friday afternoon update! 12: brand new baby

isn’t my new year the most beautiful thing ever?

ah, well, uh, no actually. it’s a little bit smooshy and alien looking. and it seems to need an awful lot of support and guidance!

well yes, i suppose that is all true. still yet, it is my brand new baby, and i think it’s the most beautiful thing ever! and you just wait ’til it grows up a bit. you’ll be eating those words for lunch. and since there is absolutely no substance to them, you’ll be awfully hungry when you are finished!

okay. can we move on?

well that’s the point, isn’t it? fresh brand new years are all about moving on, shaking off the dust, kicking life in the ass…well…maybe we can skip that last one. and you get my point. we are in the season of moving on, new beginnings, and all that stuff you get bombarded with every year about this time. 

and of course it’s the season of good intentions and promises to do better this time around. and as we all know, we can’t live on good intentions, and promises offered are not promises delivered. and enthusiasm is great for getting on the road, yet…especially this bloody cold time of year…it’s always a good idea to check the tires and the fluids before taking the car out for a big trip. it’s good to have some sort of map and get your vehicle pointed in the right direction. and it’s good to have a full tank of gas, and enough cash or credit to keep yourself in gas for the whole journey.

enough metaphors already! let’s get on with it!

well hold on a second. do you want to make it to the end of the year with a sense of that rocked! or do you want to find yourself in a ditch about january 14, and then limp along for 50 more weeks until you can start dreaming about how great 2010 is going to be?

okay…and make it short!

okay then. let’s look at just a few principles that play into this whole resolution disaster we run into most years, and then we’ll look at the week that was. and rather than trying to be a completist, i’m just going to lay out two things you’ll want to look at if you are hoping to make some changes, or bring something new into your life:

1. it’s hard to carry something new when your hands are full.
2. it’s hard to fill in up an emptiness without acknowledging that you have one.

looking at both of those ideas a little closer we may be able to increase the odds that you can be the change you want to see in 2009. are you in?

a handful of oranges

imagine that you are standing in the middle of your kitchen with a handful of oranges. and your best friend walks in and offers you an apple. how are you going to take that apple without letting go of an orange or two? i suppose you could make like a roasted pig and say

stick it in my mouth.

and then where would you be? aside from the fact that the fate of a roasted pig is probably not high on your list of hopes and dreams for 2009. well…you could probably get one good bite out of that apple, before it falls to the floor, bruised and dirty. and then where would you be? still standing in the kitchen with a handful of oranges. still wanting that apple…with just a taste in your mouth. and perhaps thinking…

i should have given up one of those oranges!

yep. it’s just one of those things. you have to let something go in order to take something else. and i suppose you could be very clever and eat one of those oranges in order to free up your hands to take on that apple. and that would be a bit gluttonous, don’t you think? and we’re back at that roasted pig metaphor again.

please, don’t make me think of roasted pigs!

okay then. let’s move on to point number 2. say you are standing in that same kitchen with nothing in your hands. and nothing in your belly. and say that same best friend walks in with a basket full of apples. hell, it’s the holiday season…let’s make it a full on fruit basket…apples and oranges and pomegranates and kiwis and bananas and whatever the hell other kind of fruit seems tasty and nourishing to your poor empty belly.

and let’s just say that you are either ignorant of your own needs, or that you have a habit of denying your own neediness, because you think that acknowledging your needs makes you weak, or greedy, or self centered, or some other idea that gets in  the way of you getting present with the reality of your situation.

so if your friend offers you something you just say

that’s okay. i’m not hungry.

or if your friend doesn’t offer you anything you just ignore that lovely basket of fruit along with your own inner hunger. and of course if a fruit basket doesn’t do it for you, you can always imagine a bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich, or a nice piece of chocolate. or some good lovin’. whatever it is that you are lacking. whatever it is that you are craving. whatever it is that you need.

now let’s see if i can tie this all together!

so on monday morning i came up with three different sorts of things to look at this week.

1. some general observations about my life
2. front-loading 2009
3. what the heck about this week?

and now that it is friday (woo hoo! it’s friday! time to start the weekend that follows the mid-week weekend!) i will fill you in a bit on how all of those things played out. and then see about that tying it all together thing.

of motivators and growing up in public

i don’t know what i was thinking when i mentioned that i needed to find a good time to write my monday morning motivator prior to monday morning…i’m working to make my life less of a specific calendarized list of things to do, and more of a thematic flow. so it should have been pretty obvious that once i finish the friday update i am free to start in on that monday thing. so somewhere between friday afternoon and monday morning. mission accomplished!

and on a personal note i am definitely digging deeper and reaching higher. eventually my hands will meet my feet! and it has indeed been a week of opening up more and more, exposing more and more of my complete lack of ability to do almost anything on my own. and placing myself at the mercy of Universe in her many guises. acknowleding the heartache that has led me to my current situation as the homeless provider of a household in which i no longer live. taking deep breaths just writing those words. and overwhelmingly grateful for all the aspects of myself (friends local and remote, living and dead, manifesting themselves physically as well as digitally) that have taken the time to check in with me and offer support.

and day by day i am finding it easier to express my needs and my emptiness to a wider and wider net of astounding individuals. thanks to all of you.

of themes inside of themes

having decided to let go of the overly specific lists of things to do in favor of a more thematic approach to my life, i front-loaded my theme for ’009 on monday: self healing. and then i popped out a list of different ways to approach that journey. and if you have any thoughts about that i would absolutely love to hear them, as this is the framework for approaching my year, 2009, the year of self healing. at press time on monday i had a list of 16…and i’ve added a few to that list during the present week:

• vulnerability
• honesty
• passion
• comfort
• trust
• education
• awareness

which brings me to 23 weeks of themes regarding self healing. and i can see now that this is indeed going to be an amazing year.

of magical theater productions

as i mentioned on monday there were some things that i was working on to keep a good focus on ending the year in style and getting this new baby off to the best start. simple things like visioning my new year each morning after my standard morning pages and heart meditation, and the ritual act of growing my beard for a week and then shaving it off on the morning of the first before taking a drive up north for some great yoga, and then heading back to boston to cook up some hoppin’ john and bottle some kombucha. and of course now i have the last kombucha of ’08 to drink for the next 10 days, and then the first brew of the year the 10 days after that! 

so obviously i am loading everything up with intention this year. intent on making this my most intended year ever. and i was wanting to talk about a couple of other things that will just have to wait ’til monday, because this has dragged on for far too long already!

so what can you tell me about then ending/beginning of your year in 1500 words or less?

and of course if you have any ideas about more healing agents to add to my list…

until next week…