so now what?

so you’ve assessed the trueness of your wheel, and you’ve discovered your strengths and your weaknesses, the areas where you are covered and the areas where you are bare, bald, ready to pop, flat! and you’ve set yourself some goals, spread out over time. and maybe you’ve even compared your goals to your wheel, just to see if there is a relationship. just to see if you are the sort that dives in first to shore up your weak spots, or if you are the type to build up even more in your areas of strength and ease.

very well. and now you say: what the hell am i supposed to do with this? yeah. well, good question! i like to see you thinking, gears whirring–that’s when you have the possibility of coming up with some good stuff…keep it up! and what i really want to look at today is the number one thing that you absolutely have to do to get the best results in the short term, to get the best results in the medium term, and to get the best results in the long term.

not that you can’t get good and even great results in the short term without it. not that you can’t get good and even almost great results in the medium term without it…and uh uh, no. you are not going to get great results in the long term without it cos you are going to be sick or weak or confused or unable to make decisions or…well…something a lot less than optimal.

what the hell am i talking about?

well–let’s ask popeye or my mom…eat your greens! yep. that’s the thing. the number one most missing in action food in the american diet today. seriously.

i’ll tell you a story. back in des moines iowa a few years back a chef friend of mine used to notice some of the southeast asian immigrant women roaming about the parks and picking bag after bag of what looked to most any native iowan to be weeds. so she asked them about it one day and one of the women held of a fleshy leaf for her to taste.

epiphany!

lemony tart, fresh, crunchy. tasty! and through the language barrier she managed to grasp two things: this was dinner and this was for the farmers market! to be sold! what these women were picking was wild purslane, which grows wild and free just about anywhere the sun shines bright, in a radial pattern ironically, like the spokes of a wheel.

with that lemony crunchy thing it has going on, you can eat is as a salad green or lightly steamed with butter salt and pepper, or cooked up in a soup. forage! which is also the term used for what the tastiest chickens, beeves, lambs, and turkeys eat plenty of for all the warm months–leafy greens. that’s right. chickens eat grass, when they can. and when they do they lay wonderful eggs with beautiful deep yellow/orange yolks, firm eggs that hold together and taste–mmmmm.

in switzerland the chefs are so cognizant of the effect of grass in the diet of the chickens that they have different recipes for eggs produced at different times of the year! april eggs, may eggs, etc.

so anyway

long before they started feeding cattle cornflakes and antibiotics to fatten them up faster and get them to market in record time and in record numbers, all beeves ate grass. pretty much just grass. and in the late spring and early summer you could see it in the golden tint to the cream, the sunset orange of the butter. and the taste…well–you’ll have to check that out for yourself cos today i’m talking about greens–the same stuff the little fish eat, the little fish that get eaten up by the big fish. and did you ever wonder why fish is supposed to be so good for you? what makes that fish oil so important in the human diet? it’s all the greens those little fish eat, that’s why! yes!

green power

so back to you and me and our out of balance wheels and our lists of goals short medium long. the nutrients we need to think clearly, to emote freely, to move with grace–all of these are in our leafy greens. in abundance. vitamins, minerals, chlorophyl–liquid sunshine! and this time of year especially, up here in the north, we need to replenish ourselves after the long dark winter. and way down south? well, you’ve got a long dark winter coming up–make like noah and build yourself an ark of greens!

there’s kale, collards, broccoli, spinach; salads, pot-greens, stews and stir fries. there’s beet greens, arugula, bok choy and cabbage–domestic greens, wild greens, farmers market, backyard. you can cook them alone, mix them up raw; you can serve them with fish or in a vegetable soup. and the most important thing about this bounteous abundance of greens all sorts is that you eat them! today!

to fortify your organism. to give you the energy that begets enthusiasm that begets action that begets the results you are looking for. for the joy of living and going going going. of resting and loving and reading and watching–of everything you do and don’t do with your life–it all goes better with a diet of greens!

i’m inspired by the greens today, i’m eating kale tonight. i’m persevering with the many sights and tastes of the multitude of greens available at your grocer, in your yard, in the little garden patch. fuel your adventures with the number one additive; greens greens greens. and then watch that wheel transform itself. watch those goals move to the finish line. you’re in this for the long haul…make sure you take care of your body and brain to be in tip top shape all the way.

good habits will replace bad habits in the long run–and they’ll make up for them in the short. so ignore your bad habits–and don’t ignore your greens!

to end where we began

okay.that’s just about it. except here at the end i’d like to say that there is no better fuel and ally for new beginnings than the first thing that pops out of the earth when the cold begins to abate–the leafy greens! eat some every day for the rest of your life–if you don’t see a change i’ll be shocked beyond belief, and that’s the last word! (except for the words that you add!)

photo by cheesy42

   

photo by dalbera

 the hub of the wheel

welcome to week 2 of true wheel tuesdays. last week we worked with the basic assessment, which was simple and straightforward enough, i hope. this week we will work with some more simple exercises and see what happens. it’s always like that when truing a wheel…all wheels are different, and the work becaomes very individual very fast. and yet all wheels are the same and they can all be approached the same way, to great result. if that seems contradictory, well, at least i’m not trying to sell you on a new investment strategy!

heart like a wheel

some say the heart is just like a wheel
when you bend it you can’t mend it
–anna mcgarrigle

now obviously i disagree a bit, and yet there is some power in the poetry. hearts are fragile and mysterious things, as are our lives, and it’s important to come to any sort of mending work with a healthy respect for this. we are bound to come up against some wounds in this process. we are bound to come up against feelings of un-fixability. and we are bound to feel some things that we have been avoiding for a long time.

ultimately this is heart work, the work of learning to be kind to yourself, so it’s important to approach this work like you were approaching a very tender young babe, your tender open-hearted self. take your time, be patient, listen with an open heart: all will be revealed!

the importance of goals

as i like to say, it’s not what you think! and we’ll get to that. first let’s look at our goals, and then let’s look at what they can show us!

so…let’s take out another sheet of paper and get to work! create an outline roughly resembling the following, and then we can have at it!

my very own goals work sheet!

one month from today

1. [goal]
2. [goal]
3. [goal]

three months from today

1. [goal]
2. [goal]
3. [goal]

six months from today

1. [goal]
2. [goal]
3. [goal]

one year from today

1. [goal]
2. [goal]
3. [goal]

okay then! have at it. you can use your worksheet from last week to help you out, or you can just wing it. don’t take too long with this however. no procrastinating with in-depth analysis. just dive in and scribble nine goals for yourself. remember…you never have to do any of these. it’s just a harmless piece of paper on which to project some thoughts that you are having right where you are sitting now!

that wasn’t too hard was it?

okay then. now for the analysis. this is simple enough. look at the list of spokes that we put together for last week’s exercise. determine which spoke each of your goals belongs to. some spokes may not make the cut. some may have more than one goal attached.

now use a colored pen or marker to mark along the spoke that each of your goals is attached to. now you have a visual image of the areas of your life that you want to work on, along with your previous assessment of how satisfied you were with this area of your life.

• did you tend to focus on the areas of dis-satisfaction? 
• the areas of satisfaction. 
• or was there no rhyme or reason to the goals that you set?
• were your goals spread out over the areas of your life?
• clustered into just a few?
• do you see any patterns in the time scheme?

that’s enough for today i think. just let things spin about for the next week and be sure to take notes of any insights you get. it’s always good to have something to refer to! next week we’ll look at some of the things we can learn from our goals.

photo by esrever

the true wheel

well it’s a great day when you discover that marcel duchamp took the trouble to create a prototype logo for your once and future group program a full 96 years earlier, and so god is in hir heaven and all is right with the world!

that said, today is going to kick-off a series of weekly looks at the process of truing your wheel, creating a life with your self at the center, in which all of the necessary components of health and happiness are well balanced, allowing you to move through life with the least amount of friction, and the greatest amount of ease and grace.

big promises i know, and what they heck…over two and a half million people make that “for better or worse” promise every year in the united states alone, so…

basic concept

you’ve got a life. it’s full. it’s complex. it takes a lot of energy and enthusiasm, clarity of thought, fortitude. you don’t have as much of those things as you would like. some things work well, other things don’t. sometimes you are in the zone, other times you are in the ditch.

the true wheel, aside from the references both intentional and synchronistic, is designed to help you live your life to the fullest by discovering how everything in your life is connected to everything else: when one thing is flagging then everything else suffers, and when one thing is rocking out everything else shines a little brighter as well. 

let’s get out of conceptual hell now, and dive right into it.

the bare wheel

1. take out a sheet of paper and draw a circle 7-8 inches in diameter or larger. this is your wheel. 
2. draw a smaller circle at the center of your wheel, an inch in diameter. this is your hub. 
3. draw a line from the top edge of your hub to the top of your wheel. 
4. draw a line from the bottom edge of your hub to the bottom of your wheel. 
5. repeat from left to left and then from right to right. these are your first 4 spokes. 
6. being as balanced as possible, add two more spokes between each of these initial four, finishing with 12 all told.

this is your bare wheel. now let’s add the labels. 

the spokes

beginning with the first spoke, from the hub to the top of the wheel, and then moving clockwise, write the following words along the spokes.

1. spirituality
2. joy
3. social life
4. relationships
5. home environment
6. health
7. physical activity
8. home cooking
9. education
10. career
11. finances
12. creativity

these are your spokes. now we are ready to take a look at the ride our wheel is giving us.

assessment

now here is the fun part, the scary part, the revealing part; your chance to get playful and astonish yourself. take a good look at your wheel for a moment, so round and so true. imagine the smooth ride you could get if you were riding through your life on a wheel such as this. now let’s take a look at what your ride really looks like.

place a little dot at the point on each spoke that represents your satisfaction with this part of your life. for example if you are very satisfied with your spirituality you could draw a little dot on that spoke near the rim of the wheel. and if you are pretty dissatisfied with your finances you could draw a little dot near the hub of that spoke. it’s all up to you. this is our own assessment. it’s how you feel about your own life.

don’t take too long with this part of the assessment. just go with your initial gut feeling. this is just a snap shot of how you feel right where you are sitting now.

the not so true wheel

now draw a line from one dot to the next all the way around the wheel. take a good look, noticing where your wheel looks full and round and where it looks empty and flat. then imagine yourself riding about on this sort of transportation. this is your life out of balance.

notice that no matter how great you are rocking out in one area of your life, a few weak spots make the entire ride bumpy and rough. this is your life out of balance. this is your wheel untrue.

what to do?

so take a good look at those spokes and ask yourself a few questions.

• where am i rocking out?
• where am i looking flat?
• what will be a challenge to improve?
• what will be easy, given some attention?
• where will i get the most bang for my buck?

and there you go.

• your assessment. 
• your answers. 
• your wheel. 
• your life. 

where do we go from here? you can share what you discovered. and you can tune in next week, when we’ll look at some ways to approach the truing of your wheel, the healing of your life. until then you might check out the motivators, my own process of bringing balance to my own life, and of sharing whatever may be helpful in that process with whoever finds hirself in that particular node of the web.

until next time…

i heard an ad on the radio today, from an auto dealership mind you, that used that phrase. and i have to tell you, it’s starting to get on my nerves. of course i’m a yoga teacher so i’ll get over it. and this is not going to be a screed, so pull your finger away from the delete button. and still…

not that i’ve ever liked that phrase. it bugged me the first time i heard it, not a little because the person saying it is doing pretty alright, actually. nice house, nice car, nice winter coat. and suddenly the stuck market starts to let out a little gas and we are in tough economic times. well hold on a minute. where the heck were all these proclaimers of the times last year? ‘cos i seem to remember seeing a lot of people out on the street, sitting on the bus, working behind the line at dunkin donuts or any of a hundred other places where i always think to myself: 

how do these people make it? how do they pay boston rent and boston grocery prices and all the rest of it?

so suddenly we are having tough economic times?

sheesh. don’t get me started. ‘cos there’s more to this. i’m currently in prime condition to relate to financial difficulty. i’m housesitting, which is a nice way of saying that the people who are letting me live with them are out of town for the holidays. and this is not the post in which i explain what that is all about, so let’s just leave it that i’m not currently in any condition to support two households, so i’m utilizing my resources to support the one i’m not living in.

and a funny thing about that whole homeless thing. i mentioned that to a friend the other day and she said:

you’re not homeless. you can come stay here. as long as you have friends you are not homeless.

which is a nice sentiment and all, and she is a lovely dear person who would probably put me up until the end of time, or december 21st 2012, whichever comes last, and yet…if you are an able bodies adult and you don’t feel free to rearrange the furniture, change the art, and eat whatever you want from the fridge; and you aren’t paying rent or offering some sort of energy exchange that i do not have the time or inclination to offer right now ‘cos i have a life and a business to run by dunford, then you are by definition a mooch, and a homeless mooch at that, being accomodated by your friends and off the streets, perhaps, and homeless nevertheless.

or maybe you can just operate on the phrase “home is where the heart is,” and if you are at one address this week and another the next and who the hell knows where the week after that…you are homeless.

i’m not complaining

so hey, i’ve seen harder times than this. i’m warm. my belly is full. i’ve got a little bit of room left on the credit card, although they just cancelled the one that had a zero balance, sparing me the awful task of filling it up i suppose. c’est la guerre.

and this is just one of those tough economic times in my life…note personalization of phrase to my own individual situation. because here’s the thing that makes my skin crawl and my heart begin whispering “why don’t you go find a nice place to sit down and relax”:

there are people in this country who have never known anything but tough economic times. and this is the richest country on the dunfordized planet! so why the heck didn’t last year count as tough economic times. and every year before that? maybe because the majority of those people have brown skin, or are under-educated, or have bad teeth, or lost their parents at an early age, or are a little “slow”? or maybe because that’s just the story that gets told?

okay, done with screed

so like i said, i’m not complaining. i’ve been down, and i’ve been up. and like i said earlier this week…sometimes you gotta dig in deep in order to spring up high. and because i like a challenge. and mostly because i like to be reminded of just how dunfordizingly hard life is for some people. and how easy it is to forget that when the “hard economic times” isn’t being delivered to the front steps of every fourth house on main street.

and the ironic thing about the radio ad that started this whole thing is that when i heard it i was in a tacky neighborhood store that has been going out of business for the past 12 months, buying several pair of 99¢ socks so i don’t have to choose between doing laundry every five days or wearing dirty socks. and you haven’t even had a chance yet to peek into my organic everything psyche, my nice piece of hand crafted goat cheese from that boutique biodynamic dairy farm up in nosebleed vermont taste in food.

so what’s all this got to do with creative lifestyles?

okay…a little story about rowan, the precocious little three and a half year old whose favorite food is avocado maki, and who has the adorable habit, when i ask him what he wants for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, of putting a finger up to his lower lip and saying “ah…ah…ah…ah va ca do maki!” and then myself, thinking how can i explain this to him without giving him or Universe the idea that i am poor, coming up with the brilliant phrase “i don’t want to spend my money on avocado maki today. let’s have papa doup instead.” papa doup being papa’s soup, usually with some sort of lentil, and in this case butternut squash from the garden.

so then. dirt cheap and amazingly tasty. and perhaps never eaten if i’d had a few extra greenbacks burning a hole in my pocket and whispering “sushi restaurant, sushi restaurant.”

this is not a list

because how creative would that be? rather, think of some time in your life that you didn’t have enough money to buy your way out of using your heart and soul to make something up! think of how much more rich and creative your life would be  if you couldn’t solve all your problems with a credit card? and think of how much more likely it would be that all those problems would begin to look like opportunities if you didn’t have a choice in the matter!

and then think about how often you can choose creator over consumer. how easy it can be to make instead of buy. and how much more satisfying, tasty, and sexy that is. and then sit back for a second and ask yourself the question:

what are you going to do this week to elevate your creativity?  and inspire others to do the same? 

(hint: share a comment!)