The Joy Project

I know, I haven't posted in a really long time, and if any one reads this, I will be flattered.

This has been a hard winter (and it is still winter, so it is still hard). Finding a way to be joyful has been a challenge, and I've needed a little (read a lot) of help. My friend Ebba suggested I try writing down everything that is a blessing (or a joy) in my life and put it in a mason jar, to be read next New Year's Eve. I loved the idea, but lacked the mason jar.

For the wedding, I painted a tree and thought to have it be my guest book by having people hang tags off the "branches" to create leaves. In the chaos of preparation, I couldn't find it or forgot about it or something, so my tree went unused.

One day, contemplating what to do with this tree and all of the "leaves" I had made, I realized it was a perfect fit for my joy project. So I started recording my little joys on the cards I had cut out, and started growing the leaves of my tree with the moments that have brought me joy this winter.

Is it a perfect solution? No. Like I said, this has been a hard winter. Is it something I love to look at when I'm feeling a little down? Absolutely. I love this project for so many reasons, including it is something entirely crafted by me (and my husband who helped cut out the tags for it).

So Ebba, thank you for the idea. Peter, thank you for helping make the tags. Life, thank you for having moments of joy to record.

Pictures I wanted to Add to Pinterst

Sorry about using this as a place to post some pictures. If you read this, and if you hate me for it, I'm sorry.

If you like the pictures, thank you. These are a few things I did for my wedding in September. Posting them online is more fun than reading about Body Mass Index as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and death.

My life lately: Stressful. I wish I had more willpower for writing about it, but graduate school is occupying most of my brain space. I love grad school, and it is the hardest thing I have undertaken to date. This includes the 50 mile run in August, and the 4 day back packing trip with my husband.

I promise someday, I'll come back regularly and write about the juicy life.

Love,
Diana

Life on Purpose

I've been stuck on my purpose lately.

About eight months ago, one of my coaching friends suggested my purpose was to love. I was struggling with an idea of community, helping, health, and wellness, and she boiled it down to the word love. Love is a nice purpose. Love is the sort of purpose one can lean on, put weight into. Having a purpose of love is unselfish. Love is something we are supposed to give unconditionally. Love is a grand purpose. Even last week, I was looking at love as my purpose. I was questioning love as the real bottom line of my purpose, but I was willing to continue walking with it,

Yesterday, I was talking to a close friend about purpose. I asked her what she thought her purpose might be. Most people don't know immediately, so when she answered in that vein, I started asking her about what she was engaged in when she felt like life was just plain easy. Her answer threw me for a loop. I was digging for a "grand" answer, something like love. Her answer: taking care of herself.

My initial reaction was surprise. I was caught up in thinking that purpose had to be selfless; something that ended up serving humanity on a"grand" scale. My purpose, after all, was to love! As we talked more, I kept trying to find ways to frame her answers in a way that would help develop a "grand" statement, but I failed and failed and finally came to the conclusion I must be in the wrong.

I had a psychology professor who once said "Feelings are." What my professor meant was you feel what you feel, and there is no wrong way to feel about something; the statement went along with idea of not shoulding on one's self. I realized purpose must be very similar. There is no ideal purpose for every person, and there is no reason for my expectations for a definition of purpose limit someone else in her search for purpose.

After this conversation, I spent the rest of my day at orientation for my master's program. I loved it. I enjoyed meeting my new peers, my new mentors, my new program. I loved being in an environment where people were talking about research, ideas, and their passion for exploration. I was excited, I was stimulated, I was engaged in ways I never expected to be. Life was clicking along. I met another friend for tea after orientation, and told the girl behind the counter I was "sparkling... " and then added a bit sarcastically "like a vampire" when I realized how over-the-top happy I sounded.  

I don't remember the last time I felt like I was living my purpose. Trying to love all my clients: impossible. Trying to love everyone I pass on the street: exhausting. Living in a learning environment: easy.

I knew this love thing wasn't working, but it sounded good; too good, in fact. I'm going to try out a new purpose for a while: to learn. I started to try to expand it to include something about the good of humanity, but it started to take on that hollow tone again. Keep purpose simple was the primary point in my coach training. While it may not sound as selfless and giving as "to love", I think "to learn" fits me a little more closely.

I'd rather focus on loving the people I want to love any way.

I think my friend whose purpose is to take care of herself is on to something. The whole point of purpose work is to get to the heart of how we want to live. I believe in doing my part for the good of humanity, but it is much easier to do that when I'm living my true purpose, and not trying to live up to some "grand" ideal I've set for myself.

Yours, in learning,
Diana

Get Big

I rode horses (and if you would care to argue the point, I rode the best horses) for years. We had a phrase: Get Big. A horse getting big was a thrill, but you had to get just as big as the horse, otherwise, you'd end up somewhere in the dirt. Getting Big wasn't so dangerous as it was focused.

Here is what you need to know: when a horse Gets Big, you have to make the decision to Get Big back, or back the horse down. If you back the horse down, the ride sort of falls apart. Nothing technical may go wrong, but it won't be anything special. If you decide to Get Big too, you are in for the ride of a life time.

Tomorrow starts a stretch of time I have put a lot of stock into for most of this year. In the next 30 days, I will start (and hopefully finish) an ultra marathon, I will start my MS in Epidemiology, I will turn 30, and I will get married. My therapists likes to joke about me adding a few things, just for the heck of it. I think Life just Got Big.

It's time to Get Big back. To accomplish this, I have to stay focused, but I also have to let the ride unfold on it's own. In the keenest sense of the words: I get to sit back and enjoy the ride, while staying present to direct it. I can be scared to death and have the time of my life in the same moment.

The crazy thing about Getting Big: you can never truly be prepared for it, because it happens in it's own time. The first question a lot of people ask when they find out I'm running a 50 mile race is "How do you prepare for that?" Have I trained? Yes. Have I trained hard? Yes. Do I feel prepared? Not in the least. The same goes for my masters, for marriage, and for all of the other things life could possibly throw at me.

Tomorrow morning at 7:40, the starting gun will go off, and I will have to push aside all the fear and doubt I have about running 50 miles, and just go. While most of the runners there will be simply starting a race, I'm going to be starting the ride of a life time. I'd better Get Big, or get left behind in the dirt somewhere.

Love,
Diana

Surrendering and Purpose

Sorry to be absent for a long time. I was on vacation, and I guess I needed a break from writing.

This morning, when writing for what I am grateful on my chalkboard, I made a mistake. With chalk, of course, you can erase mistakes easily, but I hesitated before grabbing the eraser. Sometimes mistakes are a great way to learn something about ourselves if we take a moment with them.

I started writing "I am grateful for Good Conversations..." but Good came out God. Essentially, I caught myself writing I am grateful for God. I don't like the concept God. I haven't liked it since I was ten, and 19 years of not liking an idea makes it difficult to appreciate. That doesn't mean I don't believe in a higher power. I just don't like the limited view a lot of western religion takes on God.

In the past few years, I found myself looking for a little more spiritual grounding. I really like the Dali Lama as a spiritual leader; his big thing is kindness, and I have been saying for years one doesn't need the threat of damnation to be kind. My take on life: you get out of it what you put into it. You put kindness and love in to the world, and people are going to respond in kind.

I've been reading a great deal lately, mostly because this is my last shot to read only what I want to read for a while. I've been drawn to writers like Deepak Chopra and Caroline Myss. I have had more interesting revelations in the last two months than most people have in a lifetime. I keep getting stuck on one point: Surrender to the path God has laid out for you.

I'm a pretty staunch believer in free will. A "Damn it I am in control of my life and if you don't believe me I will starve myself for a day to prove it" sort of staunch believer. This idea that some great big man in the sky has something laid out for me like an outfit for the first day of school: it annoys me. I know there is value in it, because people wouldn't write extensively about it if there wasn't, but I can't accept it on those terms.

In life coaching, we learn about something called "purpose". Purpose is the one thing that directs everything in your life. If you are living in your purpose, life feels like it is clicking along, you are successful, you are happy, you are able to live the way you feel you need to live. If you are living in ways that contradict your purpose, you feel alone, stressed, exhausted, and generally ill at ease. Don't ask me why, but I love the idea of purpose. Purpose is something I can get behind 100%, and if you ask me, I will tell you my purpose is to love (I'm not totally sure this is the right word, it might be respect).

How is this different from surrendering to God's will? I can't say it is. In fact, I'm pretty sure it is the same thing. Isn't living my purpose going to put me on some sort of path I might not have total control over? I'm going to make an experiment, and see if I can't insert the word purpose for God now and then. If I can more easily accept what I'm being presented with, I will know in my life, purpose and God are one and the same. Maybe purpose is given to us by God, but I'm still a little uncomfortable with that relationship.

It also could be the word surrender. It is possible I haven't totally disassociated the word from the idea of giving up. This step is going to be a challenge for me no matter how I dissect it, so I might as well stop trying to think it through and start trying to live it. I'm going to surrender to my purpose.

Which, if to love really is my purpose, is a pretty appealing thing to do.

Love,
Diana

Mourning Sexy (A Follow Up to Power)

I've been doing a head stand every morning for the last week.

Now that I've got that off my chest, I want to continue the idea of power from the last entry I wrote. I mentioned images, history, and ideas to which I give my power. I'm diligently working with these images and ideas, finding ways to strip away the power I've given to them. This process is hit or miss right now. I caught a tag line of a research article that mentioned women felt sexiest at 28 years old, and I realized how unsexy I feel now I'm almost 30. I have mentioned this to a few people, who always reply with "but you are so pretty", which I don't really care for. What I really need is a day at the spa. Once a month. And some clothes that make me feel like a girl, instead of a massage therapist. And to be 28 again.

So here I am, having taken power away from the composite image of me at 28, and given it all to the age of 28. When I was 28, I had monthly skin care, haircuts, and money in the bank. When I was 28, I wore cute clothes to work, and people told me I looked amazing all the time. When I was 28, I lived on my own, covered my own bills, and discovered the joy of thighs that don't rub together all the time (short lived, and always longed for). Monday, I caught myself telling my amazing fiance how much I missed my old life. I think I was trying to make an argument for the importance of manicures, but still, it was a bit shit-headed of me.

I had this snarky thought last night: I wonder how many women choose to have babies around thirty because they need something to make themselves feel substantial again.

So the question becomes, why am I giving this loss of sexiness any power? Why do I keep returning to this period of my life where I distinctly didn't have it all together, but didn't care all that much? Why does this matter now? I don't know. I don't know, but I do know I need to stop mourning how I used to be, and start embracing the good stuff I have now.

One year, my friend's mom made her family write down 100 things for which they were grateful as a Thanksgiving ritual. I remember there being complaints, but I also remember a little notebook that slowly filled with everything from the funny to the poignant. This exercise ended up being brilliant. In a similar fashion, last week (when I was so jazzed about self-compassion), I wrote a list of what was really important, and my thighs that didn't rub together: not on that list. Skin care: not on that list. Okay, so maybe skin care should be... but I don't should myself, right?

So here is my plan for taking my power back from the 28 year old powerhouse I was:

1. When I get down about what I used to be, I'm going to give myself a hug, remind myself that it is hard losing someone we loved,  there is still someone here who matters a lot, and that someone is probably still pretty awesome.

2. There is a chalk board hanging in the kitchen. I'm going to write something I'm grateful for every morning. Not only is the appeal of writing on the chalk board undeniable, it is a quick, easy thing to check off my to-do list, right after I do my head stand. This keeps me mindful of being grateful.

3. I am going to get a manicure in the near future.

Simple enough, and I already feel a little better about the situation. So maybe I will never feel the power of being sexy like I did when I was 28, but maybe that isn't the only thing about myself I can put stock in. Intelligence is at the top of that list right now, but I'm willing to take suggestions.

Love,
Diana

Thinking about Power

I just started reading Caroline Myss' book Anatomy of the Spirit.

The forward alone started to make me think, but the guts of the book are really forcing me to examine how I've been feeding my energy. The piece that is really sticking with me today is the understanding that where we find our source of power is where our energy flows. If you want to take the new age approach, our life force flows that way, if you want to take a conventional look  at energy: effort.

I haven't written in a while. I was feeling depressed, anxious, and all around exhausted. I would try to sit down and write something positive about life, but everything was coming out muddled and ridiculous. I was trying to make valid points, but I kept hitting a superficial layer, missing what I really wanted to get to. Two things happened last week that made a difference:

1. My psychologist recommended a book called Self-Compassion by Dr. Kristin Neff. Normally I would say I try to practice self-compassion, but for what ever reason was stuck in a place of self-contempt. I have not read the book, but there is a great deal of information on the website (self-compassion.org), including exercises for developing it, and videos that cover a lot of Dr. Neff's findings. Immediately I was reminded how much better I felt when I approached myself with a little bit of caring-concern, versus mental brutality (also, I am going to read the book, probably next).

2. I started reading Anatomy of the Spirit. I immediately realized if I am going to work through this depressive period, I need to figure out what external source is sapping my energy, stealing my focus, and draining my energy. Myss asserts often past experiences are a power symbol for us, or some sort of trigger, imbued with symbols we associate with power. I'm starting to see emotional ties to past experiences and images I hold of myself. I say things like "I want to be the person I was last year, she had it together".

For what ever reason, slowly over the last few months, I started devoting more of my energy and emotional space to the image I hold of myself from a year ago. Of course, I have taken one snapshot of my life last year, and attributed the things I consider to be my best qualities, and given all of those qualities to that one mental image of me. Essentially, I've been screaming "You were perfect last year!" at myself for the last three months, which is so far from the truth it is almost embarrassing.

I'm going to stop fooling myself now. I'm going to practice speaking nicely to myself (haven't I said this before?), having a little more compassion for myself and others, and I'm going to stop remembering how I was perfect last year, when I really was not. I'm going to focus my energy on the things that matter: building a home full of love, making the changes I want to see in me, and enjoying myself in the process. You can't force a butterfly to emerge from a cocoon, but watching the butterfly emerge at its own pace is a beautiful process. I'm going to give myself a power image of a butterfly. It sounds hokey, but I'm in a stage of transition, and I'm going to focus on the beauty that is currently unfolding.

Love,
Diana