Category Archives: Fearless Living

The Kerplunk Theory of Energy Movement

Friday’s post touched a bit of a nerve.  Seems a lot of us use avoidance but feel kind of bad about it.  Which made me think about energy and how pottering about over here can make something shift way over there and how we can use that to our advantage when we don’t feel up to dealing with the stuff over there.  A bit like how scubbing the floor really hard with your mop can knock a bunch of stuff off the kitchen counter with the other end.  Only in a good way.

You’re used to my tangents by now, right?

So I told you awhile back that I’d been feeling stuck.  Creatively, financially, life path-i-ly.  And then I got my Reiki attunement and things started to shift. 

But they didn’t shift because I meant them to shift or because I shifted them.  They did that all on their own, because other things were shifting and moving around.

As a Reiki practitioner, I play with energy.  And sometimes it seems very direct and straightforward.  I play with the energy in your knee and your knee stops hurting.  Simples.

But sometimes it’s a lot less straightforward.  I play with the energy in your shoulder and you suddenly start seeing opportunities where none seemed to exist before.  Ummmm, what?

I like to figure things out.   I’ve never been able to accept “It’s a mystery” as an answer for anything.  This is why I made such a bad Catholic, but why I seem to be having some success as a blogger.

So here’s my working theory of how shifting energy can lead to such unexpected results and why that’s such good news for you.

Remember the game Kerplunk?  Clear plastic tube with parallel holes into which you stuck a whole bunch of skewers (the set-up often took longer than the game itself) and then dumped in a bunch of marbles.  Then you took turns pulling out one stick at a time until the marbles dropped all over the floor and you had to go play outside for awhile.

Sometimes the marbles would drop within the first few turns and sometimes they’d wait till the very last stick.  And you never knew which it would be (though you got pretty good at predicting exactly when your friend’s mom would throw you out of the house…)

That’s kind of how it works with our energy.  We might have an idea where we’re stuck (I’d like a better job, I wish I could write more, why can’t I find a decent partner???) but we really don’t know what to attack to fix it.  Or we might not have any real clue where the stuck is hiding, we just know something ain’t right.

And the ‘go after your dreams wrangle them to the ground and make them your bitch’ style of coach will tell you to, step-by-step, figure out where you’re stuck and then unstick.  Which probably works.  But can also be really really scary and maybe you’re not up to unsticking that particular part of you.  But you can unstick your sock drawer.  You can draw a silly picture every day.  You can go for a walk to clear the cobwebs and then delete old contacts from your address book.

What all of these things have in common is that they help your energy to flow, maybe just a little bit, but movement is movement and you never really know what it is that’s going to get the big stuck unstuck.  It’s a gentle approach to your life and your enery and your tender, fragile dreams.  And if you do these things with intention, with the desire to find an answer or just to see what happens, chances are good that your subconsious, that part of your brain that’s working all the time, will come up with an idea that you might just be able to use to get to the next step.

You don’t have to attack the big scary things.  You don’t have to take the direct path.  You can approach your dreams obliquely.  Just play with the energy and let me know what happens.

Celebrating Avoidance

I woke up to the sound of rain this morning.  And it melted all my ambition, just like that.  There were dishes to do from a dinner party last night, things to clean, business, um, stuff to move ahead on…

If I keep listing it all, I’m gonna need a nap.

I’m a huge fan of Allie Brosh of Hyperbole and a Half fame.  And this one is my current favourite post, partly because I’m convinced I’ll never be a real adult, either.  I regularly (whine)brag to Alan about my (in)abilities at Cleaning All the Things.  I  spent an inordinate amount of time yesterday trying to decide whether it’s better to half-clean most of the things or mostly clean half the things.  Before that, I was all happy about my new life and getting the house sorted and working on my garden.  But then I hit the wall and decided to mostly clean half the things, expecting to be an adult again today.

But then it rained. 

Any day that starts out wet and misery-inducing gets what it deserves.  So, instead of cleaning any of the things, I dragged a table up from the basement and put it together in the bedroom (it was in pieces – that’s the only way it fits through the doors).  So now I have a spot to do some sewing and work on my cards without having to clear it all away every time we want a meal.  I also don’t have to do a weight workout today, cuz, holy crap! That thing is heavy! Plus, now I don’t have to torture my husband with moving it this weekend.

I also got caught up on some correspondence/Facebook and got started on some sewing projects I’d like to have ready should the long slow Spring we’re having round here ever actually take off into summer.

And here’s what I’ve learned about Avoidance.  It’s not really the sinful time-waster the productivity coaches or your teachers/parents/boss will tell you it is.  It can be amazingly productive.  Puttering about, not doing what you “should” be doing can knock an amazing number of little annoying tasks off your to do list.  It’s also how your brain rests.  I go into avoidance mode when I’m tired and haven’t been paying attention to that.  So I potter, I do little tasks, I play.  And somehow, I usually also end up doing the things I set out to avoid doing without really feeling like I’ve had to be an adult and actually do them.

Be gentle with yourself when you’re avoiding something.  There’s far more going on there than you’re giving yourself credit for.

Please share your favourite avoidance activities with us.  It’s always good to add something new to the repertoire.  And have a lovely weekend!

Maybe It’s Time To Break Your Own Rules

I grew up in a family with certain ways of doing things.  You go to church on Sundays.  You don’t write in books.  I was amazed to discover that some people consider marginalia an art form rather than an excuse to bring back the death penalty.

The list goes on and on. I’m sure it’s this way for most of us. These rules can get under our skin, become the unquestioning way we do things, whether or not they serve us well. 

Back in the early 90′s, I read The Artist’s Way and started keeping a journal.  And I really do mean ‘keeping’. I now have an entire collection of vintage suitcases filled with the things.  Because one of the rules I live by is that you save journals for posterity. Because posterity gives a crap.

I’m trying to keep the amount of stuff in my life within reasonable limits (you never know when opportunity will come knocking and it will be time to move again) and reckoned it was about time to start digitizing my journals.  I thought I’d type them up and pulp the actual physical paper ones or use them as background on my cards.  Make art out of my life. Get it?

But here’s the thing. Most of what I wrote back then? Drivel.  I was in my early 30′s, had experienced something and mistook it for everything.

I don’t want to digitize my journals. I just want to pulp them.  I’m a little too careful not to give them a good read through.  And there might be the occasional insight I’ll want to save, but really? I think it’s time to let them go.

And this breaks a huge rule of mine.  The one about posterity giving a crap.  I suspect that when I start tearing up those sheets and feeding them into my blender, I’ll feel the same as I did the first time I slept till noon on a Sunday.  Naughty, gleeful and just a little nervous.  There may even be a moment or two of regret for what once was and is no more, but the freedom gained will be well worth it.

This isn’t really about whether or not you should hang onto things. That’s for you to decide. And I would never dare try to tell you what spiritual practices you should adopt or discard.

It’s about questioning our unquestioned assumptions, the ones we pick up as we pass through life, the way we collect burrs as we walk through a field. Unknowingly, without our permission. It’s good once in awhile to look at those assumptions, those rules for living and ask if they really work.

I’ll report back as I progress through this, but how about you? Can you think of any rules that you might like to break?

Celebrating the Coy Flirtation of Spring

Spring officially arrived a couple of weeks ago, but we were still knee deep in snow here.  I decided to wait till it had melted before I posted this.  Which it did. But then it came back.  And melted and came back a few more times. It’s playing with us.

The flowers poke their little noses out of the gound and get covered over again.  The robins arrive, fluff up their feathers and act like they’re looking for someone to blame.  And we wait. A little excited, a little nervous. Will the magic happen this year?   Will it? Will it?  Oh look! There it is!

Here in southern Ontario, we start getting emails (with photos) from our friends on the west coast and in the UK. They are surrounded by greenery and flowers while we’re still shovelling out our driveways and wondering why we get so excited by a season that is mostly mud and dashed hopes.  But finally the first crocus appears, the world rights itself and we begin to believe.

What do I love most about Spring?

  • the cranky robins I already mentioned
  • the fact that we can have the most glorious weather, but until late May, there’s always a chance that we might get another freeze, so there’s no point doing any gardening at all. So I can sit on my deck enjoying the day and I’m not being lazy, I’m being smart!
  • crocusses and daffodils scattered through a lawn . They’ll bloom and finish before the grass needs cutting and that arrangement just looks to me like the lawn is getting away with something.
  • POSSIBILITY!!! The tantalizing, magical, wonderful plans we make for the season ahead.  Maybe they’ll work, maybe they won’t, but this is the season for dreaming.

How about you? What do you love most about Spring?

Being Stuck Sucks But What If It’s Part Of The Process

Life. 

It’s supposed to flow merrily along.  And we’re supposed to flow with it.  Gracefully leaping from one project to the next, learning and growing all along the way.  Getting smarter, fitter, faster, being productive, climbing ladders, succeeding, achieving and always doing, doing, doing!

OK.  My fingers got tired just typing that bunch of drivel.

But isn’t that how most of us think life should be, most of the time?  If you’re sitting there smugly, convinced you’re way more balanced than that, think about the last time you felt stuck.

It’s not pretty, is it?  I’m just coming out of a period of stuckness that lasted about a year and a half.  It was uncomfortable, itchy, frustrating.  And I have no idea why it started or why it seems to be ending.  It just did. 

Sometimes the stuckness starts with a cataclysm – a job loss, the death of a loved one, an injury.  And sometimes the wind just seems to slowly leave your sails and there you are, right where you don’t want to be.  Unable to get to where you do want to be.  Stuck.

And if you’re in that place, then, oh honey, you have my sympathy.  I know how bad it feels and nothing I can say will make it feel better.  But here’s one tiny thought that might help just a little bit.  Maybe being stuck isn’t wrong.  Maybe being stuck is part of the natural ebb and flow of life.

Cells that are in constant growth mode are called cancer.  Plants that do the same are called noxious weeds.  Economies that aim for constant expansion eventually collapse. 

A piece of music played without any rests between the notes will very quickly have the audience heading for the exits. 

You can’t just inhale. 

I’ve been doing a bit of breath work in my Reiki training and there’s the inhale, the holding, the exhale and then more holding.  In fact, half of breathing involves neither inhaling nor exhaling.  You can try it for yourself if you like, just please make sure you’re sitting safely, because inhaling and exhaling with no holding in between will make you really dizzy really quickly.

So what if life is like our breath?  What if there needs to be holding between all that exciting inhaling and exhaling?  What if the holding is actually essential? We’ve gotten so used to our breathing patterns that we need Reiki Masters and Yoga Instructors to point out that there’s a lot more to breath  than motion. 

But life lasts longer than a breath.   So the stillness is more noticeable.  But what if it’s not wrong?  What if it’s life’s way of saying, “Rest up, there’s more to come”?

If you’re stuck in the stuck, know that you’re not alone.  And it will not last forever.  You have your next breath to assure you of that.

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