Queen of Swords

I have decided that my new year's resolution -- my only one -- will be "To have fun."

I was depressed for more than a decade, and when I finally fully emerged it was to the ugly reality of the Trump presidency and the ovewhelming realization that climate change is happening now. My job is bleah. I've lost a lot of friends because depression exhausted me. My daughter continues to struggle. And. . . I've always tended to the serious side of things.

This year, without denying or turning my back on any of these very real struggles and challenges, I am going to make a point of having fun: of seeking it out, of inviting it in, of allowing myself to play and laugh. I'm going make a point of lightening up, remembering to smile, and looking for ways to take pleasure in my body, my creativity, and my sense of adventure. (Not necessarily all at the same time, but I wouldn't say no!)


I'm not throwing away my other goals, but I am going to privilege this one. I suspect it will make the others more likely to be achieved if I am enjoying my life more -- but I'm not going to make that the *reason* for the resolution. Fun is valid for its own sake!

I've been avoiding silence, avoiding it a lot -- but this morning I finally sat down in the middle of my living room in half-lotus, turned off the music, and dared the silence.

The words came immediately, gently but insistently asking why I was avoiding the silence. What was I afraid of?

The answer tumbled up easily: I'm afraid that if I am silent I'll be in touch with what I really want, and then I'll have to do something about it. And I've been so very tired these past few years. The thought of needing to do more than I already am is frightening.

But I'm not where I've been these past few years, and unless I put effort into change, things are going to stay the way they are.

What is the one thing you want most? the voice asked.

And I answered: I want to be an established and respected practitioner in my chosen field -- spirituality -- not wasting all my time away at a support job that does no more than preserve my status quo. "Spirituality" can encompass spiritual direction, writing, workshops.

That's it then: my one resolution for the year.

I'm going to have to work on it in a way I haven't yet, in the way I once worked on the rocket company, or my graduate school, or my independent theatrical productions.

I have to believe I can do it. I haven't been ready for that before.

This year I am whole again.

It's time to do more than get by.

I can do it.


I stopped to read the preview before posting this, and immediately felt a twist of embarrassment. How many times have I made this kind of resolution before? How many times have I failed?

It's only failure if you stay down and accept failure.
If you get back up, it's a new start on the spiral path.

I am getting the hell back up. Again.
And I will do so as many times as is necessary.

After starting out my SparkPeople program with great energy, I've been doing next to nothing for the last month and more: not weighing myself, not tracking my intake, not drinking 8 glasses of water per day, not exercising. That lack of focus and progress was not just in the area of health and fitness, however; I've been experiencing inertia pretty much everywhere in my life.

However, I was startled and pleased to get on the scale this morning and find out that I have not gained any weight back. This is a major accomplishment for me, and means that I've been making meaningful changes in my basic habits.

That was tested this afternoon when a very droopy Wolfling came home from her first day of school and my plans for the rest of the day went out the window. I engaged with her about her school day and helped her get started with good organizing habits, but it was like pulling teeth. She wasn't sullen, she was just listless and didn't seem engaged.

I ended up leaving her home to grocery shopping, having a headache and feeling hungry. I made a point of avoiding the McDonalds drivethrough that shares a parking lot with the grocery store. I stopped at a mailbox store to mail some important documents, but that didn't work out. While shopping, I had a phone call with my parents that added to my stress. The fact that part of the conversation was about the upcoming funeral of a dear friend of the family didn't help. The fact that the funeral is now scheduled opposite my many-times-delayed lunch with a_belletrist also didn't help. Then there were the back-and-forth emails with another friend about logistical details for this weekend that are up in the air.

By the time I left the grocery store my head was feeling even worse, and my non-rational brain was screaming at me that I deserved some fast comfort food because of the stress in my life, and that I would feel much better if I got some.

Somewhere I found the clarity to tell myself gently but firmly that drive-through would not actually make anything better, but only further delay my achieving my weight loss goals. I came home and had a Lean Cuisine meal instead. It didn't give me the emotional soothing that I know the fast food would have, but I feel better about myself.

Tomorrow we start our meal plan for the week, and I have the ingredients we need. (Pot roast! Veggies! Biscuits!) The older Wolfling gets, the more important it feels to me to try to do better at having dinner being something planned and deliberate. She's taking a "Food" course this semester, and I'm sure that will help as well.

I've lost count of the times over the past few months when I've told someone that it's as if the biggest obstacles to my goals are slick and invisible. It's as if I start out toward what I want, but get turned aside by things I hardly even notice. One day I'm making steady progress -- and the next I'm doing something entirely meaningless, not even thinking about my goals.

I've tried to counter this by creating detailed to-do lists, and that's helped for a while -- but the invisible obstacles keep cropping up. I'll run my eyes down the list, but it's as if my mind just slides over the items rather than actually seeing and engaging with them.

So I'm trying a new technique. I'm taking each item on my list, writing it by hand on a new piece of paper, and then writing down all the obstacles, resistance, and other previously-silent "No's" and freak-outs that have been silently drowning my good intentions. And then I address each obstacle in turn: facing it, engaging with it, dealing with it. The goal is to come up with a constructive response and/or solution to each obstacle, so I can go on and complete the task.

So far so good. I've worked through the first two items on my list this evening, completed one long-delayed item (getting a second domain name) and took constructive steps to enlist assistance with the other. Two down, two dozen to go. . . .


As I'm working on this, I'm also re-prioritizing the list, so I can do a better job on focusing on the high impact items before the This-Isn't-Scary items. I'm also taking a page from Franklin Covey by being more conscious about the values each task relates to, and the long-term goals they support.

I'm also doing spiritual work focused on some of the deeper issues relating to this pattern, but I'm not ready to write about that yet.


I am sick and tired of being ineffectual unless there is some kind of external structure reinforcing my goals. I feel as if this is my golden opportunity to make some deep changes in myself, and that if I let it slip through my fingers it could have some very long-term negative consequences. I won't say it's my last chance; but I suspect that the longer this goes on the harder it will be to change.

queenofhalves asked an excellent question: When was the last time you were happy before you had Lohain in your life?

I wrote:

Two things come to mind. The first is working at the rocket company. I had meaningful, fun work, and there was a lot of passion in my life.

After that, seminary. I really enjoyed the community, the study, the challenge.

My problem (one of them, anyway) is creating the kind of stimulating work that both these situations provided for me. *Supposedly* I'm working on that with my SD practice and working on the Ereshkigal book. . . but it hasn't actually turned out that way. I'm not as much of a self-starter as I could be.

And I've probably been underestimating the importance of community to my well-being. I've invested a lot of energy into my self-image as an introvert, independent, not a community-joiner. But when I don't have the community and support of others, I flounder.


Re-posting this here to help me remember.

I haven't been posting about it a lot, but since mid-March I've been using the SparkPeople.com site to help me with weight loss. My progress has been slower than I would have liked, but the community aspect has helped me to persevere through plateaus that would have prompted me to quit in the past.

Each morning I weigh myself and enter my weight in my SP tracker. (You don't have to weigh yourself every day to do their program; it's what's best for me.) I watch the line slope gently downward on my report, and the little ticker move to the right on my sig line tracker, but I hadn't been "counting down" the pounds in my head. Every so often I'd do some simple mental math, but not think much about it.

Today my weight finally dipped down again after a several week plateau. I was delighted. I thought that *maybe* I'd lost about 15 pounds, but I wanted to check. So I got out the calculator and entered the numbers.

No, not 15.

25.5

I boggled, re-checked my numbers from the site, ran them three more times. Same result.

25.5 pounds down.

*happy dance

From my SparkPeople blog:

Despite -- well, maybe because of -- my frustrations of the past six weeks or so, I decided to go ahead and enter Stage 3: "The Lifestyle Change Stage." One of the tasks is to select your personal motivational motto. It didn't take long for me to choose mine.

I've always enjoyed collecting motivational quotes. The ones I save tend to be *very* lofty. I like quotes about touching the stars and etc. But I've found that those types of quotes don't often actually help me. They're inspiring, but they haven't made much of a difference in my actions. Plus, I'm a perfectionist. I used to call myself a lazy perfectionist, but I've dropped that label. In the past, if I couldn't be perfect right out of the gate, I decided that there was no point to continuing.

The motto that's been keeping me going through the last six weeks, the motto that's helped me stick with it until the scale started moving down again (something I've never done before!) came to me in a SP motivational quote email:

"Fall down four times, get up five."

Who wants to think about falling down? I sure haven't!
And yet, I finally realized that I *do* fall down on a regular basis -- and that unless I keep getting up again I'm going to stay on the floor. Not where I want to be!

All those lofy quotes I've been collecting haven't given me room to be human and make mistakes, get tired and frustrated, or simply have days when I don't care. The mountain didn't move, the stars are out of reach, so what's the point? Why keep trying if there's no point?

Fall down. Get up. The path is still there. The goal is still there.
I can start moving forward again, even if I've gone backwards for a while.
But only if I stand up.


All this holds equally true for my business development and my priestess path, of course.

I now have the luxury of being free to arrange my schedule and priorities pretty much as I wish -- and over the past couple of weeks I've become increasingly aware of the importance of creating a morning routine that will both nurture me and propel me toward my goals.

I'm a morning person, so assuming I'm getting the sleep I need (and even if I'm not), I'm at my best in the first few hours of the day. Continuing to get up around 5:30am gives me the quiet, focused time I need before I need to get Wolfling out of bed and drive her to school.

Here's my first pass at a daily routine.

* Morning Pages: Julia Cameron's basic exercise from "The Artist's Way" -- three pages written in longhand about whatever is on your mind. Not for publishing or sharing. I need this to get in touch with myself first thing and process whatever is moving in my life. Caffeine will be consumed.

* Connection Rituals: Once I'm awake, centered, and in touch with myself, I can connect with Ereshkigal, Inanna, and Lohain, and consciously put on the rings that signify those commitments.

* Healthy Breakfast
* Review goals, tasks, calendar

* Wake up Wolfling, connect with her, get her to school

* Do a workout of some kind, depending on the schedule. On rest days, do stretching and gentle yoga.

* Take a shower, get dressed

* Do meditation and other morning spiritual practices. I need to be awake, relaxed, and neither hungry nor full. Meditating after both breakfast and exercise seems like a good way to achieve a state that's been elusive for far too long.


I see this as being an every day routine. The difference on the weekends is that I'll sleep until I wake up rather than set the alarm. And Wolfling isn't here on weekends.

None of this is what others have told me I *should* do. It's what I've learned that I both want and need to be who I want to be.

And that's the theme for my life right now: becoming who I want to be.

I try very hard to take responsibility for all my actions and their consequences.

Right now, as I have to rely on myself more than ever before due to my efforts to transform myself from an employee to a business owner, this is a good reminder.

We all need support from other people. Love, encouragement, words of advice and friendship will help you get through the important stages in your life. When people are in your corner, you feel like taking on any challenge. As important as help from others may be, though, it all has to start with you. If you're waiting for someone to solve your problems, or wondering when someone is "going to do something about that," you may be waiting a long time--unless you look to yourself first. Take responsibility for your own situation and think of what concrete steps you'll take today to help it. If you're going to need help, it's only fair that the person with the most at stake (you) is willing to make the most effort. When someone is pulling you out of a hole and has grasped your hand, you still must take the first step to climb out, or you're just going to be hanging there.


Nothing is going to happen to advance my dreams unless I take action first.
Only when I take action can the efforts of others, including spiritual allies, have any impact.


Quote was today's "Healthy Reflection" from SparkPeople.com. No attribution was given.

My ordination was February 14th.
Today is the first day since then that my energy has felt normal.
That's quite probably the longest high I've ever been on.
Somewhat to my surprise, I'm not crashing.
I should probably thank the daily magical-energy practices I've been doing.

As things settle out, I'm aware of feeling more deeply rooted than I've been in a long time.

And I'm aware of all the things yet undone -- but I feel a bit more capable of actually accomplishing them.

I'm going to be revisiting my Stephen Covey/7 Habits principles, starting with my mission statement. When I first started working the Covey system, my mission statement was "To bring light." "Light" to me meant the illumination of the mind, new ideas, different perspectives. It's one of the things I'm good at. But today I was realizing that it no longer quite fits as a mission statement.

Today, it feels more like my mission is more about living in the borderlands and reporting back. I'm not stopping with that; it's something I need to meditate on.

The three fundamental truths of my personal existence are these: I am a priestess of Ereshkigal; I am Lohain's wife; I am Wolfling's mother. It feels very strange to write those and realize that never before in my life have I defined my existence in terms of my relationships to others -- with the possible exception of my identity as "[Dad]'s Daughter." I've never been that kind of person. I seem to be changing. (What was your first clue, right?)

And yes, two of the three others in the above paragraph are non-incarnate. That's also a fundamental fact of my life.

My fundamental ethical values are what they have been for decades: Wisdom, Integrity, Courage, Tenderness, Humor. My other values include Creativity, Spirituality, Stability (I'm responsible, after all, for maintaining a stable life for Wolfling). I'm doing my best to add Fitness/Health to that list, but I'm still working on integrating it.

My To-Do List doesn't cycle through as often as I want it to. I have items that linger for months, items that relate to projects I supposedly care about. I'm working with a therapist right now on why that is, trying to get to the roots of some deep issues around avoidance and denial that stand in the way of becoming what I say I want to be, do what I want to do.

And of course that begs the question Do I actually want to do these things, achieve these goals? I believe so, but I have a hard time associating less-than-pleasant immediate tasks with the payoff of the goal in the future. It's embarrassingly childish.

There's more to process, but Wolfling and I are due at my parents' house for dinner soon.