Reverb10. December 13.

Action. When it comes to aspirations, its not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen. What’s your next step? (from Scott Belsky, author of Making Ideas Happen)

I am the antithesis of action. So much so that I couldn’t remember what today’s prompt was as I moved through my day. I recently put a much-loved idea on hold because I don’t have the emotional strength to get things done. There are dishes in the sink. I made a fried egg for dinner.

I keep writing and deleting this sentence. I am stuck.

I read this post by Karen Maezen Miller two weeks ago and it hit me like a 2×4 between the eyes. I have often compared being and doing, as though they are not only separate, but contradictory.  It came to mind tonight as I wallowed in self-pity before my meditation. I can’t get anything done. I’ll never get anything done. I can’t even grieve properly because I have to scramble an egg/kill an ant/beat myself up/write a blog post/worry that I will never get anything done.

It came to mind because I have to adjust my expectations and my interpretation of what counts as action. I have a list as long as my arm of everything I wanted to do tonight. I contemplated quitting Reverb10. There is an element – based in the well-intentioned and valuable idea of community building – that begins to feel to me like a popularity contest. I don’t have it in me to play the game and I struggle to stay in touch with the wonderful writers I have discovered so far.

As I sit here, writing and deleting, writing and deleting, watching the clock tick and knowing I need sleep more than anything else, I am tempted to give up. To hell with wanting to be somewhere else, do something else, be a better me. To hell with overt action of any kind. I wonder if I could do it. If I could trust myself enough to let it all go. Stop blogging for a week or a month and go to bed at 9 o’clock. Stop striving. Stop making to do lists. Stop feeling like I am never enough. Live in the moment and see what happens.

Am I making up excuses? Is my fear of failure success keeping my wings firmly clipped to my side? Maybe it’s time for another therapist, or coach, or housekeeper. I do know that as soon as I worry about how many people are reading me, or whether what I’m writing is good enough, my energy shifts and the words begin to come from my head rather than my heart. There are people who do that brilliantly. I am not one of them.

Back to the question then. What’s my next step? What do I really, really want?

It all comes back to ease. And to trust. If I can keep putting one foot in front of the other, trusting that the earth will be there to support me, trusting that my heart will lead me in the right direction, then maybe, just maybe, there will come a day when I will close my eyes to sleep and say to myself, That was a day well-lived. I did – and was – exactly enough.

Reverb10. December 11.

11 Things. What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life?(from Sam Davidson, author of 50 Things Your Life Doesn’t Need).

1. Fear. This is slightly unrealistic. There is a place for fear. It kept my ancestors from being eaten. It’s kept me out of bad situations and kept me safe in questionable places. Although I think it’s the awareness of fear that’s beneficial, more than fear itself. This fear that sneaks up on me daily is tricky. It wants to be helpful but it goes overboard and I end up shaken, my heart pounding, my brain on overload.

I struggle to let it go. I meditate. I talk to it. I resist then accept it. I ask for help. I battle it in the dark on my own. I think time,  compassion and a moment-by-moment turning toward trust, are the light I need to shine on this particular darkness. If I continue to allow grief to run its course, this fear will lessen. I wish I could snap my fingers and make it happen now.

2. Food as Comfort. In 2010 I gave up gluten. Just yesterday I was told that dairy is no longer my friend. I’m working on saying goodbye to sugar. I want to be healthy, feel healthy. I want to have boundless energy and glowing skin. I know in order to do this, the last of my bad habits has to go.

3. Exhaustion. I have not slept well in the last 5 years. Once upon a time 9 hours a night was my norm. Then life happened. Graduate school, a new baby, a teething toddler. By that time, insomnia had a firm hold. I’ve been working on this with the magician and things have improved, but I am far from the 8 hour ideal. I push myself to stay up because evenings are my time. I get to write, answer emails, tweet once or twice, meditate, maybe (gasp) have a conversation with my husband. I’m risking long term cellular damage. I eat more when it’s mid-afternoon and I’m fighting to stay awake. I’m not as patient or as fun as I’d like to be. But I don’t know how to fix it. I haven’t figured out what has to give. So I’m going to send my intention out for it to change and watch what happens.

4. Extra body weight. This is intimately connected with #2 and #3. I hold a vision of myself at my pre-mama weight, only older, wiser, and more beautiful thanks to the inner light shining through. I know I’ll get there. There are big changes happening and I trust. I trust.

5. Comparison Mind. Anyone who studies improvisational theater learns the key phrase, “yes, and…” is vital to the process. Most of us are taught, almost from birth, “no, but…” No, you can’t be you (jumping on the bed, running around naked, singing at the top of your lungs), but you can do what I want (be a good boy, dress so I’ll be admired, sit down and shut up). If I win, you lose. If you get what you want, I don’t. There’s not enough to go around. We judge and are judged on the size and price of our bodies, houses, cars, partners, the behaviors of our children. I have worked in the last years to recognize when this comes up in me and I am beginning – beginning – to be able to let it go. This kind of acceptance is another car on the Love ‘n’ Compassion train. I don’t live there, but more and more, I am enjoying the ride.

6. Unloved, Unnecessary Stuff. Enough said. Letting go…letting go…letting go…

7. Resistance. In 2011, my year of ease, I hope to recognize more quickly when I am paddling upstream, when I am fighting what is, when I am absent from the moment. Once recognized, I’m gonna turn that boat around and float. Like my canoe on the Yukon River in the summers of my early twenties, I’m going to enjoy the sunshine, make sure I’m pointed in the right direction, and float.

8. Excessive pet hair. Love my pets. Hate their hair. Sigh. Maybe it’s time for a new vacuum.

9. Incompletes. Hanging over my head are emails and phone calls that haven’t been returned, truths that haven’t been told, love that hasn’t been given. 2011 will be the year when I purposefully close doors that have been left open just enough to suck energy and return stale air. It’s time.

10. The sense that I’m constantly behind. I might be, I might not be. I’m not sure it matters. I want to step into acceptance, into trust, into doing what feels joyful. Whether it’s cleaning toilets, playing with my daughter, wishing on a star or sitting to write, I want to live with the deep knowing that I am in the right place, at the right time.

11. Scarcity mentality. Abundance is where it’s at. I don’t mean money necessarily. I mean everything. Where my glass used to be half empty, it’s now three-quarters full. That’s been a massive internal shift. But I’m ready to take it further. I’m ready to live from the overflow.

Reverb10. December 10.

Wisdom. What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out? (from Susannah Conway)

I am at a point in my spiritual journey where I am unable to simply see life as life. I see everything as a lesson to be learned, a gift to be opened, evidence of the Divine at work. I have no idea whether this is good or bad, helpful or torture. When Benjamin died, my head and heart kept volleying possible answers to why? I continue to unravel it, moment by moment. I don’t believe there is a definitive answer, though part of me hunts for it constantly, argues it like a dog gnawing a bone. It’s not that I need a reason for his death. Something was wrong. His body stopped. My body let go. Placental abruption. Surgery. The end of the physical story, the beginning of the metaphysical one. What I want, what I know I can’t have, is an answer that tells me in clear, well-defined terms how to prevent this kind of pain from happening again.

There are as many ways to grieve as there are humans grieving. The decision I am the most grateful to have made this year was to allow grief to wash over and through me. To allow the fallout from Ben’s death to slow me down, open me up, reel me in. I gave myself permission to feel it, to turn grief over in my hands and examine it. I believe that stepping into grief will allow me to step into myself and I am doing my best to honor what comes up.

Four and a half months into this process it is more difficult to create the space for myself. The pain is not as intense, the sadness is no longer my constant companion. Life gets busy. I have found ways to commit to the process and I wish I could do  more. I resist my limitations and frustration mounts. Then I remember to turn in the direction of trust and know, on the deepest level I am aware of, that all is as it should be. All is well.

Then I remember that I know nothing, so I’d better enjoy the heck out of now.

Reverb10. December 8.

Beautifully different. Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different – you’ll find they’re what make you beautiful. (from Karen Walrond, author of The Beauty of Different)

I am procrastinating on this one. Avoiding it like it’s the stomach flu. It makes me want to crawl out of my skin. I am curious about my reaction. If I believe that each of us is a miracle, that every single person born has a unique gift, a purpose, then I too, must be different in a worthy, beautiful way.

I think, Well, I’m a really great mama, and the voice in my  head pipes in with, Yes, but there are mamas who are more patient, more knowledgeable, more creative, more active.

I think, I’m one half of a marriage that’s been rebuilt from ashes, and the voice says, Sure, but what about that makes you beautifully different?

I think, I have a huge heart and an almost limitless capacity for holding space for other people’s emotions and the voice replies, So? Why didn’t you become a therapist after all?

I think, My baby died and I’m allowing that experience to open me up instead of shutting me down.

Okay, the voice says, you’ve got me there. But you’re not the only one.

No. No, I’m not. But I’m the only one doing it my way. And that, I tell the voice, is beautiful.