Listen to Your Self

I had a chiropractor appointment this morning. These interactions are very interesting to me as she's reintroducing me to a person I've known for years: me. My chiropractor serves as a combination translator and medium for my body. She takes what I'm feeling (I feel bad) and clarifies it (where, when, how bad). She also has me move in certain ways and then listen to my body to see what it tells her.

I've been very insensitive.

That's the only conclusion I can come to. Some of the "I feel bad" sensations I can clearly attribute to the collision. Some of the "I feel bad" sensations I only notice when she has me pay attention and feel for them. It really makes me wonder what other messages my body has been sending me that I haven't been paying attention to.

Thanks to her, I've realized I need to schedule more conversations with myself.

I used to meditate fairly regularly. I had some deep relaxation sessions on my mp3 player and I'd use the time during kid practices or my lunch to just completely and totally immerse myself in my breath. It really helped me refresh and renew my focus. It looks like it might be time to start meditating again.

I'll look for the links to the meditation podcasts I used to use. If I can find them again I'll share them in the comments.

Oh, and my chiropractor has one more very important job: she makes me feel better.

I Get It

Malcolm Gladwell wrote in Outliers that it takes 10,000 hours or approximately 10 years to get really good at something. I'm pretty hard headed, so it might take me an extra 5,000 hours. But I think I'm starting to get it now.

You have to understand first of all that sometimes my brain amazes me. The other day I punched in the number of an old high school friend...even though I'd last dialed that number in 1992. And sometimes my brain disappoints me, like when I forget what I came into the kitchen to get even though it's just a few steps away from the living room.

Finally "getting it" also means that I'm not arguing with myself that I oughta know this already. It means accepting that for me it sometimes takes a little bit more effort. Or a lot.

I get that I have to write everything down or it may not stick in my brain.

I get that I need to have a combination of a distraction and a focal point to get repetitive tasks done. Hello Podcast!

I get that I miss interpersonal cues. For me to get a message I either have to have all my active listening skills set to "ON" or have someone hit me over the head with a 2x4. The good news is that after 15000 hours of practice I'm getting better at this. The bad news is that it's still work, and it probably always will be.

I get that sometimes I have trouble stopping myself. Those are the days when it's better to go shopping at the flea market than at the mall.

I get that adding people to my mix increases my stamina and enthusiasm. If Aunt Polly asked me to whitewash the fence by myself I'd totally pull a Tom Sawyer and try to get out of it. Well, sorta.* But if I'm working with someone else I'm like the energizer bunny and just keep going and going.

I get that I have no concept of time. Not only does everything have to go on my calendar, I have to set every single reminder option so that time doesn't get away from me.

Most of all, after 15,000 hours of turning on my ears and using my calendar and grocery shopping list and doing a load of laundry a day and checking for my keys every time I walk through a door ... I get that this is who I am and that I'm really good at being me. You see, along with the distraction comes some really cool creativity and amazing energy. Since everything new draws my attention I've had the chance to meet all kinds of really cool people and do some really neat things. I am so thankful that I've been able to remain positive through everything. Even though I haven't always been thrilled with every thing that has come my way, things really work out once you rub a little persistence, creativity, and positive energy on it.

And I finally get it.

*I couldn't exactly do like Tom and collect marbles and a dead cat while my friends whitewashed the fence. But I might tweet about it

Monkey Mind

I heard this term for the first time today and I'm wondering where it has been all my life. Mind monkey or Monkey mind is a Buddhist term meaning "unsettled; restless; capricious; whimsical; fanciful; inconstant; confused; indecisive; uncontrollable".  Yup, that's my mind.

The article I read went on to talk about ways to meditate and still the mind, but as my mind wandered (yes, it does that frequently) I realized that I had accidentally found one of the most powerful ways to calm my mind:  my podcasts.  Simply put, from the minute I decide to record a new podcast, my mind settles down.  I start to figure out the best way to get the job done and how long each sub task will take.  While I'm recording I'm totally focused on what I'm doing, and I'm narrating the task to you, my listeners, so much so that occasionally I lose track of what I'm saying as I focus on what I'm doing.  Thank you so much for helping me conquer monkey mind.  If it weren't for the encouragement of my listeners I don't think that I would have recorded past that first year.