Coffees and Commutes

On trusting our intuitive and creative selves

January 22, 2012

I’ve been taking an online course called Emerge. The course is designed around developing the creative tools we need to help us face our seasons of change. It’s little wonder a friend recommended it to me. For two years (it’s hard to believe that I’ve been working on Project Finding Me for that long!) I’ve been going through a period of intense personal growth and change. And while I’ve certainly been moving forward, I’ve learned that ultimately there is no final destination. That said, my interest in this course came from the notion of learning to emerge from a life transition and become more fully myself. Interestingly, this is the very place I find myself now. I’m learning what it means to get out of my own way, to finally embrace everything I’ve learned and finally live the life I want to lead—a life that feels right, and comfortable and true.

So I registered. This week, we’ve been reading about and doing exercises on trusting our intuitive and creative selves. This is a huge weakness for me. I’ve been a people pleaser my entree life and as a result I’ve never learned how to trust myself, much less to feel confident following through with any sense of intuition. So these lessons have hit hard. It’s at the heart of the work I’m focused on, and has a lot to do with improving my sense of self-confidence.

So, we’ve been encouraged to write the following lists as a way of tapping our intuitive, creative selves. I’m supposed to let my gut take over and write anything and everything that comes to mind. So here goes:

My obsessions and preoccupations:

Social media
A clean, organized house.
Constant professional advancement
Starbucks
Self-understanding
Whether there should be a third baby in our family.
Paper, and pictures. And putting them together into art.
Being good. And liked.
How to nurture self-confidence in my children.
Anything Apple.
Flannel sheets.
A hot, flickering fire.
Being very, very good at my job.

What I know:

How to plan, and build a house.
How to start and stoke a fire.
Patience is never easy, and takes constant practice.
It’s very hard to still the mind.
There isn’t enough time in the day.
How to make a buttery, flaky pastry.
How to pitch a story and get it covered by media.
What it’s like to lose a loved one.
Bi-polar affective disorder sucks.
I can’t stand seafood.

What I don’t know:

The right way to discipline my children.
How to cook without a recipe.
If writing is really my calling.
How to change a flat tire.
How to start our snowblower.
How to trust myself.
How to set a table.
If I’m making a difference.
If I’ll ever feel like I truly know myself.

{ 12 comments }

Idling

January 17, 2012

There isn’t much going on around these parts these days. That is to say not much beyond my hectic life as a full-time working mom with two busy boys. So, of course, I’m busy. But I’m also idling with the familiar rumble of routine filling may day.

I’ve settled comfortably into the depths of January, a favourite month of mine because it holds so few obligations. The weekends are long, filled with only the menial tasks of groceries, laundry, and vacuuming. We’re getting out to enjoy the winter weather when we can, and I’m enchanted to watch my boys’ joy over the time-honoured Canadian tradition of backyard skating rinks.

I’m reading voraciously and recently lost myself completely in State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. It’s weird, wonderful and full of life. I’ve just cracked the cover on Learning to Breathe: My year-long quest to bring calm to my life by Priscilla Warner. I’ll write about this one soon.

I’m busy, oh so busy at work. I arrive at my office at 6:30 a.m. each morning and feel as though I don’t come up for air again until I leave at 2:30. And this is just how I like it.

I’ve registered for a year-long professional certificate program that I expect will be invigorating and stimulating, but that will surely put added pressure on a schedule already bursting at the seems.

I’m organizing and planning for a winter weekend scrapbooking retreat that I’ll be hosting for some of my closest friends. I’m so eager to lose myself in the creativity and good company.

I’m enjoying a return to the kitchen and feeling a renewed sense of interest in good, healthy food prepared from scratch and with love for my family’s table.

I’ve committed to a Yin Yoga class one night a week. It’s all I can fit right now, but I’m so glad I’ve made it a priority. When things feel like they are slipping just a bit out of control, I can look forward to the moment when I’ll force my mind to stop and focus on resetting my energy.

At night, I’ve been addicted to Lie to Me on Netflix. It stars Tim Roth. Have you seen it? Gosh, he is hot isn’t he? My husband and I have been ploughing through the 48 episodes. I’ve loved every one.

In short, I’m busy. But that’s nothing new. More importantly, I’m content, settled and moving through each day with a sense a calm in spite of it all.

{ 6 comments }

Calm

January 7, 2012

Today has been quiet, not in a literal way since I live in a home filled with boys, but in a figurative way. After months of being swept up in the cadence of a busy life, I’ve gently reminded myself of the importance of protecting quiet time, time that is free of obligation, when I [...]

Intoxicating

January 4, 2012

The most important revelations always happen when you aren’t expecting them. I think it’s when we let down our guard, or when we are looking the other way. We spend so much of our lives searching for meaning that we easily forget that many of the answers are right there inside us, just waiting to [...]

The crux of it

December 29, 2011

Last night I asked Twitter if I should do the obvious and write a resolutions post. Those who responded overwhelmingly answered no, at least not unless I was going to do a different kind of resolutions post. And that was the problem, I couldn’t think of a different way to do it. But I was [...]

Paper chains

December 19, 2011

Time together as a family. An evening spent making paper chains. Excitement is building for the big day! Simple, homegrown fun. This is what it’s all about. Happy holidays, from my family to yours. May the coming week be filled with happiness and many memories.

Reset

December 11, 2011

I’m having a hard time adjusting to the fact that we are only a few short weeks away from the end of the year. And while this isn’t meant to be a resolution or a re-cap post, I have, in recent days, been drawn to thoughts of where I am and where I’m going. For [...]

Learning to find our way back

December 5, 2011

We’ve been going some through growing pains with my oldest son recently. He’s 5 1/2 and discovering his individuality which is just a nice way of saying he’s testing his limits and our patience along with them. He’s bold, sassy and moody. There have been more battles of will in our house in the past [...]

Get out of my own way

November 29, 2011

Twice this year I’ve been told by people I admire and respect that all I have to do is get out of my own way. The first time I thought: Why of course! That makes perfect sense. The second time I realized I have no idea what that actually means. Get out of my own [...]

Some time

November 14, 2011

When we are lucky, we enter what the poet Marjorie Saiser calls “cruise control.” It is a state of grace, in which our egos have disappeared, the juices are flowing,and we are on with the writing. Musicians and athletes call it “going into the zone.” Often, this most effortless of writing ends up being our [...]

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