Chapter 17 Creating Space

Ah, my weak spot.

This chapter deals with the good energy that flows from free space. When you clean out the clutter, the energy is wonderful.

I know this is true - I did my kitchen cabinets and my bedroom closet a few months ago and I Can't tell you how freeing it's been.

So now, the take action challenge has me thinking about which area to tackle.

I have decided to do the hall closet. it's a freaking disaster. It needs to be done. So that's what I am targeting this weekend to do it.

Chapter 16 : Stop Look and Listen

I love this chapter. Ironically I was doing the activities in this chapter this week unwittingly.

In short, at your most busy and most stressful times, this is when you should stop and take a self care break.

Since I have been at my wits end now for two weeks straight Ripping out hair, crying, swearing, drinking - all the things I rarely get into these days.


But such is the ways of the universe, The last few days I have been taking my baths in dead sea salts with Baking Soda, Aloe, Baby Oil and some fragrance. Reading my mindless books and listening to calming ocean sounds.

I have added Yoga, pilates to my daily walks AND I bought new bras and Pajamas.

During the day, I will either exercise or nap.

So I have been adding this in all along. I'm planning to continue and pleased that I was doing this already!

(Pssst Now I am caught up!)

So Sue me I'm behind again.... Chapter 15 Two heads run better than one

Yeah Yeah Yeah.... In the height of personal issues I abandoned the Life Makeovers. Which is the absolute WORST time to abandon it.

so I'm back doing what I do. I thank all my friends who have helped and are continuing to help me through situation.

However, I used to be the girl/woman who hid under the covers tll the ugliness passed. One of the major things I have been working on as part of ME is to handle these things better and not let my life stagnate because o f them.

So I bought my new bras and some new sleep wear and am exercising and taking care of me.

Enough. Here's Chapter 15

Two heads are better than one is a great concept that most people DO NOT DO.

It's called asking for help when you need it. As humans, we have a tendancy to try to go it alone. We struggle, we get frustrated and sometimes quit. And sometimes we re-invent the wheel.

So Without realizing it, I already did the exercise this week. And I did it in a cool way that I didn't even notice till it was over.

Here's the scoop. I have this friend, My Voice Twin. She's younger than I am by 12+ years. very bright. ridiculously talented.... but new to teaching just based on age.

Now from what I can see and from what I have heard from her, she's got a lot of potential and is very intuitive and bright, so her career is off to a good start.

What struck me most about her is two things. Her confidence in her own abilities and her ease at asking for assistance when needed. or opinions or anything. She's very confident.

So, when our annual NYSSMA festival came around - I have 4 kids going on level 3. Two were doing a song that I deemed OK but it was selected for me by the school. I hate the song, but for the kids that were doing it, it was ok. I have 2 other kids going to a later festival and they were assigned the song too.

I was talking to my voice twin and was telling her that the song was working my last nerve. And she mentioned why she doesn't like that song and it struck a nerve. In a good way though. I was pulling into one of the later festival kids homes while talking to her. When I got there I realized that I could do what Voice Twin did. Change the song! She's very smart because the timing is right and the replacement song is PERFECT.

She and I regularly trade ideas on how to deal with parents and kids and peers and songs and sight reading and all that crap that makes us successful teachers. It never even occured to me to change the song, but we have a month. And all the things that she hates about the song would have taken out the kid who I was dealing with that day. So why set her up for failure? Give her a tune she is familiar with and have her learn it instead.

I am actually much more humble now about asking for help. Though I really want to tell you that I am OK on professional stuff, and community service and pretty much anywhere BUT personal.

I am working on that too. Not quick to let people in so I have to learn some trust.

Chapter 14 Are we having fun yet?

This i s about stopping and having fun. We could all use a little fun and you should be able to do one actvitiy each day that will keep a smile on your face for at least 30 minutes.

The list had a wonderful assortment of options. I chose the following:

Play Video Games
Play with your friends
Play with my friends' Kids.

I love these activities and I do them already - This heightened my awareness of how good I feel after all of them. Not the video games as much, I feel accomplished on those but the other two keep a smile on my face and wonderful memories for days and weeks and years to come.

So you guys - pick an activity that's fun and do it for 30 minutes every day. Life is too short!

Chapter 13 Spring into Fitness

Aptly named.

This is the week I NEED to spring into Fitness. Seriously. I just put up a post at The Life and Times of the Contessa that clearly indicates how important fitness is going to be moving forward.

Cheryl Richards puts a "Take Action Challenge" out there that's very interesting.

She asks that you find 5 obstacles to being a healthier person one day at a time and then to discover 5 solutions.

So here goes:

Obstacles:

1. Poor time management
2. Tired
3. Boredom
4. Fear
5. health

Solutions:

1. I will schedule my fitness into my calendar each day
2. I will go to sleep slightly earlier and wake up at the same time each day
3. Add different fitness activities to keep me interested
4. I will monitor myself and if I don't see a difference in 3 months of serious work, I will see a doctor again
5. If I maintain a balanced and healthy lifestyle I will not need to be so worried about this.

So these are my goals for this week. I am adding fitness for the main purpose of stress release. secondly, for weight loss and third for health and meditation.

Conclusion Chapter 12

This was a wonderful chapter for me but it's a technique that is slow in coming. It's working but I need to start on something smaller and work my way up.

I have a small financial burden that I need to clear up. With Tax day around the corner, I shut everything out of my mind. I didn't think about it for 2 week, then I discovered the solution. In the car while I was driving. And it will clear up everything with some left over.

I do still love this technique - I just need to start small and work my way up.

Chapter 12 - Giving your mind a rest

I absolutely LOVE this chapter.

It deals with wisdom and congnitive thinking.

We use Cognitive thinking all day in our jobs, putting together things, figuring out solutions etc.

She used a wonderful example of trying to find hte solution to a problem but keep hitting a brick wall. Or why suddenly you get the solution in the shower, or swimming in the ocean, or the middle of the night.

Why is it people who have been on vacation, by the end, are so relaxed and ful of brilliant ideas?

Because we allow the cognitive part of our brains to rest. This allows the wisdom we have to come forth.

The take action challenge is pretty interesting. It is asking for you to choose a problem that is giving you a hard time solving and suggesting that you not think about it for a specified amount of time. Be finite with the time and day. If your brain strays there during the time you aren' t thimking about it, prepare a mantra that you will use to remind your self nont to think about it until your time/date.

Mine is my issues at work with my incompetent leadership. Looking for a short-term and long term solution.

I have given myself until sunday at 3PM to come up with a solution based on wisdom.

I will not think about it again until that time and if I do, I will say to myself - this will be adressed on Sunday, don't worry about it now.

I love this plan. So much less stress!

Chapter 11 Checking Under the Hood

Somehow I got behind again....

This Chapter deals with developing oneself in order to fulfill ones goals.

The take Action Challenge for this week was to discover ways that you might need to develop in order to fullfill your goals.

1. the first item was to identify someone who is succesful at the thing that you want to accomplish.

I chose Susan my Weight watcher leader. Not only has she lost a lot of weight and kept it off for 20+ years, but she gives back by being not just any leader, but the number 1 leader in the state in certain areas.

2. She is inspirational, she is brutally honest, but the results from her are astounding. I haven't been there in 2 weeks which is not common for me, but the losses are happening and I am hearing her in my mind.

3. The quality I need to develop here is brutal honesty. I can fudge the measurements better than anyone. If I am brutally honest with myself then I stand a much better chance at being successful.

4. risk Taking - I have to be willing to take the risks that I am not comfortable with in terms of weight loss. I plan to take risks by managing my food and drink at the restaurant this week.

5. Resources for assistance, my meetings with Susan and supplemental meetings and the website.

Update on Chapter 10

Wow this is a tough week for this.

But in order to maintain my promise to myself, I am not thinking of people who don't like or appreciate me as a failure on my part. Instead I am choosing to view this as a shortcoming on their part. They can't see how exceptional I am and I am not to blame for that. I cannot control other people and it's a time waster to try.

I actually tend to try to do nice and friendly things for these people having still made the decisions and what not above. So I don't know if I just don't believe it or what.

I stopped myself before sending that comment to the persons webpage. I think that was a big step for me.

It's a tough lesson and I don't know that I am learning it all that well but I am trying.

Chapter 10 Stop Juggling and Start Livinig

Ironically, this exercise came up this week.

My post in The Life and Times of the Contessa, titled "90 Miles an hour with my hair on fire" so aptly applies to this particular chapter.

Maybe my subconscious had something to do with it....

This week suggested that most of us juggle and keep a lot of balls in the air at one time. Just imagine Michelle Pfeifer in "One Fine Day".... She describes has life as having all these balls in the air and everything is working JUST FINE, thank you very much, and she couldn't possibly accept help and most especially NOT from George Clooney.

So you get the idea.

Cheryl Richardson suggests that we select one of the following list of balls and drop it:

Trying to please everyone

Trying to have everyone like you

Trying to be the star at the expense of your own life

Trying to do everything perfectly

Trying to do everything

Your reliance on adrenaline

So this week, I chose "Trying to have everyone like you."

Why ? you may ask. Why THAT item. Especially when those who know me know that I have a problem with every single one these balls.

Well it's like domino's. If I take care of "Trying to have everyone like me", I will also be able to better control "Trying to please everyone", "Trying to do everything" and "Trying to be the star at the expense of your own life".

So The next item I have to deal with is also explaining the way it plays into my life. Well, as explained many ways and times in the Life and times of, I am a people pleaser which is generally fueled with needing to be liked.

It's kind of weird that I feel this way because, in general, I am well liked. I have always had no trouble making and keeping friends. I have friends form evey phase of my life from Pre-K to my most current activities. So why is this so important to me when it comes so naturally?

The question should really be, for those that do not like me, why do I care? It has more to do my self esteem than anything else, why can I win over 9 out of 10 people and not the 10th? What's wrong with me that I don't win over the 10th?

So this week, I am going to try focusing on the good friends and people I do have in my life and worrying less about the ones that aren't.

I don't need to find the negative reasons why this person shouldn't be in my life, but I do find that I should look at the negatives as to why we aren't compatable as a reason.

I will give you an example. There is a person I know. Lovely, intelligent, caring, a wonderful and special person, we have so much in common but there's one habit I can't abide by. It bothers me that it was their decision not to continue the friendship, but I would have done the same thing in my own time and in fact, have.

And I see it as a personal failing.

So I am now choosing to look at this situation, not as a failing but more as a success to know who and what kind of people I want in own inner circle.

Chapter 9 The power of Focus

My challenge this week is to determine whether I am focused or do I need to improve that.

The suggested exercise is one I have actaully been doing relatively ongoing. Each week I am to pick one project and devote a specific, scheduled amount of time to it. without mulitasking.

Now for those of you who like those meme's - the question that's on most of them that makes me laugh is "Do you juggle" and my answer is always - every single day. My job is all about the multitasking.

I can't dramatically alter that, though on my major project that is starting to ramp up I am no longer multitasking on those calls. I am fully plugged in and engaged as my portion is coming up quickly.

So what I have decided to do is a two pronged approach. I will be unplugging for the project loosely referred to as SSBP each week to do a certain amount of work on it as well as the project called GRIID. On a personal note, I will be unplugging and putting my full attention on my 30 minute exercize each day. Nothing will be interefering with that. It is now scheduled on my work calendar as an appointment so no one can overbook.

Chapter 8 What's Fueling you

This week my take action challenge was to be aware of behaviour patterns that keep me hooked on andrenaline.

Here's my list:

1. I spend entirely too much time on the computer.
2. My schedule is very tight.
3. Health issues

One new habit I will cultivate this week is working on my health issues. I am trying to put more activity into my lifestyle. I am eating healthier, taking supplements, managing my meds and my skin and allergies. I am getting the required rest ( and then some).

My action plan is;

1. Walk 30 minutes Monday through Friday.
2. Drink 48 ounces of water between 9-5
3. Keep my vitamin/med schedule consistent
4. Add Yoga on Friday nights.

I get so excited at the end of each Chapter.

Five Energy Drains

I have been looking around for my five energy drains.

I don't want to fix what's not broken so I am really focusing on what would be helpful in not draining my life.

1. Organization. Not just in general terms. My file cabinet needs to be reviewed and reworked. The drawers of my desk are not being used adequately. My closets are just holding places for stuff.

I plan to start working on this this weekend. I plan to start with the coat closet in the hall. Second job will be the file cabinet and desk. THen the hall closets and linen closet. I am targetting the next few weekends and maybe a day or two off from work to start the process. I will buy the tools needed to support these changes.

2. Weight. This is a big one and its an energy drain and an emotional drain all wrapped up in one. I have made major strides already in correcting this. My plans to continue include walking 2-3 miles M-F. Any day that I skip will need to be made up on the weekend. I need to start eating wholesome foods, more veggies, less process foods. Vitamins, minerals all that. I have a good resource in Weight Watchers so that's my tool if I hit a bump in the road. I have a great network of friends for this as well.

3. Clutter in my car. THis is a toughy. I use my car as another closet during the week. I just toss stuff in the car and hope for the best. I need to get a couple of caddy's and bins to organize my music that I need to keep in the car and my CD's and that sort of thing. I need to make time to vacuum it and clear it more frequently. This starts when it warms up - right now it's dangerous to be outside in the deep freeze for long periods of time.

4. Maintenance of the car. This includes oil changes, license, registration, insurance,. inspection etc. Currently I am in jep of not being able to re-register my car come May because I need to get the vehicle inspected - no great shakes there. I have some financial mantainance to take care of as well and thats been started. All of this needs to be done by the end of March.

5. Last but not least, my home. I have furniture I don't want here, I have furniture elsewhere that I do. I want to get my home completed. I have half dozen half finished projects that I need to wrap up. I have to schedule some time and a due date and schedule the people I need to do the jobs. I have a mirror that needs to be hung, one that needs to come down, a bookcase and love seat to remove, a chaise lounge to move in, a chest to move out. A painting to hang, a light fixture to hang, paint the wall where the mirror is. repaint the ceilings, purchase new air conditioners.

For each task that I complete I will be scheduling a facial. When all five are completed I will splurge for a full day of spa treatments at the local Day Spa.

Energy Drains

This week I am asked to look at 5 energy drains in my home and environment. I need to figure out a plan to address them and look to resources who can help me with that.

Now I had to laugh because in a previous time, I had done this exercize in this same book. My answers are still there and they are very different from what I am starting to let roll around in my house. My resources are different and my reward for completing this goal is the funniest of all - Get chinese food and rent a movie. That's a random Friday night for me.

And I am anti-chinese food right now...

Absolute Yes List

This week the chapter talked about an Absolute Yes list. This list deals with your personal top priorities for next 3 to 6 months. It should have no more than 5 items on it.

I have been thinking about this list since Friday. It has had a lot of things put on and taken off. I have really massaged it down to the following - in order -

1. weight loss/fitness/health - I need to take care of this now. This is it, this is the time. It's MY time ( I sound like such an advertisement don't I????) and I WANT to be an AFTER ( HA! see)

2. My friends - I have different "pockets" of friends. I have my friends from Freeport, I have my friends from college, I have my music friends, I have my work friends, ,kiwanis friends etc. They don't all overlap - in fact very few do. I am tasking myself with maintaining them better. For example - I feel that my Freeport friends are slipping away. As a group we need to make more of an effort, especially now that 3 live far away.

3. Finish organizing the closets and drawers in my house

4. Stop working and sign off by 6PM each night. Unless I have a conf call with a customer or I am on call I will not be working at night. Additionally no more using work as an excuse for missing church.

5. Tidy up the loose ends in the house - mount the mirror, lose the bookcase and love seat, get chaise lounge moved in, remove mirror in LR and repaint, Hang wrought Iron candleabra.

Week 4 The Challenge

Morning pages. This is the big challenge.

They are suggesting that one write 3 pages longhand every morning in your journal before the hectic day starts. They suggest morning because night time tends to make the journal a venting mechanism rather than a spiritual guide to be being "better".

I started with their suggested thinking items:

This MOrning I feel...
I'm always daydreaming about....
My nagging inner voice keeps telling me...
The thoughts that roll around in my head....
My soul longs to....
My inner critic tells me....
What I am most grateful for is....

I have 2 days under my belt in this format. It's interesting what comes out the mind when using a brainstorming technique. In short whatever comes to mind for each section is written down. No editing just keep moving forward.

Its truly interestingg.

Week 3 Finding your lost self

This chapter dealt with spending time with yourself. By spending time with oneself, unplugged from TV, phonse, computers, cell phones, pagers, blackberrys, one is better able to be in tune with their physical and emotional needs.

The take action Challenge is get your datebook out and schedule some uninterrupted time for journaling, meditation, community support, or dream journaling.

I have taken some alone time that I normally have on the calendar and transformed that into "me" time. For now I will be using it for journaling or blogging. I will be breaking into yoga at some point with meditation. Identifying that time as mine really makes a difference in my mental stamina.

Week 2 results

So far I am pleased to say that most of the relationships in my life have made the cut.

I have identified a couple of relationships where I need to personally do some more work to be able to make an informed decision.

I have identified a couple of relationships that need re-hab'ing as well before I make the decision.

Overall, I think these works in progress are good. I have noticed that I crave approval and some of my relationships are based on that. In order for them to be good for me, the relationship needs to move to equal ground. At least the basis of it does. I like having relationships with people who have qualities I can learn from and traits that I aspire to. But I don't want to be in the relationship, learning these things, if we don't start on equal footing somewhere.

Take my Voice Twin. She is 10+ years younger than I am. Meeting her had me a little bit intimidated, which she and I have since discussed. In reviewing that intimidation closer, it was a combination of fearlessness- a good quality and one I have sporadically. Nice to see in one that age and one I wish I had more of at that age. It was also a feeling of inadequacy as she is much like I was at that age - but more. I feel that in many ways she is light years ahea of me in self assuredness and confidence in her abilities. She doesn't give off the appearance of needing approval.

I do need the approval. I know this. And its something I want to change. To not care so much in that approval others is a big deal to me. TO be so confident in my ability that I do not give a rats ass about someone else's approval is a big deal to me. I'm so-so at it. I've gotten better as I get older but I want to keep working at it.

My Voice Twin is good at showing that face to the world. I use her as a model of how I want to be.

What's nice about this relationship for me is I get to impart some wisdom of my years when it's called for. She's not shy about asking and I like that. I like being able to pass some of my experience on. It's a strange relationship for me as I don't have that many younger friends. 2 actually. I was selective about both too. Voice Twin and Kathy are the two that I have that are younger by a significant amount and I am usually the youngest. So I like this.

For me, the approval thing is all about self confidence. As long as I am confident in my abilities than the need for the approval won't be so strong. At the same time, I won't stand for people capitalizing on my weaknesses and the weaknesses of others. I stand RIGHT up to that. I won't be taken advantage of or belittled. I despise people who will take you down because you have a gift or a talent. God didn't just hand one person every gift in the world. He doled them out across mankind. So perhaps one person is a genious at science and uses that gift in one way, another is musically gifted, another might be gifted with perfect pitch but just an adaquate musician, another might be an organizational genious but can't sing a note. Maybe someone has musical talents, but there true gift lies elsewhere.

So you see, I feel that there is some significant progress here and I have selected some models of what qualities I need to work on in relationships I already have. I have also identified some qualities that need to be addressed and dealt with in a re-hab of it's current status in the relationships. I am going to continue working on that while I gear up for week 3

Week 2 - New Year New You.

This chapter deals with setting internal goals for the year for yourself. Taking a quality that you admire or would like to adopt or be better at and making that your target for the year.

I need to focus on a selection and then I need to write a short positive affirmation in the present tense relating to that goal.

Then I need to post in my working and household environment ( Lisa- I could learn to cross stitch it! I need a new hobby!).

Then I need to come up with three actions I take immediately to start honoring that quality and adopting it as part of my person.

I always have trouble with this and have a tendancy to wimp out and pick something that's too easy to fix. Or worse yet, one that's not even broken.

So in thinking this through I have decided that this year I am going to be focusing on surrounding myself with people who honor and support the values that are important to me. Yes, this sounds very basic I know. But all of us have people that we hold onto for sentimental reasons but you have grown apart, or people who are just plain toxic to you, but you stay because you don't want to deal with confrontation.

So this year I am either going to massage the relationship so that both people truly benefit from it or I am going to cut it loose. Of course, I will be slowly evaluating each one and asking some questions like:

• Does this person support the value set that I have?
• Are we family?
• Does the relationship make me a better person? Do I contribute that to the other person as well?
• Is the relationship something I enjoy or is it a "chore"
• Does this person represent an ideal for me?
• If any of the answers reflects in the negative, can the relationship be salvaged ?

This is going to be tough and I need to come up with my three point plan on how to accomplish this on a daily basis.

More on that later!

Week 1 The Journey Begins: 25 accomplishments from 2006.

1. Performed my first 1 hour long vocal recital
2. Improved my relationship with my brother and mom
3. Survived my 5th merger at my company
4. Organized my kitchen cabinets AND Maintained them
5. Organized my bedroom closet and maintained it
6. Continue to attend my Weight Watchers meetings
7. Acquired the tools that I need to be a better singer and teacher
8. Improved relations with my oldest friend.
9. Worked on relationships with my friends in general
10. Brought in a significant amount of money for ALS fundraiser
11. Continue to do my job well despite personel issues relating to merger
12. Maintaining my skin.
13. Have worked my finances so that I teach what/who and when I want not when I HAVE to teach.
14. Standing up for myself in a respectful manner
15. FINALLY acknowledging that I am GIRLY Girl. I like frills, clothes, even pink in small doses. Yes I own Maribou slippers in pink AND white.
16. I hooked up and am working the Dubbing VHS/DVD AND figured out my Ipod.
17. Lost a dress size - two actually.
18. I sang backup to Andy Williams.
19. Auditioned for and got selected to sing First Soprano in LI Masterworks last season
20. Learned enough HTML to be dangerous ( and still make pretty Blog pages)
21. Consistently blogged for 6 months on blogger and 4 months on Myspace.
22. have managed my finances so that I have the best retirement plan for me plus additional savings accounts.
23. Respectfully Stood up for my beliefs and needs despite the demands being put to me by others
24. Helped a friend through a divorce
25. pulled the copper tiles off the walls of my kitchen and replaced it with wallpaper.
26. Maintaining my cats health and our happiness together.
27. My teaching has improved. My kids are happy and I have retained the same kids for more than 3 years
28. Made two new friends - one is a neighbor in my building
29. Brave enough to have my eyelashes curled AND tinted.
30. Using Self awareness to help make better choices for me.
31. Healthier this year than previous years through some uses of holistic remedies
32. Keep in touch with my grandmother and aunt more frequently.
33. Have started using the internet to improve my time. ( Peapod, bill pay, medco delivery)
34. Keeping God and Church a priority for me rather than just a job.
35. I'm starting to get comfortable with being "my age". I may look young but I'm not 20 anymore.
36. Created and Maintained a household budget that enables me to know what I want to do and then go out and earn the money in order to do it.

I think my personal preference for my top 5 accomplishments are;

• Performed my first 1 hour long vocal recital
• Improved my relationship with my brother and mom
• Created and Maintained a household budget that enables me to know what I want to do and then go out and earn the money in order to do it.
• Respectfully Stood up for my beliefs and needs despite the demands being put to me by others
• Improved relations with my oldest friend

Three ways that I have Grown in the last year:

• I'm starting to get comfortable with being "my age". I may look young but I'm not 20 anymore
• FINALLY acknowledging that I am GIRLY Girl. I like frills, clothes, even pink in small doses. Yes I own Maribou slippers in pink AND white.
• Using Self awareness to help make better choices for me.

This was a fun exercise. I have done it before - each year actually. I am going to be moving through the book faster in the beginning to catch up to actual calendar week that we are at. So for awhile you will see 2 exercizes per week.