ways than the mainstream, and other very scary things.

I was taught at the church I attended that the Old Testament was just that - old- and that the New Testament was what we should pay attention to.  That would pretty much get rid of the instructions not to eat pork, put people to death who had sex outside marriage, put people to death who were attracted to their own sex, and to treat people of different races as less than.  I don't want to believe in a God that doesn't love His/Her own creations. 

I think after observing all these years of my life, that we humans like to judge others so that we feel better about ourselves.  (I include myself in this, by the way.  I'm always working to lose this negative trait, though.) We know we're not at all perfect but we don't like to face that.  So we cut others down.  What a crappy way to live that is. 

When Is Being Sensitive Good and When Is It Not?

I was and still am in some ways what I would call a sensitive person.  My sense of hearing, smell, touch and taste were all very sharp and I am grateful that it seems to me that my senses still are pretty sharp.  But I was also sensitive emotionally - if I was criticized I pretty much fell into despair.  This is one I still struggle with.

Over time I noticed that people in general are all sensitive in some ways and that this trait is not always helpful to our well-being.  I was troubled by all kinds of sounds because they were grating or too loud.  Certain kinds of odors felt hurtful and not just bad ones - those that I thought were too strong.  I especially had difficulty with hot weather.  I had trouble tolerating certain fabrics on my skin.  I spent a lot of time trying to arrange my environment so I would be physically comfortable.

I think I was lucky in that when I was in my late 30s I read a book that suggested using so much of my time and effort trying to arrange my environment to suit my sensitivities was pretty much a waste of time.  It's not actually possible to get everything around me to suit me.  Also, I think I was a terribly annoying person because I was always griping about something not being right.  I came in contact with other people who mirrored me and I saw how miserable they were if they couldn't get things right and how miserable they were making the people around them.

The book said that it was actually much more sensible to learn to accept rather than bitch, moan and try to control.  Of course, there are things that I need to do for my safety - sitting next to loud speakers wasn't good for my hearing, standing next to a fire wasn't just too hot - I also might get burned, and so on. 

But the book said I could just relax into whatever was irritating me and really increase my awareness of it and appreciate it.  One day I was standing on the corner downtown and a guy was using a jack hammer a few feet from me.  I immediately stiffened and mentally griped.  Then I remembered what I had learned and did my best to relax into the sound.  For the first time I noticed that sound was a vibration that I could feel in my bones and that it was actually a delightful experience in many ways.  I was convinced that acceptance was the answer.

Emotional sensitivity was another thing.  I have worked on this one for years.  I have learned that other people's opinions are just that - opinions rather than fact.  My husband used to say, "If I call you a whore, does that make you one?"  A little crude perhaps but definitely clear.  The answer is no.  It does not make me one.  I am an imperfect being with innate goodness who makes mistakes and cleans them up as I can.  No need to try to protect myself from other people's opinions.  I've noticed that my own opinions of others are usually (almost always) a reflection of my opinions of myself. 

Emotional sensitivity also helps me be sensitive to other people's emotions. That's a good thing.  However, taken too far, I become a slave to wanting to never hurt anyone's feelings - which is impossible no matter how hard I try.

I think all these sensitivities were given to us as tools to care for ourselves.  Our senses protect us from danger but we're not using them sensibly when we gripe about stuff in our environment that's not actually hurting us.  Our desire to be accepted and loved by others is healthy.  We are social creatures and need each other.  But being devastated by someone else's opinion is going way too far.  It's not in anyway helpful.

So, like a lot of other things, sensitivity is good when it's used in a way that is helpful

Being responsible for myself

One of the first things I realized when my mentors started to teach me how to recover was that they were telling me in a kindly way that it was high time for me to grow up and learn to be responsible for myself.  Part of me wanted to argue that I was already grown up, but I really knew it wasn't true.

So, although I've been in recovery for over 30 years, I'm still learning to be a responsible adult.  I've made a lot of progress, of course.  On the other hand I worry about stuff like violence against women.  It's never been lost on me that most men are a whole lot stronger than most women and that most of us females are easy targets for bad guys or even just drunk guys, or guys with uncontrolled tempers, etc. 

I didn't worry about myself much when I was younger because I had such a terrible temper that if any guy would have messed with me, I felt confident that I could effectively fight back.  I did deplore the very real fact that quite a lot of women did experience physical violence from men. I thought the solution was to get men to quit it.  The trouble with that solution was that it wasn't working.

My teachers in recovery have taught me over and over that solutions will usually come from me no matter what the problem.  Occasionally I would think about taking a class in self-defense, but that idea was very low on my priority list.

I've noticed in the past few years that I've definitely lost confidence in being able to defend myself and as a result I've stopped shopping after dark, getting gas after dark, and am even a little nervous when I pull my car into the garage at night. 

Recently there was a rapist breaking into houses in my neighborhood, and I got alarms and braces for all my outside doors.  But  taking that action brought my attention to how much I was restricting my life because I felt so vulnerable. 

So...thanks to Google, I found a class on self-defense for women and went to it yesterday.  It was amazing.  I got exactly what I had hoped for - ways to avoid trouble, ways to fend off trouble and ways to fight if those other strategies don't work.  It's another way of being a grown up and taking responsibility for myself.

So now I want to start a trend so that almost all women have had self-defense training.  I'm thinking it might make a big change in the world if the "bad guys" knew that almost any woman they tried to target would probably make them regret it.

20 Things I Wish Someone Had Taught Me When I Was a Kid

There's so much to know to have a happy life.  And at my advanced age I've noticed that a whole lot of us never got the instructions.  In fact we were taught a bunch of stuff that isn't true.

I was taught:  Do what you're told, get good grades, have the right kind of friends (whatever that is - probably those that do what they're told, get good grades and whose families are of the same social class as yours).

I guess those instructions were not terrible.  However, they were incomplete. Scarily incomplete.  Plus in a lot of ways wrong.

I heard somewhere that someone asked Siri (the voice on iphones) to say something wise.  She said, "Eat your vegetables, get plenty of sleep and be kind to everyone."  Those three instructions seem a lot more useful to me.

So here are 20 things I wish I had been taught before I had to act like an adult:

*Keep track of your income and outgo.  If you were keeping books for someone else, you would do it so aren't you as important?  Spend and earn according to your values, your well-being and your enjoyment. 

*Have an emergency fund so that your basic needs would be covered if you didn't have an income for six months.

*Plan for retirement.  Put a little bit aside consistently.

*Don't have any debt.  Having no debt means you have enormous freedom.  No debt means no debt.  No car payment.  No house payment.  No debt.

*Keep in mind that handling money boils down to two things:  Earn enough to cover your needs and some of your wants and spend less if times are tight.  Pay for necessities before you spend for stuff you want.

*Pay close attention to your physical well-being.  It will pay off now and later.  For starters - eat a bunch of brightly colored vegetables and fruit plus high quality low-fat protein.  Get plenty of sleep.

*Keep your teeth and your body clean.  This pays off now and later too. 

*Keep your back straight and your muscles strong.  Get your heart rate up so your heart muscle will be strong.

*Learn how to dress and present yourself in a way that you enjoy and that draws people to you rather than pushing them away.

*Develop the skill of mindfulness.  Study it.  Practice it.  Be aware of your thoughts, emotions, and behavior.  Be aware without judging yourself.  Just notice.  Notice everything around you.

*Be aware of what you really want for your life.  Be aware of whether your actions every day are steps toward the life you want.

*How other people treat you has a lot to do with your quality of life.  You can teach them how to treat you by deciding how you want them to treat you and encouraging them to do that.  Learn how to do this.  Get really good at it.  If they don't treat you well, and you've tried to teach them, go away from them and stay away.

*Treat other people with kindness; even when they're obnoxious.  Don't be afraid to do this.  Learn how and then practice, practice, practice.  The more kindnesses you do for other people, the happier you'll be. 

*Don't criticize - yourself or anybody else.  It doesn't work.

*Be aware of your environment at home and at work.  Make both nurturing and enjoyable.

*Keep everything simple - personal care, care of your environment, your activities.  Learn how to do this and practice, practice, practice.

*When someone is paying you to do something, be sure you understand what they want you to do, and then do it to the best of your ability.  Do a little bit more than they actually ask you to do.  (If what they ask you to do is illegal or unethical, get another job.)

*Romance and sexuality are incredibly complicated.  Mother Nature is driving us to make babies.  It doesn't actually have much to do with love and long term partnership.  Learn all you can.  Expect good treatment; give good treatment.  Being "in love" and/or being sexually attracted doesn't mean you've found "the one."  You are just being led by Mother Nature to make babies.

*Decide if you want to be a parent.  Not everyone has to be a parent.  If the answer is no, there are plenty of ways to keep it from happening.  If you do want to, be sure you learn how to be a parent.  We're not born knowing how.  How our parents parented us is not always the best model.

*Find what feeds you spiritually.  This is the most important thing you can do to have a happy life.  Learn all you can.  Practice, practice, practice.

Housecleaning without Stress Part 1 - changing your mindset

For those of us who have the responsibility for home care, the weight of it sometimes can feel crushing. Carrying around a crushing weight definitely causes a person's quality of life to stay at a low point on the scale. 

Either I worked like a dog for hours on end in order to get my house clean or I dodged the whole chore until I could hardly stand to live in my house!

I've often wondered why we still haven't solved this huge problem that wearies women/housekeepers all over the world.  Of course, I've also wondered if all of us just accept the weight because we thinks it's what we're born to handle and that there's no escape.

I think I was definitely one of those that just thought I was doomed to have a lower quality of life than other people because home care was my destiny.  Then in recovery I learned that problems have solutions and that maybe it wasn't my destiny to struggle.  I found out that the world is full of information about how to solve problems and the main barrier to solving them is not asking for help!

It turns out that professional housekeepers have figured out how to do a fabulous job in a tiny amount of time.  They do it in a meditative way, without wasting steps and movement, so that when they're finished they're not tired and are not stressed.

So...I took what those professionals have figured out and applied it to my own life.  Guess what?!  I no longer worry about home care.  Specific instructions in Parts 2 and 3.

How Unsolved Problems Can Ruin Our Lives

It took me a long time but after years and years I finally noticed that I had a long list of problems that I had never solved.  I complained a lot about them - to myself as well as other people. 

I often woke up in the morning worrying about them. 

Thoughts about them plagued me during the day. 

Guilt and regret kept my self-esteem from growing and kept me from going after my dreams. 

In fact, they were ruining my life, but I wasn't doing a thing to solve them.

My appearance and my health concerned me but I didn't know what to do about them.

My ability to carry out my responsibilities worried me.  I worried that I was just incompetent.

My problems with people disturbed me mightily.

Thanks to recovery, I actually followed suggestions and made a list of those life problems and asked for help in figuring them out and taking action to solve them.  I got the help I needed and I'm still working on some of them, having arrived at a place where patient improvement is good enough to keep me comfortable!

Prayer for Cleaning Up after Cooking and Eating

Dear God,

I was stuck with the dishes from the time I was seven and I was an incompetent dishwasher.  I never really finished and there were piles of dirty dishes in the sink, on the stove, on the cabinets and on the table.  I washed some of them every day but I never really learned how to do it and I never caught up.

Once I was an adult on my own, I continued to do clean up the way I had as a child, but eventually figured out stuff like soaking cooked on or dried on food, washing glasses first, etc.  But I always regarded it as a huge pain to have to do it.  Having a dishwasher only helped a little and my kitchen was always a mess.

So, now I try to clean up once a day, but I'm not very good at it.  I want to change my way of thinking and being.  I want to be present and grateful for the whole process of feeding myself, including the clean up. 

So, dear God, may I be at peace, present and grateful as I clean dishes and kitchen space whenever it's time.

Thank you,

Amen

Prayer for Preparing Food

Dear God,

I'm awfully lazy.  I spent most of my life cooking for other people.  It was an obligation.  It never even occurred to me to ask myself if I liked to cook or not.  I just did it.  Now that I only have myself to cook for I really don't know what to do with myself.  I actually would rather eat out for every meal.

The only problem with eating out at every meal is that I don't get nearly enough nutrition, I gain weight rapidly and it empties my pocketbook.  So I believe it's best that I prepare food for myself.

So, dear God, I ask you to help me willing to honor you and your creation - my body- by mindfully and gratefully and peacefully and cheerfully prepare the food for myself - to nurture and please myself for no other reason other than it's surely what you want.

May I be joyful in caring for your creation now and always.

Amen

Prayer for Grocery Shopping

Dear God,

I don't like going to the grocery store.  It seems like such a hard chore.  May I remember that gathering food is honoring your creation.  May I remember too that the huge and glorious mounds of delightful food in grocery stores is unusual in this world of lack.

I want to change my thinking so that I love the process of gathering nutrition for my body and pleasure for my senses.

I want to notice the other humans in the grocery store and remember to bless them.  Some of them may be like me and feel overburdened by the effort it takes to gather food for themselves and their family, so please help them remember their purpose as you help me remember mine.

May I not feel deprived as I pass up the refined and processed foods that are poison to my body even as they provide a false sense of pleasure.  May I look forward to providing my body with the beauty of eating delicious truly nutritious foods.

Thank you for your bounty, your power, and your guidance.

Amen

Prayer for the Grocery List

Dear God,

Please guide my thoughts and desires as I list the items to buy at the grocery store.  I hope you will help me remember to select the foods that will honor your creation and build my health and those I share food with.

I believe, dear God, that you want me to enjoy feeding myself and others so I am counting on you to help me choose nutrition that pleases as well as nurtures.

I want to always remember that you are the creator of both our bodies and the food that fuels our lives so that I will make a list that honors you.

I can't do this by myself.

Amen

Prayers and Ceremonies for Feeding Myself

I just 'googled' ceremonies and rituals for food and eating and nothing came up except descriptions of ways food is used in religious rituals.  Hmmm.  I was hoping for something that is used in some culture to honor food, the body and the company that is used with meal planning, shopping, preparation and consuming.  Of course, just because Google came up with nothing doesn't mean that there is nothing, but it does leave me to my own devices.  (I didn't forget about saying "Grace" but I was looking for more.)

Ever since I can remember I've struggled with food and eating.  I hated to eat when I was a kid.  Probably I was depressed.  When I started feeding myself and others as an adult, I felt a tremendous sense of responsibility and fear that I wasn't doing it well enough.  I over ate enough that I was somewhat over weight.  Once I started smoking, though, I exchanged overeating for smoking.  I realize I've never had a healthy relationship with food.

I had kids that were picky about food - some of them were extreme.  It was hard to feed them.  I struggled some more with what was right and what was wrong.  I never did figure it out.

For a short while after I inherited a little money from my dad, I solved my dilemma by just eating out most of the time.  Because I was a very heavy smoker I didn't gain weight.  Then I gained like crazy when I quit.  Then began the dieting phase of my life.  Weight Watchers, Overeaters Anonymous, various diets.  At one point I was at my goal weight in Weight Watchers but it lasted only as long as I worked an active job.

So...for the past several years I've been trying first one thing and then another, losing a few pounds and then gaining them back.  I've learned a few things about myself, though.  The problem is my lack of a spiritual connection with feeding myself.

The process is 1) planning what to eat  2)  Buying the food 3) preparing the food and 4) consuming the food.  So I am developing prayers and practices that remind me to honor the purpose of food --
 which is to care for myself, to call forth the Spirit of healing and the life force, and to be mindful of the blessing of having all the food I need when so many others on the planet are lacking what they need.

When Surrender is a Wonderful Thing

I always thought surrender was a bad thing.  It meant I had lost and was a loser.  It meant that I was just stuck in my helplessness and would not ever be able to make anything better.  I thought the purpose of life was to be a winner and that winning was the definition of success.  Of course, there's a little tiny bit of truth to that perspective, but there are many, many other perspectives that come from an almost opposite direction.

Surrender works really well in my life when I let go of trying to control something that I'm actually powerless to control.  I used to think that if I surrendered, it meant there was no hope.  But it actually means that I just need to ask for help. 

Sometimes there's a solution, and when I ask for help from God and other people, we can find it.  Other times when God and other people help me look at my situation, we see that it's something I can accept and be at peace.  Of course, acceptance is a huge big deal when the situation is truly tough.  But it gets so much better when I stop complaining inside my head.

Living in Solutions - Changing the Things I Can

When I started moving from feeling helpless to solve problems to living in solutions, it felt like a whole new planet and a whole new life.  I was excited because I learned that I am the one that can change in order to solve problems and I don't have to try fruitlessly to change someone else.  It's a pretty big challenge to change myself, but at least that method of problem-solving at least has a hope of actually happening!

So, the very first step in living in solutions is believing that I am capable of solving problems.  Even if I don't know what to do, there's a world of people and information that can help me if I just ask.  Luckily I was past the stage in life where I thought only weak people asked for help.  I was willing to admit to being weak if that was what it took.  I was beat.

The help I got was a combination of information and instruction on how to generate solutions.  The basic thing about generating solutions was to ask myself one question:  "How can I make this situation better or solve this problem WITHOUT trying to make anyone else change."

Living in Solutions - Acceptance

For so much of my adult life I lived with what I thought were unsolvable problems.  That's a hellish way to live.  After I came into recovery, I learned that there are a possibly innumerable solutions to every problem a human being can have. 

Of course, the first step in problem-solving is to use the Serenity Prayer to determine whether the problem is something I can change: 

 "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference."

I need the perspective of another person to determine this - usually.  Sometimes it's pretty obvious and I can see it myself, but it's always a good idea to check it out with a wise person.  If it's really true that there's nothing I can do to change the situation, there's still a solution - ACCEPTANCE.

I had to learn the acceptance part of problem-solving before I could learn the rest.  Acceptance is the hardest.  But here's my personal "how to" for acceptance:

1) Stop telling myself that this shouldn't be happening.  All that kind of thinking does is make me angry and upset.  Instead I remember what my dad said after the tornado took his house: he first thought, "why me?"  Then he thought, "why not me?  Is there something special about me that should make me immune to disaster?"  So, I'm not immune to events I don't like.  I can let go of my feeling of being treated badly and remember that the whole of humanity experiences this and remember that compassion for myself and for everyone is comforting. 

2)Then, since there's nothing I can do to make it better, I turn my attention to something else and pray for a peaceful mind and heart.

Analyzing Fear

I've learned that taking a good look at what's causing my stomach to knot up is a terrific idea even if it's a little unpleasant at first.  When I don't look, fear starts running my life without my knowing it and without my permission.

Many of the things I've been afraid of in my life have just been leftover stuff from childhood - like being afraid of being alone, lost or abandoned. 

It's not actually dangerous for me to be by myself, for example.  I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself.  It's nice to have companionship but it's not actually necessary. 

It's also impossible for me to be lost - I was only lost if I couldn't find my mother when I was a child.  Now, as an adult, I might not know exactly where I am, but I can put my wits to work to figure it out so I can get where I'm going. (GPS technology and maps really help with this.) 

It's also not possible for me to be abandoned.  It's only possible for a child to be abandoned.  I don't need a caregiver so I'm okay even if someone in my life decides to leave my life.  I will miss the people that come and go, but that's not about being abandoned.  I can abandon myself, however, by not taking care of myself. So I've learned to grow up and take care of me.

Then there are the fears that are related to the past.  I've made a lot of mistakes, and I lived with the fear that they would catch up with me and I would pay a price.  Then I was taught by my spiritual mentors that it was my job to make amends for those mistakes as best I could, and do my best to not make the same mistakes again.  Then I can let go of the fear.  If I have to pay a price, I can pay it knowing that I've done what I could to amend the mistake but that the price is just.

Of course, anxiety and worry about the future also plagued me and still can today.  What has helped the most with those is to remember that I've made it through a lot of scary stuff with the help of God and people I love.  So, there's no reason to believe that God and the people I love will quit on me now.  I've surrendered to the reality that scary stuff happens to everybody and that even if I do everything right (which isn't actually possible for human beings), I will still not be able escape difficulty.  I will be okay anyway. 

Those annoying Buddhists keep telling us that everybody gets sick, has disappointments, has to deal with events that are difficult,. If we're lucky to live long enough, we'll get old, and we're all going to die.  They tell us that the answer is acceptance and compassion.  Most of our upset comes from believing that stuff isn't supposed to happen.

So...the practice of analyzing fear has kept me almost fear-free for quite awhile.  That is a huge gift and I highly recommend the practice of facing fear instead of running away from it.

Simplicity and Clothes

I used to have an on-going source of misery in trying to figure out what to wear.  I was 100% unhappy with my clothes 100% of the time.  I went clothes shopping and tried on clothes and hated whatever I put on.  I bought something so I'd have something to wear.  I hated all of it.  I felt like a loser.  I felt ugly.  I felt stupid.  It all made me feel as if my body was defective because I thought I looked so strange in my clothes.

A few years ago I started tracking my spending.  I read that by tracking it as if you were the bookkeeper for someone else's business, you will become aware of when you're spending money that doesn't benefit you and when your spending does benefit you.  At the end of the year I added it all up and discovered I had spent a tremendous amount of money on clothes and didn't have a thing in my closet that I actually liked.  What I really wanted was the ability to travel, and I could have taken several lovely trips on the money I spent to buy clothes I didn't like.

So...I started buying used clothes and very cheap clothes since I didn't seem to be able to buy stuff I looked good in and actually liked.  What the hell - spend as little as possible.  To my surprise I found a bunch of clothes that I really liked and that I looked good in that were used. 

Eventually one of my friends told me about a store that sold clothes for middle-aged and older women that were beautiful, fashionable, that fit our body types, and that seemed to be indestructible - never wrinkling or wearing out. Those clothes were exactly what I had been hoping to find my whole life.  Flowing, beautiful colors, very basic blacks, etc.

So...for the past 20 years or so, I buy 90% of my clothes at that store.  I don't need to put much thought into what to put on every day because what's hanging in my closet is simple and already matched up.  I could simplify a little more, but that would take a little bit of the fun out of dressing myself.

Being able to stop worrying about what to wear, how I look and whether I'm dressed appropriately has opened up space in my mind and my time for other much more valuable things.

Letting Go of Judgments

September in Leo's Sea Change program (Zen Habits), is letting go of being judgmental month.  Wow!  That's a challenge for me, for sure.

I really learned at an early age that criticizing everything was a nice change from my constant internal criticizing of myself.  I've spent most of my adult life with judgments taking up most of my mind.

In recovery I've learned that a judgmental mind is an unhappy mind and have worked at changing my thinking.  The first step was just to notice it.  Then I worked on substituting acceptance which was a whole lot harder.  But...then...recently...I noticed that it's likely most of my judgments are incorrect.  Wow!  that's really scary. 

I had thought I was probably correct in most of my judgments of other people and myself, but that I probably shouldn't do it and should accept instead. That's what a nice, spiritual person would do. But then I noticed that when other people judged me, they were doing it on the basis of what they thought they themselves would be doing if they were me and they were so far off base that it was actually funny.

Of course, I then realized that I was doing the exact same thing - basing my judgments of others on myself.  If those other folks are totally wrong in their judgments of me, I'm probably just as incorrect in my judgments of them.  That really helps with letting go of judgments.  Why would I want to keep them if they're basically bullshit?!

For example, I've judged myself harshly (and I think other people have also), for sleeping and resting too much.  I have trouble keeping commitments because I am likely to suddenly need to lie down.  Some have hinted and others have said outright that they thought I was undisciplined and basically a lazy person.  I thought so too and felt like a bum.

It wasn't until in recent years that I was diagnosed with PTSD and one of the symptoms in my case is that my nervous system is just used up so to speak.  When my ability to process incoming information is used up (and that happens with very little input), my body just shuts down and I have no choice but to stop functioning for awhile.

The whole thing annoys me and other people as well.  I finally decided to quit kicking myself for being impaired.  I don't know if anyone else will change their minds, but it's okay if they don't.  I'm working on not judging them for being judgmental.  (By the way, that's a subtle joke.)
 

Why I Sleep with the Television On

A very long time ago - probably about 20 years ago - I discovered that if I fell asleep with the T.V. on, it helped me sleep better.  Instead of having to listen in the dark silence to my mind remind me of all the tragedies of my life, whatever story was on captured my mind instead, allowing me to slip quickly into sleep. 

I have been plagued with a disturbed sleep pattern for most of my life - waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to go back to sleep. My mind woke me up with many terrible thoughts - fears, painful memories, grief.  When I woke up and the T.V. was on, whatever was on immediately grabbed my attention and wiped out the crazy thinking.

If I watched for awhile, I almost immediately got sleepy again and fell back to sleep.

Of course, anyone in their right mind would think I was crazy to sleep with the television on.  I have heard many folks chastising me for doing it.  I don't even bother to defend myself, because I realize it still won't make sense to them.

I still hope that all my relaxation methods, guided visualizations, meditation, mantras and affirmations will allow me to sleep without the television.  I'm not going to give up because that would be preferable. 

I've progressed now, to leaving the television on to a recorded program to go to sleep.   I'm recording programs that might be soothing to sleep to.  When the recording ends, I usually continue to sleep.

Progress, not perfection.

The End of My ToDoList Life!

I spent the greater portion of my life in a rush to finish my to do list.  I started making todolists when I was a teenager because somehow I had gathered the impression that I was supposed to accomplish stuff in order to be a good person.  That's about a 60 year run of the todolist life.  Only one time did I actually finish a todolist and I had to stay up without food or sleep for over 24 hours in order to do it.  You would think I would have learned something from that experience.  I did think that I should make my todolists smaller but that was all.

Later in my 30s I had become so overwhelmed that I was downright crazy with everything I had taken on that I had to just stop or fall apart.  I was already a little disintegrated.  I stopped long enough to notice that there was a part of me that knew what was what and that could guide my actions and I was excited because I felt strongly that I had found the answer.  However, some terrible tragedies came along about that time and I totally let go of what I had discovered.  Some part of me connected the tragic things that happened with the discovery I had made and I became terrified to go back to that.

Finally,  at my now advanced age, I have arrived at a place where I am brave enough to stop again and renew my search for that part of me that I now know is intuition.  So my new practice is to ask that part of me for guidance and attempt to follow instructions.  I hope I will get really good at this sooner rather than later.  So far, I am delighted with the peacefulness I have.