What's in the gallery?
We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. We apply radical playfulness to life (when we feel like it!), embarking on internal adventures (credo of Safety First). We have a fake band called Solved By Cake. We build invisible sanctuaries, invent words and worlds, breathe awe and wonder.
We are not impressed by monsters. Except when we are. We explore the connections between internal territories and surrounding environment to learn what marvelously supportive delicious space feels like, and how to take exquisite care of ourselves. We transform things.* We glow wild.**
* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.
** Fair warning: Self-fluency has been known to lead to extremely subversive behavior, including treasuring yourself unconditionally, unapologetically taking up space, experiencing outrageously improbable levels of self-acceptance, and general rejoicing in aliveness.
What's in the gallery?
We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. We apply radical playfulness to life (when we feel like it!), embarking on internal adventures (credo of Safety First). We have a fake band called Solved By Cake. We build invisible sanctuaries, invent words and worlds, breathe awe and wonder.
We are not impressed by monsters. Except when we are. We explore the connections between internal territories and surrounding environment to learn what marvelously supportive delicious space feels like, and how to take exquisite care of ourselves. We transform things.* We glow wild.**
* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.
** Fair warning: Self-fluency has been known to lead to extremely subversive behavior, including treasuring yourself unconditionally, unapologetically taking up space, experiencing outrageously improbable levels of self-acceptance, and general rejoicing in aliveness.
Dealing with tax day panic
I’ve been hearing a lot of kind of cartoon-ey noises from my clients lately, especially now that tax day is approaching here in the States. As in: “Gak! Tax day! Gurgle! Blech! Koff! Ugh. Oy.”
Yep, everyone’s got issues and money is one of those things that will always set them off. It’s a button-pusher for sure. Maybe even the button-pusher. And to make it even more complicated, those issues aren’t just about money itself — they’re about your relationship to money.
I’m certainly not foolhardy enough to think that we can resolve this life-patterns stuff in an article or even in a workshop. But you can narrow your focus and work towards allowing little shifts. Thought shifts and action shifts. Little ones. The main thing is to constantly learn more about how you relate to yourself and to your stuff — every new piece of information means progress.
Think themes, not solutions
So, instead of examining this or that particular technique, it’s important to start by choosing a THEME to work on. For now, forget about working on how to make more money. Forget about working on how to be less stressed out about money or how to stop hiding in the closet when you think about money. Instead of working on your money stuff directly, just choose a concept or a theme to work on that’s related to the money stuff.
Is there a word that can stand in for the “thing” you need most right now? In other words, what is the quality that having it or understanding it or feeling it would make your relationship with money less problematic, sticky, uncomfortable, etc.
For example, stuff like . . .
FLOW, TRUST, ACCEPTANCE, RELEASE, GIVE & TAKE, SUPPORT, CLARITY, TRANSPARENCY, STABILITY, ENOUGH…
These are all things that you might want to be feeling, having more of, or incorporating into your life. Instead of tackling your money issues head-on (ow, ow, ow) or defaulting into avoidance-at-any-cost mode, choose a word. Choose one word you want to work on, and see what you can do to bring more of that word into your life.
Of course (you’re at least one step ahead of me), words are nothing without actions. We’ll still need some techniques for this, so: a look at two types of ways you can work on your theme: soft and hard.
“Soft” techniques (not just for hippies!)
The problem with a lot of the advice you get for dealing with money is that it’s so darned practical and “common sense-ey”, completely ignoring how scary and frustrating the subject can be. And because these how-to techniques don’t deal with the emotional stuff, they’re irrelevant to your underlying issues (and also really annoying).
It’s just not helpful when someone tells you: “Do the responsible thing and prepare your taxes ahead of time!” because . . . well, it just isn’t. I mean, how is that supposed to help you while you’re rolling on the floor tearing out your hair? It’s never helped me.
Don’t just barrel into the common sense stuff if it brings up your issues. Instead, choose “soft” techniques that work on the energy and emotional aspects of what you want to be working on.
Reminders, not affirmations
Don’t go too soft. I definitely don’t recommend the whole “I’m a gazillionaire, I’m a gazillionaire” school of forcing yourself to repeat things that aren’t true in the hopes that if you just believe them the universe will reward you. However, repeating reminders of what you want to be working on is a really powerful way to create focus, intention and peace of mind.
“I am ready to welcome stability into my life and my finances” is a nice reminder, as is “I choose to bring my attention to the numbers in my life, so I can get better at having clarity in everything I do.” If this is too cheesy for you, rephrase it so it sounds like something you might actually be willing to say.
Symbols, rituals, and all that fun stuff
In the yoga world, where I come from, you can talk about these things in terms of chakras. In this model, money is tied to the first and second chakras (grounding and flow, respectively).
Of course, you don’t have to “believe” in chakras or other energy models for them to be useful for you. It can just be a way to symbolically bring attention to the themes you want to work on.
So, if you want to work on symbolically bringing grounding, stability and support into your life, spend some time hanging out with your feet. Massage them, roll tennis balls under them, spread your toes and pay attention while you’re walking around. Use your focus on the feet as a way of symbolically drawing support from the earth and grounding into stability. And if you want to symbolically work on flow, dance dance dance. Take a shower, hang out near some water, plant some seeds, shake your hips and put on some music with a happy beat.
And then, because it’s not enough to just “cultivate a sacred relationship with the self” or whatever they’re calling it these days, bring on the “hard” techniques!
“Hard” techniques (not just for grown-ups and people who wear suits!)
Those of us who like to tackle problems through chanting stuff, casting spells or wearing our lucky socks sometimes have trouble with the whole logical, methodical, coming-up-with-a-plan side of things, but as it turns out, these skill sets are really useful too. All the smart, sensible action steps that you can take are “hard” (as opposed to soft) techniques. Stuff like …
Get a great accountant
Find someone who is together and on top of things, and also compassionate and non-judgmental. You’re choosing someone to be on your team so make sure you like them.
Take a course or get some financial coaching
- Conscious Bookkeeping is a great organization that is all about helping you make peace with your money issues.
- Mark Silver from Heart of Business does a lot of writing about these themes from both spiritual and business angles, and also has an Opening the Moneyflow program.
Have weekly money meetings
Get a friend or colleague to give you a tutorial in Quicken or Quickbooks, and spend 20 minutes each week hanging out with your finances.
Dec 31 is the new April 14: take the day off
Figure out how long it takes you to do taxes and then mark that time on your calendar for the end of December. Take a day or two off work, tell everyone else to go away and do your taxes then. Seriously, there is no greater feeling that waking up on New Year’s knowing that your taxes are done (as I discovered this year for the very first time). Oh, and take notes on the process so that you can start doing stuff right this year to make it easier next year.
The art of combining hard and soft (and an example)
When it comes to using techniques, you always want enough hard to balance out your soft. That’s just how it is–if you really want it to work you need both. Balance is important and not just in your accounts. It’s about head and heart. You want to involve the mental and the emotional, the physical and the spiritual, the practical and the wacky.
So when you choose your weapons (I mean, your non-violent techniques), it’s a good idea to always make sure you have some of both. For example, I have a morning money ritual that combines looking at the numbers (hard) with doing a short meditation on clarity and stability (soft).
It’s all practice
Yes, of course, even just learning about your relationship with money is complicated and fraught with, you know, stuff. For sure. Sometimes it’s better and sometimes it’s full of horribleness. It’s all part of your practice. There are days when you’ll feel invigorated and other times when you’re just going to need to roll around on the floor and throw some pillows, which is okay too.
This way your focus is no longer on solving the whole problem by this tax day or next tax day, it’s about being open to letting some of your money stuff shift and move. Which it will, because you’re working on it
Tax day hug from the duck for those who need it!
The science of taking breaks
Eight years, baby
A couple of weeks ago my eighth year anniversary of quitting both sugar and caffeine rolled around. It’s not something I celebrate exactly — since, you know, I don’t eat cake or anything, but I do always pause and remember how bleeping hard it was.
It was hard because you really can’t think straight when horrible cravings are mixing with the initial and unpleasant physical symptoms (headaches, irritability, lack of energy, devastating brain fog).
And it was hard because of the lack of support from the people around me (“What’s wrong with you? What kind of crazy person would do that? Have some coffee and a piece of pie and we’ll talk about this. . .”).
And it was hard because I went about it so completely wrong (which is another story–remind me to tell you sometime because it’s a good one).
But the hardest thing about saying goodbye to any unwelcome, addictive or self-medicating behavior (whether it’s a drug that everyone would agree is a drug or one that is a drug just for you, or even just checking email a hundred times a day), is not the week you spend curled up fetal, crying on the floor. It’s the whole problem of not knowing what to do when you really need a break.
Guess what? Your habit is giving you something important
There are benefits from your habit. Sure, it’s hurting you and sure, you know it’s self-abuse and sure, you want to stop. It’s just that every habit comes with some good stuff and that’s what you need to pay attention to, because you’re going to want to replicate it when the habit is gone. Habits give you pauses from pain. Sweet, sweet pauses.
When I work with people who are becoming people who don’t smoke or don’t over-eat, one of the first things we do is map out a plan for the pauses:
What are you going to do when . . .
- you have ten minutes to wait for something and nothing to do?
- you are too angry to speak?
- you have an unpleasant task ahead of you?
- you’re feeling sad?
- you feel the need to stop what you’re doing and process / reassess / tune out?
Smoking and eating “solve” all those problems, and not-smoking or not-eating don’t. It’s not enough to stop DOING THE THING. It doesn’t have anything to do with will power or determination or strength of character. It’s about your relationship to the situations that cause you discomfort. It’s about the stuff that happens in the pauses. This is true for all the things you want to stop doing.
Life is hard sometimes, and you’re going to need the pauses. You’re going to need the sweetness. And finding the new way to give yourself that kind of expansiveness is your big challenge.
Replacing the good stuff with … good stuff
Here is what happens when you’re in the habit cycle. Something uncomfortable happens (usually internal or external criticism or judgment of some sort). This causes pain, which triggers the craving. You then stop to satisfy it, which gives you a break from the pain. Then you throw in an added dose of guilt–which causes the cycle to repeat.
The pattern looks something like this:
criticism → pain → craving → break
The break or the pause is all about giving yourself attention. Which is why the most important thing you can work on when you want to change your habits is the ability to take breaks. To give yourself a break–both in the sense of taking a pause, and in the sense of not being so hard on yourself. You want to learn to ease off the judgment and the criticism, while still giving yourself the right to a little time-out.
Giving yourself attention means taking the break and being with yourself. You might have to do some quick self-talk or some tapping on pressure points, and you’ll want to have something to do with your hands (if you don’t know about things like palming, tapping and mudras, be sure to sign up for the teleclass). Practice feeling as though you deserve to STOP everything and have a break. Practice giving yourself sweetness. Emotional sweetness.
And, as I always say, no more sweetness than you can handle. If you absolutely can’t stand to be kind to yourself in a given moment, for heaven’s sake don’t force it.
It’s not very compassionate to require yourself to be compassionate. And even less so to guilt yourself for “not being able” to be kind. It’s okay, that’s just where you are right now. It’s temporary and it’s also not all that tragic.
You’ve carried this habit around with you for what, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years, right? Another day of working on it is not going to be the end of the world.
It’s not about getting to the top of the mountain
Yep, there are always more mountains. You either spend your life struggling and shaking your fist at the unfairness of it all, or you decide you want to be the kind of person who is equally good at climbing and at stopping to rest. Or both . . .
We’re always working on something. It’s true that I’ve quit lots of things in my day, from cigarettes (one of the hardest) to both milder and more severe forms of self-abuse. And I’m still working on other things. Life is full of challenges.
That’s right. Lest you think I have achieved all, I haven’t. I still have my stuff to practice on and work through, including (but not limited to) mastering the art of writing a sentence without having to insert a parenthetical aside (no, seriously, desperate cry for help). But that’s okay. And there is time. There’s a process and there are pauses. Which is part of the practice of sweetness.
[postscript]
I hope it was clear to everyone, despite my somewhat flippant personal style, that changing habits is hard work. And I hope it’s equally clear that I’m not advocating that everyone quit coffee and sugar. It’s a “lifestyle choice”, it’s certainly not for everyone, and if something isn’t having a negative effect on you, don’t worry about it. To each his own and all that. I’m still on your team even if you want to keep all your habits!
Laziness is dead. Long live Laziness.
It’s never about lazy (although we always think it is)
When people talk to me about their habits, and especially about the big, frustrating “why am I not doing the thing already” procrastination cycle, there’s one word that invariably comes up:
Lazy.
As in “It’s really just about me being lazy . . .” or “If I could just stop myself when the laziness kicks in . . .” or “If I stop pushing myself I’ll just end up on the couch again . . .”
Just about every client and student of mine thinks that this is the main reason — or a big part of it — that they aren’t DOING THE THING. But that’s not the case at all, and the reason is simple; as it turns out, laziness doesn’t exist. That’s right — it’s a myth.
It’s a big one, though, so let me share a bit about how to work through the blocking concept of “lazy” to get to the good stuff.
Why there’s no such thing as lazy
The problem with “laziness” is that the term doesn’t actually describe anything. You just can’t be in a state of laziness the way you can be in a state of calm or a state of anger. Laziness isn’t an emotion (a state of being) and it isn’t an activity (a state of doing). Laziness is actually a judgment — a negative judgment — about a state of not doing. Most likely about yours.
If you stumble into a room full of Buddhist monks sitting in meditation, you’re probably not going to say, “Ugh, look at those lazy jerks, just sitting around not doing anything. They should totally be ashamed to even take up space.” It would actually be kind of funny if you did, but it wouldn’t be all that relevant.
Lazy is a word we use to judge ourselves when we’re feeling hurt or fearful. Or to judge people we don’t like because they remind us of ourselves. Ow. I know. Me too.
So if it’s not lazy, what is it?
Oh, a whole bunch of things. Fear. Blame. Worry. Doubt. But as I said, it’s mostly about judgment. As you get better at noticing what’s really going on for you (“Hey, I’m getting mad at myself for not doing enough again, there’s some guilt here that wants my attention”), it becomes gradually easier to peel away the layers.
As you keep at it (peel, peel, peel), something happens. The part of you that is trying to protect you shows up and explains what it’s afraid of.
When you peel back the layers, there is hurt and worry that wants love and attention. And when you give these parts of yourself love and attention, the default pattern of name-calling (Lazy!) stops being useful for you. It stops working. When you peel away the fear, anxiety, anger and doubt and interact with them, you are left with:
– Things you want to do or choose to do.
– Things you don’t want to do.
When that happens, you can make smart choices. Plus, it’s a lot easier to make these choices when you’re not in the distraction, anxiety and distress that cause you to veer off into the procrastination zone to begin with.
Incorporating active not-doing (making it conscious)
Active not-doing is totally different than spacing out. It’s conscious and intentional. You know when you go to look something up online and two hours later you’re down the craziest rabbit hole and have no idea how you got there? Not conscious and not active.
Active not-doing is also totally different than active avoidance. Yes, it’s lovely that you have the cleanest refrigerator bottom this side of the Mississippi Delta, but that’s not going to be conscious or active not-doing for most of us.
Active not-doing involves choice. It involves mindfulness. It involves practice. And most of all, it involves permission. Agreeing to give yourself twenty minutes to roll on the floor and breathe is a good thing. Agreeing to trust yourself to come back to the thing is the crux of this practice, because the very act of recognizing your avoidance will help you get back to DOING THE THING.
The good news is that active not-doing can start in any moment. Even after those two hours of avoidance you can still notice and press pause: “Oh, I’m doing it. Feeling some guilt here. Can I let myself stop and be here with my guilt? Can I take a minute to breathe and let it just soak into the ground? Can I ask myself to receive some strength and support so I can get a little clarity on this?”
Easier said than done, right?
Oh boy. You can say that again. Well, there are a bunch of things to work on here, many aspects and much to learn, practice and learn again.
Okay, so you’re probably not a Buddhist monk. Neither am I. And yes, it’s a lot easier to give the monks permission to not do because they give themselves permission to not do, and also because they’re blissing out on their calm vibes. And also because they probably don’t have THAT THING DUE TOMORROW. Aaaaaargh.
I know. I’m not asking you to perfect the life art of not-doing. I’m not even going to suggest that you meditate for ten minutes a day. Meditation is hard work — one of the highest forms of Not Doing. We’ll start with something easier.
All I’m saying is that when you take the judgment out of the equation, a state of not-doing is good for you. More not-doing will actually help you with the doing, but only if you’re not freaking out. We want to work on letting go of the need to always be in doing mode. And we want to work on learning about the things that terrify us so we can know how we work.
It’s about being willing to establish a lifelong process of learning about who we are, how we function, and how we interact with ourselves and the world around us. It’s about learning about your stuff and not being impressed by it. Maybe even eventually getting around to liking yourself anyway. Maybe.
Giving yourself permission to actively not-do is probably one of the hardest things there is. Let’s start small. It’s okay to start small. It’s even good to start small. But at least we’re starting (yay for us)!
One more option
Another way to get into the frame of mind where you can let yourself just not do: my clients, of course, all use the Emergency Calming Techniques recordings when they are “having a moment”.
This has seriously cut down on those semi-frantic “I need you to talk me down from this” calls. They get a ten-minute time-out to shift into some quieter head space where they aren’t going to guilt themselves over a small chunk of healthy not-doing. And I get more uninterrupted time to write! Whee. Everybody wins. ‹smile›
When thinking big is the worst thing you can do
A true story
I want you to know that it took me over a year to get around to reading Michael Port’s book “Book Yourself Solid“.
Yes, I’m a procrastination expert, and yes, and it took me a year to read a book I actually wanted to read. It actually wasn’t about being in avoidance. It was more about consciously working through my layers of discomfort so I could get to the point where it wouldn’t be interfering with my interaction with the book. There was just a lot to work through.
You see, what comes up for me (my own personal associations here) when I think about being “booked solid” is “Ohmygosh, what a complete and utter nightmare.” To me it actually sounds like high stress, no time, and no flexibility, all because you’re stuck with this ridiculously packed calendar that can’t be budged. Who would want that?
Now, the book has all sorts of useful tidbits (read it!), and I also know Michael well enough to say that he is a really great guy with a very good heart. I’m seriously pro-Michael. But a lot of the people who need to benefit from his book and his message just won’t. Or at least not unless they work through their own resistance to the concept of thinking big. Hey, we’ve all got stuff.
Here is a book that was written under the assumption that everyone wants to think big, should think big and needs to be told to think big. Actually, there are lots of us with big issues around thinking big. And sometimes “think big” is just not the advice you need.
When thinking big is absolutely the wrong thing for you
Here’s the thing with thinking big. It can be terrifying. And when you’re in fear, you don’t take action. Or if you do take action, it’s not going to be the kind of thoughtful, intentional, motivated action that is going to serve you.
There are a ton of “think big” people in the world, whether you’re dealing with coaching, “self-help” or the business world. Some of them are really great people– bright, charismatic, good-intentioned people like Michael Port–and some of them are pushy, sales-ey, highlighter-wielding types. I like to think of all of them collectively as the “biggifiers”.
Even if we assume that they are all well-meaning, brimming over with integrity and have your own best interests nestled in their tender hearts, here’s what happens in real-time:
- When biggifiers start shouting “think big think big think big” at you, your discomfort level rises to the point that you can’t absorb the rest of their smart, useful advice.
- When biggifiers tell you that you “have to” do things (and you know, uncomfortable things like “stepping out of your comfort zone”), it’s completely understandable when you default into anxiety mode.
- When biggifiers tell you how easy it is, you want to believe them … but you also know perfectly well that it isn’t. At least, not for you. And since you’re the one who has to do it, it’s not going to happen.
Sure you want to be able to think big, but you equally don’t want to have to do it, so you default into stuck.
When thinking small is equally disastrous
The more biggifiers talk about thinking big, the more some other people shrink. Which is the saddest thing I can think of. People intentionally not flowering. People who cannot be helped by the biggifiers because they are just not yet ready for big.
There’s a conversation I end up having about twice a week, always with someone who comes to me with a serious case of needing to stay small. Usually something like:
“Oh no, someone wants to link to my website and I’m not ready to be visible yet.”
or
“It’s too embarrassing to put up a website because it’s not like the thing I do is a real thing yet.”
or
“I’ve been wanting to make a flyer to tell people about these amazing classes I lead, but the thought of putting myself out there like that is just too scary to deal with.”
So let me just lay it on the line.
I understand that you are feeling nervous and maybe also frightened because you need to be able to trust your gifts. You are allowed to be feeling all of what you are feeling. And yet …
You are not serving anyone by keeping yourself small.
Oh my dear, you are here in this world with a collection of gifts. You have spent your life accumulating the ideas, information and experience that have made you who you are. You have the intention, the ability, the knowledge and the desire to help people have transformative experiences and live life in a more full, meaningful way. That is huge.
Of course it’s scary. Of course you are allowed to have the fear. Just remember, keeping yourself small is not helping anyone; it’s only struggling with your path.
There are people in this world who need exactly what you have. They need your gifts as those gifts are right now. And they are actively looking for you. They are wondering where on earth the person is who can give them the thing that you have to give. It’s not fair to them that you are in hiding.
You don’t need to shout from the rooftops, you don’t need to accost anyone or sell to anyone. All you need to do is put up a light so that the people who are looking for you can be drawn to you. You don’t need to shine your light for everyone. You just agree to shine for the right people. But if you don’t turn on the light, the people who need you can’t find you.
It’s not about claiming that you’re better than anyone else. It’s just about letting your light have a place too.
Even if you’ve heard the always-quoted Marianne Williamson line a hundred times, breathe it in again: “There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.”
Okay, enough with the cheesy motivational harangue. We get it. So if biggifying isn’t going to work for me and hiding out in Smallville is a disaster, what’s the deal?
The solution (and no, it’s not “thinking medium” because that would be dorky)
The solution is what I like to call Mindful Biggification.Yes, you biggify — but you do it in a slow, measured, conscious, mindful, compassionate way.
You practice acknowledging your fear when it shows up. You practice meeting yourself where you are. You practice letting “being in the process” be the “win”, and not having to nail some external goal.
You work on letting go of the need for outside legitimacy. You work on noticing where you need grounding, support, shelter and stability. You work on discovering which parts of you are scared to shine and giving them loving attention.
Your goal is not being “big”; it is allowing yourself to step out of hiding. Your goal is not “winning”; it is being aware of your stuff without being impressed by the fact that you have it. Your goal is not to achieve some end result; it is to develop a conscious, intelligent, loving relationship with yourself.
Mindful Biggification is not about forcing yourself to confront things or being dragged kicking and screaming from your comfort zone. It’s about love. And light. And taking your time. And enjoying the ride.
Thanks for reading my manifesto
You know I don’t usually indulge much in the way of cheesiness (shining lights, gifts and all that). It just seemed right. And close to my heart. So, my friends and students and far-away readers, get out there and learn about your light. Be mindful and biggify!
P.S. This doesn’t have anything to do with anything, but I just want to share. According to the latest Selma-spotting report: my celebrity duck was apparently last seen on a billboard in Indiana of all places with my um, slogan — “It’s all about the duck” — on what turned out to be an ad for a hardware store)!
The little-known self-work practice of watching TV
Article: Working on your ‘stuff’ even when you’re watching TV
Something I love about leading workshops on procrastination (how NOT to do it, not HOW to do it) is the reminder that (a) there is just no end to all the wild things we can come up with to avoid DOING THE THING, and (b) despite all of our own little tricks, we’re really all in the same big avoidance boat.
Procrastination comes in a couple of different flavors.
It can be useful to know which one you’re in when you’re in it, though luckily we can all make use of the same concepts to work on it, shift it and turn it around . . .
Two flavors of procrastination: active vs passive
Active means you go out and find a thing and then you do that thing in order to avoid DOING THE THING. Passive is when you let a thing fill your time/space/mind so you can avoid DOING THE THING.
(And when I say DOING THE THING, I also mean just thinking about maybe eventually possibly wanting to get around to DOING THE THING).
Scrubbing under the refrigerator is active. Watching Starsky and Hutch reruns is passive. Researching a replacement widget for that thing that fell off the whatchamacallit in the garage is active. Picking lint out of your belly button is passive.
All of these are fine when you truly want to be doing them. And all are equally fine when you are consciously choosing to be in a state of “not doing”.
Otherwise, the truth is, if you’re doing them instead of making that phone call or finishing that assignment, they’re just different ways of being in avoidance.
And you know what? That’s okay too. Or at least, it’s not the end of the world. It’s not going to be any help to say (or to have me say), “Hey, stop avoiding.” You just want to know that you are avoiding. Obviously there is a reason that you’re avoiding DOING THE THING. Maybe to protect yourself from how scary it is, maybe to keep yourself from feeling overwhelmed, maybe to hide from the self-criticism that will come up if you face all the what-ifs.
Whatever the reason for your avoidance, it’s going to make you miserable because you’re in a state of resistance. You know you’re avoiding. You get mad at yourself for avoiding. And then you don’t even enjoy the avoidance mechanism. You start to think, “Oh, here I am avoiding, why can’t I just get my act together, what’s wrong with me?”. The more you fight with yourself, the deeper you go into the world of stuck.
Turning it around
When you bulldoze through the stuck, you aren’t being conscious and compassionate. Plus it will just come back to bite you on the behind. Not to mention that sometimes you just can’t bulldoze through the stuck and couldn’t even if you wanted to. Allow me to let you in on something I have learned the hard way — and keep on learning.
The trick to flowing with the stuck instead of fighting with the stuck is to make the process conscious. When you make the process conscious, at least you get to be working on your stuff in any given moment, even if that moment happens to be taking place while you’re watching that Starsky & Hutch rerun.
It’s a bit like organizing expert Julie Morgenstern’s advice to always be doing one thing. She advises that every time you move from one room to the next, you can take something with you that needs to go somewhere else. Straighten one towel. Throw something (one thing) out. Doing that one thing keeps you in the process and makes it conscious. Plus, all those “one little thing”s add up and you actually get to see changes fairly quickly.
When you catch yourself in procrastination, you want to always be doing one thing to make the unconscious conscious. So? Let’s have some examples of “one thing”s.
Doing it wrong (active procrastination mode)
Oh, I can’t believe I’m cleaning behind the stove just because I’m too chicken to make that phone call. How embarrassing and pathetic. I can’t stand thinking about it. Shut up shut up shut up.
Doing it right (active procrastination mode)
1. Acknowledge
Whoah, I’m totally cleaning because I don’t want to make this call.
2. Agree
Okay, I’m allowed to have issues around this call. Right now I don’t think I can make myself stop the cleaning without going into resistance. So I’m going to work on my stuff in a slightly different way.
3. Act
What can I say to myself right now that can help me work on my stuff and still be compassionate? What about attaching a symbolic value to the cleaning? Okay, I am consciously choosing to clean right now, because I’m feeling stuck around this call. I’m clearing out my junk and making room for more positive stuff in my life. I am scrubbing away at my own frustration and asking for some more clarity around what I’m avoiding.
Doing it wrong (passive procrastination mode)
I’m such a lazy worthless piece of sludge. I just wish it would all go away. I have no will power. Shut up shut up shut up.
Doing it right (passive procrastination mode)
1. Acknowledge
So I’m watching TV so I won’t have to admit that I haven’t made any progress on this thing.
2. Agree
I guess that’s just what’s going on for me right now. I’m dealing with a lot of fear and anxiety, which is pretty normal given my situation.
3. Act
Instead of staying in passivity, I am going to actively, consciously let myself watch TV for half an hour. And while I do it, I am going to do one thing to make it conscious. Maybe I will work on conscious breathing, with a six count inhale and exhale. Maybe I will do some stretching while I watch or give myself a foot massage. That’s my “one thing” that is going to help me be in this process instead of avoiding it, so I can work through these fear and avoidance patterns.
[NOTE: Hanging out on the “internets” is slightly more dangerous than television which has episodes — so you’ll probably want to set a loud alarm in the other room to go off after half an hour.]
What’s the point?
There will be times when procrastination will be bigger than you; when you just need to tune out and be in passive (or active) procrastination. The crucial idea is, even in a Starsky & Hutch situation, just to do it, but acknowledge it and play with it — and then at least you’re always doing one thing to bring some consciousness and love into the process.
This way you’re playing with your pattern and reminding it that it doesn’t control you. Which means you get to be working on your stuff even when you’re in it. You won’t always be DOING THE THING. Then again, you won’t always be fighting with DOING THE THING. Even when you’re deep in your stuff, you get to always be learning something about yourself. You get to always be practicing. And it gets less challenging every time.