Sunday, May 27, 2012

Increase

Running in the mornings now.  Have I abandonned standing? 

I love running.  I love the feeling of increase, the oxygen in my gut,  the concrete and simple goals, the future vision of myself, stronger, leaner, faster.  I see this as a natural extension of my standing practice.  For years I cultivated discipline, tolerance of pain, perseverance.  And now I have a base for running.

The challenge is to keep pushing myself further.  Get to the 40 minutes I used to aim for with standing.  Then beyond.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Stress

So I've finally resolved the stressful situation with my landlord.  We have another year here and six months rent coming to us.

That is a load of stress off me, but it's only the beginning.

I have a ton of financial stress that needs to be solved before I can concentrate on this practice.

Part of the problem is that I've lost faith in the practice to help me with the financial anxiety.  There's a little voice inside of me that is punishing me for the practice.  "See" it says, all that spiritual focus, that has robbed you of the ambition you need to take care of yourself and your family.

I can't listen to this voice.   Or rather, I can listen to it, but I need to challenge it, gently.

I need both, financial and spiritual health.  

I can't see them as things in opposition if I'm going to grow in a healthy, productive way that is good for both myself and Ben.



Sunday, May 13, 2012

Instability

A very, very, very difficult week.  Negotiating with my landlady, or rather paying a lawyer to negotiate.  Not knowing whether I will be living here in a few weeks.

It's hard.  No it feels impossible to get the mind to settle down.

I have to take things three breaths at a time.  And I have to be patient with myself.

So I think I'll just leave this as  a  micro post for now.

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Going off track

When I first started this blog, the goal of the experiment was to see if Eckhart Tolle was right.  If simply being would put me closer to a purposeful life than the mere pursuit of success.

I believe it has.  I work with more purpose now than I did back then.  Even if I haven't written or published the book I set out to write, I've still used that experience to help me get a fellowship, and I've learned through it to focus my projects more towards my natural skills and experience.

And now I'm on a new path that feels exciting and purposeful as well.  And maybe the next book will come out of this.

However, the one thing that hasn't happened during this time, that I wanted to happen and that I needed to happen was to improve my financial situation.

Standing was not made me better off financially.

I wouldn't go as far as to say that standing has caused my difficult financial situation.  But it's not enough on its own.

Now that I'm focussed on money, I feel stress.  It's not necessarily a negative stress.  It's a transitional stress, I think, that I need to feel to change my financial situation for the better.

But it's a level of stress that is making it really difficult for me to stand, because it's painful to face this stress every morning.

My practice is at risk because of this.  Every morning I have a different excuse to avoid standing.  I want to check my e-mail, my blog.  I want to run.  I want to think about my plans.

I don't want to give up my practice. I has been my anchor through all of this creative growth.

So I'm thinking about just getting back to baby steps.  Five minutes every morning this week.  Ten minutes next week.  Do what I can to get my practice back.