Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Six Months

So this it. I've reached the six month goal that I set. And if I've noticed one major change recently it's that I've become more goal oriented. Achieving goals does that to you.

I've always been pretty suspicious of goal directed living. It smells to me of meritocracy. And I always worry that when one gets too focussed on goals one can so easily forget to take the time to just be.

At the same time there is an undeniable energy that comes from a life of action. It's a more manic energy. Or at least it feels like that to me today. So it's important to remember to take the time to breathe and make sure ones actions are coming from a relaxed intuitive place.

The great gift that this six months has given me, I think, it that it has helped me develop the habit of bookending my days with nurturing relaxed time. Standing in the morning. Early, quiet sleeptime in the evening. I want to be more active, but I don't want the habits of action to lead me into debilitating stress.

It's good to focus on the next small action, on the present moment. It's good to be organized in one's thinking and one's life. It's good, however, and really important to be able to take the time to feel the big picture.

I had a moment the other day: "Pre dawn purple sky. Birds up. What's going to happen with my life. Oh right, this is my life."

Monday, March 8, 2010

Finishing

I'm coming towards my goal, and I feel myself tempted to undermine my efforts. Cutting my meditation shorter. Starting to think of other things I might do in this morning time (morning pages.)

This is a typical pattern for me. I don't bring the project to its completion, and then I don't really feel the rewards and the energy that comes from achieving a goal. Instead of petering out though. I'm going to really put some energy into making this last month one that's filled with good oxytocin highs. Just the earlier dawn is making this cycle feel like a flourishing one. I'm also going to try to draw the energy from this completed project into the beginning of my next blog project. Getting the damn house clean.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

how I've really changed

So I'm nearing the six month mark of my project. I'm not exactly the massive energy magnet that I envisioned. I'm not richer, or demonstrably more successful when I was when I started out.

But I've changed in a fundamental way, I think.

I've changed by re-framing my desire to change. I don't meditate anymore to change, I meditate to be conscious and aware that the life I have and the being that I am is sufficient. Paradoxically, being aware of my sufficiency seems to make that energy grow more quickly and more strongly than if I'm conscious of what I lack and try to get "more."

This doesn't mean that I've given up action. But my action is motivated by wanting to change the world so that it will allow people to be what they are, and be more accepting. I'll have to think about that a little more. But my philosophy, my vision of life is changing.

My dream is changing.