MoxieLife

Stop Being Busy

I dragged my ass back to the cushion this morning at 5:30AM. I have been not sitting because life has seemed busy, but is it? I am beginning to think it isn't as busy as we make it out to be. Granted, I no longer have a little one at home, but even then I might not have been really as busy as I thought I was.

Here's the thing (and this may be a ladies thing, I don't know). You tell people, "I'm so busy" all the time. It is part of our story. We use it as a word that sets us apart from those we perceive as not busy - like it is some kind of badge of honor.

The truth may be closer to the idea that we don't want to do any more than we are doing so we tell people that we are busy. Or it might be that we want people to recognize what we are doing and acknoledge us in some way. Either way we are using the word to get something.

Michelle writes about this on her blog inviting us to stop it:

Cut out the word “busy.” We use it as a badge of worthiness these days and the fabulous comments on this post really sealed the deal. No more I’m sooo busy.

We all have things to do. These things fill our days. We choose some things and not others. We invite more into our life or less. We are having hectic days or quiet days. We are working on projects that fulfill us or don't.

The choice is ours. All of it. That is what makes being human so amazing. We choose to get up, meditate, work out, write, work, mop our kitchen, walk the dog, answer email, make a call to a friend, weed the front planter, get an oil change, and on and on...

We don't have to do any of those things. Sure, some of those things are going to benefit us either through health, money, cleanliness, relationships, etc. But all of it is a choice.

So, if I am choosing it, why am I telling people how busy I am.

There are 24 hours in the day and if you are like me you need 8 - 9 hours of them for sleep. What you do with the rest of them - even if you have to go to work - is a choice.

Change your perspective about that - even for just a moment - and see how freeing it is to see it all as a choice. We aren't "busy" we are choosing to do things.

I like that so much better. You?

If you are at all interested in how I manage a whole bunch of things you might like this post on my MoxieWorks blog. Enjoy.

Photo: Krikit

Stop with the Namaste

Namaste. God bless you. Two sentences that irk me. Not because of their religious overtones, but because they often seem used in a manner that suggests superiority. Twice in the last week I have had two instances where women who were visibly angry with me have ended either their email or their conversation with a greeting of spirit.

It feels so phony.

So fake.

So, why do it?

I assume they see themselves as spiritually evolved people. I assume they want others to see them on that path. I assume that they want to express their spirituality even when they are unhappy with who they are tossing the words at.

What really happens is that I feel less than. It separates me because the parting words of peace are ending a moment of conflict that had no real resolution. They are still pissed at me and yet they look over their shoulder and offer some blessing - the words and attitudes don't connect.

It would be like telling your child you love them while yelling or gritting your teeth. They don't want to hear that under forced or angry situations. They want to hear that when you are feeling real love at that moment.

Culturally, both for those who are "spiritual" and those that are part of the more mainstream religious base, this end to a conversation happens without thought. They are practiced forms of niceties and therefore, in my eyes, have no meaning.

You just told me I was stupid (see yesterday's blog) and now you want your god to bless me? I don't think you really do. You are angry because I embarrassed you in public, but now you are seeing the spirit within me and acknowledging my soul? I don't think so.

Get real people - don't toss words of spirit around like they are second hand phrases. Choose them for occasions when you really mean them. When you are filled with love or reverence for the person you are connecting with - that would be a good time to pour on a little heaven scented sentence.

In the meantime, check where you are and if you are sti  ll spurting with frustration or anger don't end your little moment with me with a toss to god... I am pretty sure you aren't seeing my spirit and the last thing you want to do is bless it.

I Met Glen Beck's Army

On Friday I turned 41 and as part of that right of passage I had to have my license renewed. I was going to be going through town on our way to celebrate with our daughter at Hendrix so it seemed like a time saver to just do it that day rather than driving 30 minutes to Berryville for no reason. Now, those that know me know that I don't love the revenue office, DMV, or hospital waiting rooms. I'm just not a fan of places where people can get overly upset, take out their gun and start shooting random strangers. Yep, odd fear, but I have it. So going to get this done is a bit of a challenge that I have to work myself up to.

It was a beautiful day and the office was only mildly busy. It is a small space with a counter at the back and the door to the side. You walk in and pick your number, sit in a chair and wait. Easy peasy. I made sure my hair was brushed before I got in and put on a nice shade of lipstick so I didn't look like the walking dead in my photo. Strolling through the door, I picked up my number (I was 36 and they were at 31) and sat down at the back of the room next to an older man who had a stack of registration papers.

We started chatting and at some point we meandered to the topic of seat belts. He didn't like the idea of the government regulating seat belts. If you didn't want to wear one that was your problem. I quietly shared that I didn't agree and that I thought that part of a civilized government was to take care of it's citizens. Not to mention that we save money when people don't die in accidents. He smiled and shared that he wore his and that he taught his four kids to wear theirs. We kept talking and although we didn't agree on much of anything I learned that he was retiring and going to travel the US in a motor home with his wife. An amiable conversation.

All of that changed as this little old lady sidled up to the old man and thanked him for his support of small government.

I laughed a little and said, "well, maybe it's generational."

She turned abruptly to me and said, "No, it's intelligence. You're stupid."

Stunned I said that she better stop there, it was my birthday and she should go.

She stopped talking, wished me happy birthday and blessed her god on me.

Jesus.

What is wrong with people.

Seriously, this was  a little old lady with cataracts who was eavesdropping on our conversation in the revenue office. I wasn't expecting one of Glen Beck's Army to come strolling up. She wasn't standing in protest, talking to her buddies, or even talking to me - but she felt compelled to not only state her point loudly but to also tell me I was stupid.

Stupid. What do you say when someone says that?

I am afraid that what I witnessed was the unleashing of the Tea Party, Glen Beck's Brigade, or whatever form of insanity our country is going through. You know you aren't safe when an old lady is going to attack you for believing in seat belts.

Beware folks, the craziness has just started. The discourse will be brutal. And if that lady isn't careful she is going to get shoved.

Happy 41st Birthday To Moi

This morning at 3:23AM I turned 41 and it feels great. My wishes for this year are to set new challenges for myself (maybe a life list or 50 before 50, we'll see), continue to practice meditation, continue to write, etch out more memories with my family and friends, and to always come back to love.

Love to all of you who have shepherded me through my life at any stage. It is always interesting!

If you REALLY love me or even just want to feel great about doing something for someone else give to DonorsChoose.org. Their ongoing support of classrooms is my favorite cause. Give $5 or more, everything helps!

Photo: Celebrating 40 in high fashion with friends and family!

Note: I will go over my 40/40 when I have more time! I have to process all of what worked and what didn't and what I want to still do! Big love to everyone who suggested and cared about me getting it done. (Hint, we never really get it all done!)

My Earliest Memory

I often tease that I was raised by wolves (even funnier to me when you know my last name is Wolven). Well, last night at about 4AM when the moon was shining brightly into my window I was thinking about what that meant and what it has done to my vision of my adult world.

I think it helps to understand that my mom was an undiagnosed bi-polar, this was before anyone knew that was a thing. She was hospitalized shortly after I was born, but came home and lived with us until I was 6.

My earliest memory was of laying under the coffee table with my silky purple paisley blanket to take a nap at the age of 3. My mom couldn't find me and I vaguely remember hearing her call my name. I didn't respond and fell to sleep. The story she told, which I do not remember, is that she went all over the neighborhood looking for me. She was sure I had left. I don't know what happened when I woke up, but I can guess that she was completely out of her wits - as any mom would be if they thought their child had wondered off.

The difference here, for me, is that I think I was under the coffee table to find a place of safety that no one else could get into. It was a small space and one that only I fit into. I think my mom took up a lot of emotional and physical space. She did when I was older and I can only imagine that the same was true if not worse when I was younger. Especially sense she was not diagnosed until I was closer to 9 years old. She was just living her own personal nightmare.

And I was in it with her.

What I think that has done is caused me to be hypersensitive to other people's crazy behavior. It used to take me a long time to recognize it. I thought it was normal for people to yell at you, tell lies about you, manipulate you, spin out of control. I didn't like it but I thought it was what people did.

It took years of personal work to see that I both am attracted to that kind of crazy and need to stay away. The work developing my own boundaries has been ongoing. The attraction is hard to explain to people who crave normal, but I think it is like peeling a scab. You know you shouldn't, but you are compelled to keep doing it. It is the same with people. I know I should back far away, but there is something inside that wants to just reach out.  Every time I do, though, is not a good moment.

So, I am learning. I am learning to let that feeling go. I am learning to sit with my uncomfortableness in situations where people aren't the most balanced. I am learning to not take everyone's actions personally. I am learning to unlearn what I learned at 3 years old. Hard work? You bet, but the most satisfiying I have ever embarked on.

Photo Credit: This is me in my sailor suit with my mom at my 3rd or 4th birthday party.

Lincoln and Pryor You Did Us Wrong

When I moved to the South I never thought about the fact that I would be living in the political south. I was moving to the state of Bill Clinton, I thought I was moving to a blue state with Southern democrats. I just didn't understand what that meant at the time.

Granted, I came from the land of Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer - the left of the left. I was happy there, but knew that it wasn't the real world. It was a protected fairy land of wonderful left leaning politics, judges who governed from the bench, and the right thing being done most of the time.

Then I moved to Arkanas and all of that went out the window.

Yesterday my two senators disappointed me to no end. They chose, for political reasons, to be the only Democrats to not vote to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell. I am ashamed to say that I have voted for both of them. I am ashamed to call them Democrats. I am ashamed of moving to a place that is so backwards.

My only defense for them is that they know not what they do. Arkansas is a funny place. It is deeply religious; you can't go to a public meeting where prayer, your walk with the lord, or Jesus isn't mentioned in some context. The Democrats here are a breed that I have never met before. Kind of a cross of a conservative Christian with morals and social conscience. Not a bad mix, but on the national stage and in front of their party they look like fools. It is only when you are on the ground, inside the state do you understand what they are up against.

The reality is that many of the voters in Arkansas are not well educated. The percentage of college degrees is extremely low. Church plays a major part in most peoples lives and when I say church I mean mainstream Christian church (Methodist, Baptist, Episcopalian, etc.) The population although beginning to diversify has not grown at the rate that other states have. We are talking about white people and black people and they are pretty separate, thank you very much.

The opponant in the current race against Lincoln is actually a nice guy (Boozeman), but his politics are all Republican. He votes no on every single issue in the House that I want him to vote yes on. Always. And his campaign is growing momentum in the state - we may lose our Democratic senator.

Obama won't visit here - didn't during the campaign and won't for her. He doesn't think he would be welcomed and, in fact, the state did not vote for him. It makes me incredibly sad to think our president won't set foot in our state - that says volumes to me.

So, they blew it. Again. There is no getting around that, and I am deeply disappointed. I have never had a representative of my party, that I voted for, not represent me. Not really sure what to do with that.

 

Photo Credit: Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division escort African-American students to Central High School in Little Rock in Sept. 1957, after the governor of Arkansas tried to enforce segregation. Photo courtesy National Archives and Operation Arkansas.

Church Meeting Goes Awry

Crap. Pretty much all I could say after a long church meeting yesterday. Sometimes it is hard to remember that you are in a church meeting and not a battle of egos and ideas. And when that happens all hell breaks loose.

Or how I suck as a human being.

The service was the second part of our new programming using the What Moves Us curriculum from the UUA. We set the chairs in a circle and the group shared in small groups. The level of chaos, cacophony, and heightened personal experience was great, but could have been a problem when moving into a business meeting following the service.

The agenda was long. Incredibly long. It was a meeting scheduled for after church which means no lunch and a two hour meeting - a prescription for disaster. I was taking minutes in absence of the regular secretary. Not a job that I am particularly skilled at and I felt unsure that I could do the job justice. Again, a prescription for disaster.

The meeting started and we were rolling along until we hit upon a subject that seemed benign, but I have particular feelings about - sharing stuff and sharing space. We have this new groovy presentation equipment and the person who is in charge of it put a policy forward that had all these obstacles to using it for the greater community. They are, and rightly so, worried that the equipment would be damaged. My concern is that we are hoarding our cool tools and not opening up to the larger community. That we care more about stuff. I am on the very left side of this argument, and am ok about it; but it was not a great way to start the meeting.

Then we rolled along with us all getting more and more agitated/hungry until we hit upon the last three agenda items. One of which I was going to present and one I thought I was contributing to. I tabled my first one because we didn't seem to have the energy for it.

Then the president, who by this time was totally wiped out asked me to table the last thing on the agenda. A new member felt that was not fair - it was her passion - so we went on to discuss the idea of adding small groups and forming a committee. Now, I have presented this idea for years. Quietly, in talks on Sunday, and slowly in the last 5 - 7 years. I am moving with this at a pace that I thought the Fellowship wanted.

Well, the new member from a large congregation on the East Coast wanted to form the committee ASAP and appoint herself as chair.

This is where I get naked and start flailing around in the middle of the circle.

Not really, but it FELT like that.

I was blindsided by this. I felt like all the quite work I had been doing was not noticed. That I was being forgotten. That no one was going to remember what I had done. That I was left behind.

So, I said something inarticulate and deeply personal and made the new person feel like shit.

Yep, that was my Sunday.

To make matters worse when I went up after the meeting to apologize for making her feel awful and she did not want to talk to me.

She then sent an email out when she got home saying she wanted to step away from the newly organized committee (yep, they voted to have one without a chair).

I didn't even have a chance to talk with her.

How does your church run meetings? How do they work? How do they feel for you? Does stuff like this happen at your church? Help.

 

(I did send a note out to the congregation thanking them for their service and explaining that passion runs deep and is wonderful from all parties. I also talked with the president and wrote an email to the woman who seemed so hurt from my outburst. And I sent an email to the executive committee with some suggestions about running church meetings that I thought might help.)

 

Here Comes 41

On Friday I turn 41. When I was about to turn 40 I wasn't feeling very good about it, but to be honest it has been great. I have slowly been working on my 40/40 list which I will address at some point here (I am not a complete success, but I have learned a lot). What I find most interesting about this year is how much I feel like I am sinking into myself. How easy I feel about being me. For the first time I feel comfortable.

My ideas feel grounded. The way I am dealing with my moods and emotions feels sane. My work, home, and family life seem balanced. It is like something finally clicked. That is not to say that life is perfect. I am not sure that is ever a realistic goal, but there is a sense of ease that didn't exist in my life before.

Last night my husband and I were talking about when our daughter was little. He would take her to Walgreens and let her pick out a toy that was under $1 while they were doing laundry at the laundry mat. They had an hour to kill and she was thrilled with the aspect of getting to choose something. He instinctively knew that it was going to take her forever to choose that toy and just hung out with her. Not rushing. Just enjoying the moment of her going over all of her options.

Me, I was rushing. Always rushing. I would have gone nuts at her taking forever to choose a toy. I needed to get this done or that done. I didn't have the patience or the sense that this was the moment and felt pulled in a constant forward motion. Not that it got me anywhere.

I felt so much pressure, not from anyone but myself, to be a good mom, to be a good wife, to be a good church leader, to be a good designer... that I didn't take a lot of time to enjoy any of it. No one was harder on me then myself.

So, now it feels good to see that and to be in a different place. There is a wisdom to aging, I guess. Or at least perspective and I am enjoying it.

 

Photo: Greg and Paige at Sunset CoOp Preschool in San Francisco, she's 4 and he is 28 - such sweeties.

Dear President Obama Get Happy

Dear President Obama, I don't know if you know this, or if the people around you know this, but people like happiness. In fact, America is a place where we search for the pursuit of it on a daily basis. It is in our DNA. Why does this matter to you? Because lately I have noticed that you are focusing on the negative spin being thrown out from the Tea Party and the Republicans. And when you do that we all shift our attention there too.

Let's try something different. Let's focus on the positive.

• Have you ended the war in Iraq? Yes, you have.
• Have you signed small business legislation in? Yes, you have.
• Have you SAVED medicare? Yes, you have by signing in the most comprehensive health care legislation in my lifetime.
• Have you stopped the dust bowl, bread lines, and people starving in the streets? Yes, you have by continuing the Bush TARP program you stopped a major catastrophe to our way of life.

What am I getting at here? I am saying that you aren't painting the BLEAK picture you should be painting. If you had not stepped in and did these miraculous things that only YOU could do we would be on our way to hell in a hand basket.

Stop baiting them, stop talking about them, and start having everyone around you get on the Happy Bus. Call on your celebrity friends to say publicly how grateful they are that you have provided healthcare to millions of Americans. Call on your economic professors to tell the cameras that without the TARP program we would have been headed towards a depression worse than the 30's. Call on every last person you know to start getting in front of the camera and telling the truth and showing you as the mover, the get things done guy, and the President that you are.

Business is great, but it would have been bad without Obama. Life is good, but we would have lost everything without Obama. My life is happy, but it wouldn't be without the peace keeping force of Obama.

I know that my life as a small business marketing professional seems unrelated, but I know that when I work with a business that is suffering from the "we will never win blues" it is time to throw in a dose of happiness. Complaining, whining, and pointing fingers at everyone else never gets us anywhere.

We are all out here waiting to get onto the Happy Obama Bus, you just have to get it out of the station. It is human nature to focus on the worries and the problems, but it is your job and the job of everyone around you to show us a better way. Really, give us happy and we will follow you wherever you want us to go. By the way, if you didn't notice the other party is busy blowing itself up so ignore them and focus on what you have done for the American people. We are hear and willing to share the good news.

Sincerely,

Your Partner for a Happier America

Please Include Me

There is a feeling that I like least of all and that is the feeling of not being included. Growing up I was placed in the MGM class in Kindergarten. This class was before there was gifted and talented classes. It was a pull out program that I went to a few hours a day while the rest of my class stayed in our classroom.

Being chosen for these classes was not my choice. I don't think my parents even chose this, but I was tested early for my IQ and based solely on that I was placed with the Mentally Gifted Monkeys as we were so kindly labeled. (Minors was the real last word, but the kids didn't call us by that.)

These pull out classes were great. We did all kinds of fun activities that were developed just for us. Looking back it was like getting plopped into a PBS special on any given subject. One year we did Egyptology and another we explored China. It was a phenomenal experience.

Except it made me an other.

There was no getting around the fact that I wasn't one of the regular kids. I couldn't blend in because I was pulled out of class everyday to go do these totally cool things that none of the other kids got to do. And the person who hated that the most was my 3rd grade teacher Mrs. Johnson. I still remember her with her beehive hair telling another student not to bother playing with me because I was better then all of them.

You don't get over things like that easily.

So, when it happens here, in my small town, I am easily touched by it. I get hurt, but try to slough it off like it doesn't matter. There is a sensibility in my town that those that moved her in the 70's are the cool kids - they got here first. They don't want it to change, they don't really want to include you, and they don't want to hear how they might not be so cutting edge. They like how they are, thank you very much.

Well, for the new kid or the one that isn't really part of the group it can feel awfully lonely sometimes. I know that people don't want to be mean on purpose (except Mrs. Johnson, she knew better), but the lack of ability to expand their circles only makes life smaller for themselves. Not to mention that it hurts those that feel excluded.

 

Photo Credit: That's me in the first grade. My brother wanted me to be a Brownie. He signed me up and got the uniform, but the leaders daughter was awful.