Gaining Perspective by Breaking the Routine

I'm leaving for California today and I feel happy to go. I enjoy my life and all my projects at home but the promise of a break from all my routines is appealing right now. I have been focused on a number of projects and taking space from all of them right now is a great opportunity to create distance from them and change my perspective.

Working on something day after day creates a routine, and I usually develop a particular way of thinking about what I'm doing. I may think of it as helping someone, I may feel pressure to perform at a certain level of mastery to satisfy someone besides myself with high expectations, I may fall into an inner child habit of trying to prove myself by creating something special, or I may unconsciously be trying to complete it as quickly as possible so I can get onto other things. It doesn't really matter what frame of mind I have when I engage with my various projects. What matters is how consciously I engage with them.

When I engage consciously with a project, I don't get obsessed with doing it right, proving myself, feeling pressure to complete it right away, feeling pressure to create something magnificent and impressive rather than doing something that I like, or getting compulsive about working at it as much as possible. When I am working consciously, I balance what I do on this project with what I am doing on other projects and what's happening in my personal life. When I stay conscious, I feel like I have time for everything I want to do and take time for myself.

So, taking a trip right now gives me the opportunity to stop what I'm doing and see how everything looks when I'm not caught up in the middle of it. I have an opportunity to gain some perspective about what's important to me right now, whether I have been living and working in balance. I have the opportunity for reflection. I can think about all that I'm doing at a distance for a while, and see what comes up as I think about other things.

I'm vacating the daily routine and entering a novel environment for a week. I'm curious to see what visions and decisions come from taking time to nourish other aspects of my life.

A Young Man Emerging

I'm getting ready for a trip to California. It's not exactly a vacation even though I'll be driving there with my family. My wife and I are taking our daughter back to college after spring break and taking our son to visit some colleges in southern California. We're only visiting 3 colleges on this trip so it won't be rushed or hectic. We've given the 1,000 mile drive there and the 1,100 mile drive back two days, so even the driving can be relaxed.

I'm curious to see how my son likes the three schools. We visited one east coast school with him in February and he didn't like it enough to consider applying. He's familiar with the southern California lifestyle because two of his grandparents live there and an uncle, so he's visited there frequently. I would be happy to have him choose a school in southern California or somewhere else equally close because it would be easy for me to visit and for him to come home when he wants.

As a father, I have a desire to help him find a school, but I don't have an agenda for him. I would like to see him get interested in or excited about something so that he can feel inspired by and connected with others. I only imagine that it would be fun for him, although I don't really know that for sure. I guess what I want is for him to be happy and feel fulfilled in life. That's not something that I can help him do. I have that feeling in my life, and he is starting his own adventure to discover what kind of life he wants.

I have an incredible opportunity to walk along with him as he starts out, participating in a supporting role as he takes the lead. I am still tempted to think of him as the young boy he was rather than see the young man who is emerging. I guess it's more comfortable to perceive his history rather than observe the man who is finding his way. However, relating to him as he is each moment, as dynamic as his being is right now, is much more interesting to me. I hardly know what to expect, so all there is to do is watch, listen and love him.

Finding Heaven in the Greenbelt

A clear morning in Santa Fe, I watched the almost full moon setting in a pastel pink and blue sky on the western horizon as I walked with my dog. Beneath the pastels, a ridge of extinct volcanic cones were rimmed with sunlight as the sun rose, creating a lovely southwestern scene.

The day is full of possibilities when nothing has been decided, no direction taken. My mind fleetingly fills with reminders of a few things that must be accomplished today. At this stage, the possibilities still seem endless. I can do what I want today starts to shape itself into all the tasks and activities that I've already decided I want to do sometime soon. The open-ended potential I feel when walking in the greenbelt in the morning doesn't last through the day, but the feeling of excitement and anticipation often does.

I can recall feeling frustrated during days when I went off to work, feeling like my time was not my own and that my life was dictated by the demands of the job or schedule I was living. In that context, having a day off or a weekend to do what I wanted, even if that was simply doing chores around the house, felt like a relief and a vacation. In many ways, every day is like that for me, now.

I have projects that I'm completing, so there are many tasks that need to get done. However, I feel personally involved with each project that I'm doing. I chose the project and care about it. So, there is nothing about any of these projects that I do that feels imposed or dictated by others. I feel responsible and proud to be involved. So, any task that arises is personal and I feel like I'm choosing to do it rather than being forced to. To me, that makes a big difference in the way I feel about myself and what I'm doing.

Walking the dog could be thought of as a chore, an activity that no one else wants to do so I got stuck with it. However, I love walking in the greenbelt and watching the day awaken. I pick up pebbles along the trail and put them in my pocket because my dog's paws have gotten tender as he's aged. I drop the pebbles on my driveway when we get back to my house, filling in the areas on the gravel that are sparsely covered. It's a bit child-like, but I enjoy the simple routine. Sharing my morning adventure with my dog makes it even more valuable and significant for me.

The activities with which I engage each day are colored by the intention and context I bring to them. The pleasure or suffering I experience while doing them is my creation, evolving from the way I perceive my participation. I experience heaven when I consciously choose to be where I am.

What Now!

I am sitting at my desk, typing these words, being present with myself. I see that being present is about trust. Rather than trying to bring continuity into the present and future through referencing the past, being present is simply being open to all that is taking place right now. The fact that I taught physics and mathematics for 20 years doesn't matter right now. My having trained as a hypnotherapist is not relevant in this moment. My family history and the programming that I received from the Catholic Church is not what's coming to mind right now.

Being present is trusting that all that I've experienced, everything that I've learned, all my dreams, every success and failure I've had, my relationships, friendships, feelings, thoughts and aspirations are present in so far as they are relevant in this very moment. Responding to the present involves all of me, the whole person that I am. I don't have to track which of my interests are being engaged by my current activity so that I can plan future activities from my remaining interests, thereby insuring that I use all of myself.

It reminds me of the saying that we use less than 5% of our brain, which is patently not true. All of our brain is active all of the time, less so when we're asleep, but still all the cells and neurons are active. What people were trying to express through that phrase is that we don't use our brain optimally. We don't tap into the enormous potential that the brain has for creative thinking, reasoning and extraordinary activities like psychokinesis and intuitive communication. Likewise, I don't tap the extraordinary potential of the present when I focus on making sure that I continue as I always have, cluttering my present with all the baggage of my past.

Everything I want and need is available in the present when I am open and available. And what do I want and need now? Apparently, breathing in and breathing out satisfies me for the moment. That will change and the day will progress as I interact and respond. Being present means letting go of who I was and whatever was compelling, yesterday, so that I can discover who I am and what compels me now.

Other People's Business

A lot of change is taking place in my life. Just when I thought I knew what I wanted, opportunities arose that are altering the landscape of my reality. I thought I wanted to focus on music, and I do. However, having the opportunity to help someone grow a business interested me. I am exploring territory that always seemed remote and foreign to me. When I was growing up, running a business didn't appeal to me, probably because it appeared to be the domain of the wealthy, the people who had capital to invest in a business. As a high school and college student, business seemed to be a field for people who didn't know what else to do. In the eyes of academia, it looked like selling out, living in a world of application, manipulation and selfishness.

It seems appropriate that I get to have some experience with a different model of doing business. I am working with artists and musicians who want to share their creations with the world in exchange for a living. I am experiencing a world in which creativity and practicality are trying to achieve a balance, and since I am also attempting to balance being creative with practicality, I feel right at home.

Perhaps the main attraction of working this way, in addition to my own creative expression, is that I get to interact in meaningful ways with friends and colleagues with whom I enjoy working. I have felt somewhat isolated since I quit working in social occupations like teaching and counseling. I have missed the contact and the camaraderie of working with others, and this is not rocket science, where the learning curve is steep and the personal responsibility for the project so critical. This feels more natural and meandering, like a stream of consciousness that leads through fields, forests and meadows as it gradually finds its way. I like the pace and I enjoy the process. Who knew that I was interested in other people's business!

The Sanctity of What Is

Today, I meet with a friend with whom I have business relationship. I designed and maintain his website, now he wants me to handle the orders for his products. I don't normally think of myself as a business person, but I am interested in helping him launch his business. I will add a shopping cart to his website and handle the orders. It's pretty basic; when an order comes, I process it and send the manufacturing order to the company who manufactures the product. They will manufacture it, then ship it to the customer. I simply monitor the process to make sure that the product is manufactured and shipped to the customer in a timely manner.

The reason I'm making note of this in my journal is to bring the meeting into the foreground in my consciousness. I have been focused on music, creating web designs, and my family rather intensely, so I have designs, family matters and music running in my head. However, this morning is an opportunity to consider something different, a partnership that is creative and relational. I believe that my meeting must be the best opportunity available to me this morning, so I want to take full advantage of it.

I am again faced with a situation in which knowledge of online marketing and product placement would be useful. I have not researched online marketing and search engine optimization, although I am interested to know how it works. It seems to me that knowing how this works would help my clients who are selling products on their websites. It may also help my wife and I understand how her website could be more useful to her visitors and customers.

During the past few years, I have recommended that my clients hire someone who can help them with online marketing and search engine optimization. One of them made a great connection with a marketing expert, but the others didn't. I would like to understand how this works so that I can, at least, make my web designs compatible with marketing needs while optimizing whatever makes the site search engine friendly. I realize that designing websites without taking marketing and search engines into account is like teaching football players how to play offense and score touchdowns without teaching any defense. By focusing only on the design and implementation of the website, I'm not taking the whole picture into account. I create designs that are user friendly, but do the search engines find them and list them?

I see that I can bring another dimension of my design work to the table when I familiarize myself with the business principles involved. It seems that my soul wants me to recognize the value, importance and sanctity of what emerges from what I choose to do. This is a first for me. I haven't even put holiness and business together in the same sentence before now, so considering search engine optimization as making my web design work whole, or holy, is new for me.

Happy Anticipation

It snowed in Santa Fe last night. What a welcome and beautiful blessing for our parched lands. I can just feel the cells inside the trees and grasses dancing with joy at the sudden presence of moisture. I can feel my own cells celebrating the moisture.

Yesterday, I wrote about expectations and not wanting to limit what's possible in my life by not being able to dream big enough. As I walked in the snow this morning, I thought about how I didn't really expect it to snow overnight. In terms of what I wrote yesterday, this snow is a miracle, a sudden breakthrough beyond what I expected. It demonstrated for me how my tendency is towards low expectations, as though anticipating what I want to happen would only lead to disappointment. In other words, I seem to be cautious. I have been disappointed many times in my life and I seem to have developed the expectation that my life will not turn out the way I hope. That feels like the way this works in me. I have become more concerned about not feeling disappointment again than about making my dreams come true.

It helps to know how my inner child's fearful nature manifests on a daily basis. Knowing that he is afraid to anticipate wonderful outcomes, I realize that I have to consciously focus on what I want and what I hope will happen. I want to be open to surprises and miracles. I want to invite the possibility that outcomes can be better and greater than I even imagined. I want to feel excited by each new project and opportunity rather than give into feelings of dread that something terrible will happen, again.

I noticed this morning that my feelings about the website project I'm doing tend towards fear rather than pleasure or excitement. My inner child is afraid that I won't come up with a pleasing design, so I will feel embarrassed as well as be a failure. Of course, he doesn't understand creativity so he thinks that not having a design yet is the same as failure. How can I enjoy the creative process with his fear dominating the emotional landscape? However, just like the snow this morning, I will come up with a design that I like. I have the opportunity to enjoy the process this time rather than ride the waves of fear then relief that my inner child employs. This is another way I can presence myself in my life and break old patterns which are upsetting and which I no longer need or enjoy.

I'll let you know how it goes.