Monday, March 11, 2013

Magnesium.


So this article from Psychology today is blowing my world open: Magnesium the cure for your crazy (my title, not theirs).

Granted the info is a couple of years old. But it has me seriously looking at adding magnesium to my diet, and yours. Everybody's.

More research awaits, but I got all excited and wanted to share. So take the time, read it through. Make your own decisions.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Quit Shoulding All Over the Place

Personally, I find a fast way to feel crazy is to look around at other people (like my sister, or the legislature) and the choices they are making and think either or both of the following:

"They shouldn't do that."
"They should do this."

Now I'm not advocating complacency in the face of injustice. I am saying wearing judgey pants is living in other people's business and not necessarily the best use of my time and energy. But it gets even better. I get extra neurotic when I get in the habit of shoulding all over myself.

"I should..." (and I'm not)
"I shouldn't..." (and I am)

It's a basic kindness we can do ourselves when we catch ourselves in the act of holding some one to standards that just aren't happening right now in reality. There's a difference between these two kinds of self talk:

A) I should floss.

B) Flossing is a good idea, I used to do it. I think I'm going to try again.

Do you see it? A is rooted in what's not happening and a super great gateway for feeling crap about yourself. B is much nicer and more supportive and might actually get you the outcome you're looking for.

Let's try it again:

A) My dad shouldn't be so friggin bossy and such a crap communicator when he's stressed. (Hi Papa!)

B) Oooh, he's being bossy and frustrating me. I wish that weren't happening right now.

I'm not saying go throw a switch and start doing B instead of A. I am however suggesting you notice when your thoughts fall in the A category and then try to revise to a B. It's just one small sanity inducing way to be kind to yourself and to others and can help you get a little space from an emotional reaction before it happens or even after it has happened for that matter.


Monday, March 4, 2013

Money & Lists


This one is for my sister who initially got me writing about my thoughts on how to navigate life recently. This is pretty much what I gave her and am now disseminating to the three of you who read this blog.


Well being isn't all about a happy healthy body. It's also about having a Logic Brain you trust to get things taken care of. Now I'm going to share my nerdy secrets for organization and sanity and maintenance of said Logic Brain.

I really like Leo Babauta's Zen Habits, so you’re going to see a lot of links back to his writing. And he has a lot of writing, so hopefully I’ve cherry picked for you. Lesson the first, change your mind-set about goals.



But still, it feels good to get things done and introduce new projects you feel excited about so here are some good starting places.

Getting Organized:


I love, as in ardently, David Allen's Getting Things Done for my work but not for my personal life. This Leo has put his own spin on it and a fair bit of it works for me. Yes I'm making you click all these links and do your own reading and your own thinking. Mostly because I don't even want to begin to pretend I thought of any of this on my own.

I do have a moleskine as suggested and I like it.  

I also like using Google Cal which is synced it to my iphone and laptop as well as Google Drive for managing bigger projects
both online and on my phone. This is not difficult I promise.

I tend to set MITs for the week rather than the day. Actually, sometimes I don't even do that. Sometimes I just pick the tasks that I think I'd feel best about getting done this week, regardless of whether or not it results in a particular outcome being achieved. But then other times I really go after and outcome or three.

My thinking here is once there’s an organizational system for your ideas, your stuff & your projects that you feel good about being in daily & weekly habits with then you’ll actually develop some faith that you can achieve the bigger stuff. Because bigger stuff is just a bunch of small things are squished together :)

As far as “lists” go, I like Projects (defined by David Allen as anything that requires more than one basic step) and Tasks (or Action Steps). For work my personal life I use ToDoist (yay FREE!)

My work responsabilities are very complex and I can’t have 400 projects (not exagerating) staring me in the face or I’ll melt down so I use Things. This application is a little too complex for my day to day. I have some very strong and clear opinions about an effective use of the application as I have watched two employees misuse it and had to sit them down and help them simplify it. If anyone wants follow up, I'm game. But for the purposes of this post it might be a bit of an obscure tangent. Which is all to say it works very well if you have a lot of different responsabilities and hundreds of open loops to keep track of.

Money!:

Money is usually a key part of bigger projects (or, you know... goals...) and I feel like I spent a lot of time with Quicken, since I was 21 actually, just tracking my money and not really planning or strategizing with it. And if you aren't rolling in dough and are walking around with student loans, credit card debt, a lein or a mortgage like most of the nation you too need to get a handle on your relationship with debt and spending money.

I currently use this simple spreadsheet and it’s really helping me manage my budget (which I’ve had to reign in big time recently).

Again, our Zen fellow has some helpful pointers



I do currently use the envelope system which I have avoided because it seemed cumbersome, but money is such an issue for me right now I sucked it up and tried it. I’m finding it feels like a game. A game I'm almost winning.

ING used to have my online savings but they got bought out my CapitalOne who I really distrust based on negative experiences in the past, but I'm not here to complain about that. I’ve done my research and Ally has a strong rate and a great reputation. So I just opened up with them, it was a very simple process and no minimum was required.



Tracking the BIG STUFF (also known as goals)

A lot of this is already covered in all the links but if I had to break it all down I’d say it comes down to this:

1. Pick a BIG THING you want (ex: buy land, have baby, go to Timbuktu, etc.), define the project by it’s outcome.

2. Choose the very next task you need to do from where you are sitting in your chair right now in order to start moving in that direction (ex: brainstorm perfect land to buy). And once it’s done, check it off and put the next task in place (ex: research how much land costs in this particular area at this particular size). Just because a next task is there doesn’t mean you want to or are ready to do it but it’s holding it’s place.

3. Eventually you’re going to get to a task involving money and that’s why it’s nice to have all that other stuff in place.

4. Sometimes all we can do is wait while money grows and focus on other projects in the meantime. It’s ok to wait.





All right, those were my big broad strokes on how I manage details and money. It seems to be keeping me sane. I hope something in there added a new tool to your tool box. Maybe another time I'll do a piece on more money fun like savings and credit scores or IRA Roth accounts. Or Taxes. Because all of that sounds like great fun to read... or, no maybe I won't.

Friday, March 1, 2013

Grace.

This is really more of a heart/head based post more lalala less adrenal glandy. Possibly even a touch of spirituality in there. You've been warned.

Grace is one of those words that gets thrown around a bit during hard times. By some anyway. Mostly it's a theological word calling on divine assistance. Some tie it to beauty and elegance in form or manner. That last one is actually in the dictionary. I think of grace as a kind of elegance in our ability to cope with hard things.

Personally, I see it as a three legged stool. The three legged stool of grace? Yeah, sure. Why not? Clearly it's a simplistic metaphor, but she's mine and I love her.  There's lots of three legged stool metaphors out there. You should really consider building your own, it's fun!

image credit: some other not very good blog that probably got it from clip art.



I suppose the point here is that I believe we can rest in grace, on grace, and we all carry something like this around with us to rest on as needed. I've noticed, for it to last with out too much wobble, or a full blown ass landing, three things need to be in place for me personally.

TANGENT: when looking for a three legged stool image I liked I came across this:
image credit: www.larsonallen.com 
and this

image credit: I CAN'T FIND WHERE I GOT IT!!!
Which has me totally wondering if I can figure out how to get a milking metaphor going. I mean, did you know this was a thing? I don't milk anything, ever. I wasn't really sure why one would have a three legged stool to begin with when four legged ones work so well. And clearly these are working stools, not resting stools, so I may have really chosen a poor metaphor here. But I'm not sure what we would be milking exactly when we rest our butts on our grace stool, I mean it calls to mind all sorts of unfortunate images involving utters. I'm not quite sure I can stretch it that far but I wish I could. So milking stools. There ya go.

Back to just sitting on a three legged stool. Obviously, all three legs are equally important.

Gratitude for the Past

I'm not suggesting we relish pain and periods of intense strife. That we carry it around and celebrate the Hard that has happened. What I'm suggesting is a little more subtle than that.

-Is there something that has happened that I wish had not and I'm dwelling on it?
-Have I sat with this experience long enough to find a lesson in it that I can work with moving forward?
-If so, do I need to revisit that lesson and reconnect with it?

Or sometimes, maybe I just need to do a review of what has been going right lately and say thank you to the universe or myself or my mom or whoever.



Accept the Present
Simply put don't fight reality. Is there something happening that I wish were not happening right now? Yes? Well, guess what. Here it is. Happening. Doesn't mean I don't get to be scared, in fact I may feel very very scared. It doesn't mean I can't change what is happening (like leave the room if someone is yelling at you). But looking a hard thing in the face and saying,"You shouldn't be happening" isn't going to change anything. Sometimes, I say "Okay" as in "Okay, here you are, now what?"


Trust in the Future
I SUCK AT THIS. By far it is my weakest leg these days. I think it happens at a certain age. When you have to start thinking about IRAs and long and short-term disability insurance. We are a worried society and the easiest part of the time line to worry about is everything that hasn't happened yet. Really, the check in here is:


-Am I time traveling in my head and going to some possible scenario in the future and worrying about it?
-Am I certain this scenario going to happen?
-Am I taking steps in the present to help alleviate my fear of this possible outcome?

But mostly, it's just a moment of self-talk,"You've done what you can do Aurora, you take care of you and let life take care of itself."




Basically, if I'm struggling, aching and generally anxious or unhappy as hell that means that at least one of these three legs is not in working order. It's just what happens in our human skin with these human brains in this over-worked, over-taxed, over-stimulated society. For me, the stool is an assessment tool for determining where maybe my perspective needs a little maintenance. And frankly sometimes I don't have it in me to do maintenance. Sometimes it's enough to just say "Well it looks like I'm borrowing trouble from a future that isn't here yet today." Or "I'm hurting, I'm scared, I'm fighting what's happening today."

So, that's my stool. It's not a key to the meaning of life or anything, it just makes living in my skin a little easier. And let's me rest when I've been walking a long path.