LoudenMouth

Desire Vs. Mood

I have been chewing on the latest issue of my friend's Michael Neill's ezine - okay, not literally chewing - because it may help you if you've read my last two books and because I'm having such a hard time with this so-called retreat I'm in the midst of.

A bit from Michael's newsletter:
"In 'You Can Have What You Want",' {his very useful and powerful book} I identified three keys to
recognizing that you are living an inspired life:

1. You are doing what you love and want to do

2. You feel guided

3. Things seem to unfold as if by design

I then suggest that in order to get to this point, there are really only two things you need to do - consistently ask yourself "What would I love to do today?" and whenever possible,
do it."   

Which is the major theme of The Life Organizer, my hope is the weekly questions keep bringing you back to desire, true deep desire, and helping you see it and hear it and feel it.

But here is where I have gotten tied in a knot which is confusing desire with mood. My mood these days is low - I'm doing a ton of deep grieving - and that low mood convinces me I don't want anything.  That mood likes to say, "What the point of anything?" So this nine month retreat I'm in the midst of is is being eked away, without renewal happening, because I don't feel like renewing!  (And this lack of deep renewal is also because life and work goes on and I've been subscribing to the swaths of time theory, which is another retreat boondoggle i.e. don't wait for them, those swaths of time are often deadly anyway). Then enter Michael's brilliant distinction which is...

"...the difference between navigating by desire and navigating by
mood.

Navigating by desire means you base your decisions about what to do or not do on the question "Do I want to?".  If the answer is yes', you do your best to move forward; if the answer is 'no', you do your best to stand pat.

Navigating by mood, on the other hand, is when you attempt to base your decisions on the answer to the question "Do I feel like it?".  If you don't feel like doing something, you put it off until later; if you do feel like it, you move forward.

While at first these two ways of making decisions seem similar, they take people in two completely different directions.  Since our moods are often tied up in old habits and patterns of
thinking, following them tends to just create more of the "same old, same old" in our lives.  Somehow, we just don't get around to making those changes we know we'd love to make, and things that seem like they'll take too much effort are put off until the last minute or don't get done at all.

Your wanting, however, is a living, breathing, fluid process. Each time you do what you want (or don't do what you don't want to do), your actions seem  effortless and inspired ideas become
almost commonplace.  Over time, it becomes easier and easier to read and follow your inner compass. Life gets a lot simpler, and the pursuit of success becomes a lot more fun.

Today's experiment is a simple one:

This week, before deciding on any course of action, ask yourself "Do I want to?"  Wherever possible, allow your answer to influence your decision and guide your choices.

Do this irrespective of whether or not you're "in the mood" - if you do, you'll notice that your mood begins to change "all by itself".  "

Desire says, "Let's write" or "Let's paint" or "Let's call a friend and then Mood says, "Why bother?" In that moment between the two impluses, there is choice!

What might happen for you today if you became very curious about the distinction between mood and desire and if you remembered that moods are always malleable, even when we are depressed or have PMS or are otherwise sunk in the mire.

"You are what your deep driving desire is.  As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed.  As your deed is, so is your destiny."  From The Upanishads 

True Calling

I loved this quote from Mark Silver's newsletter this morning. If you don't subscribe, do!

"You don't need to express every last bit of creativity and who you
are in your business. You just have to enjoy it, and be willing to
bring your heart into it."  Mark Silver

Middlemarch

I'm rereading, for first time since high school or college, Middlemarch by George Eliot.  I've wanted to for a long while as one of the main characters, Dorothea, has informed my main character of Jane (in my yet to be rewritten novel) but I lacked the mind space to pay attention to Eliot's intricate dead-on observations of human  nature, love, and the desire to live a worthy life. This is not a book you can sleepwalk through for even a paragraph. I'm pleased to say I seem to have the mindspace right now.  I read this today and I thought  you might find it worthwhile:

"The best piety is to enjoy--when you can. You are doing the most then to save the earth's character as an agreeable planet. And enjoyment radiates.  It is of no use to try and take care of all the world; that is being taken care of when you feel delight--in art or in anything else."

I believe this to be true, and that while we cannot rest in delight alone, without taking action on the behalf of injustice, without delight infusing our life, without desire, without fun, the actions we take are both unsustainable (we burn out) and less effective in a way--think dour do it my way help versus laughing unattached to outcome help.

What do you think?

Ice Floe

My retreat is...

disorienting
lonely
exalted
gratitude tinged
perfectly timed for the changes that have overtaken my life
boring
easily frittered away
dependent on /created by intention, therefore given to slipperiness as in "What am I doing?" and thus a perfect mirror for life!
revealing: a day off "nothing" is not very long unless one is intentional!
dangerous feeling - is it truly okay to come back from a walk with Ann and then sit in the driveway and talk and then decide to go have breakfast - and in a restaurant! With the dogs in the car????

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Halloween - I'm too vain to post the pictures of me with a distorted face, frightening the kids. It's one of my fav holidays - so subversive! People you don't know knock on your door and demand candy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

May you restore the burden of mystery, the comfort
of truth
through the aura of sacred practices,
and
    lingering in the tearooms of poetry,
    jubilant tap dancing in the shared courtyard of peace,
    gulping from tall-stemmed cups the breath of love

Always returning to, always remembering, the beloved Source.

Question: What are your beloved sources? What do you remember when you remember?

Love Boundless

This morning, walking through the woods, listening to Krishna Das, I was flooded with love for my husband, huge waves of love. Almost immediately, the thought or more of a sensation came of, "What the point?" Chris and I share a 21 year love affair and a 21 year "Are you here with me???" It's like living with the sweetest, cutest wall. Today, while there was the usual sadness and frustration, and yes, resignation, I also tried Richard Miller's Yoga Nidra technique of bringing the "I" ("I love him so much") into my heart and letting the I simply dissolve. Which, in this moment, left love. No I, only love. Then the question arose: must you love only him? For for a few moments, I let that love be, simply be, and then my little mind got all involved in its stories about why he should do this and I should do that.

This is not the first time I've experienced this. It makes me wonder if, perhaps, these waves of love we all feel from time to time are too immense for one person to absorb or reflect back-- perhaps this love is Divine love, moving through us... or not. But either way, could it be shared (dispersed, freed, showered) without attachment -- yes our attachment to "Do they get it? Do they see what I'm offering?? Does he/she/it seem what I'm capable of? " (oh that sneaky ego!) but also without it needing to be attached to one person. It can start with my love of Chris and then spread to my love of the world.

Or not.

******

Had an idea today for a series of paintings inspired by lines in songs like Bruce Cockburn "Everything is motion/To the motion be true."

Had an idea for a three month course with a book to come out of it.

I'm still too tired to get excited about these ideas. But at least my mind is waking up a tad. Okay, so it's never an issue if my mind is awake, it's that my mind is too awake and it's exhausted me!

My first "guest" blogger novelist M.J. Rose

Check out what she has to say about recharging! And learn more about her at www.mjrose.com – her new book is fantastic!

The Color of Recharging by M.J. Rose

I'm busy.

I get up around 6:30 and spend the first two hours with green tea and the Internet: catching up on the news about books, publishing, marketing, and world events, checking email and responding to anything that needs immediate attention which somehow is a lot. How can so much happen overnight? Then I'm supposed to go to the gym. This happens less than I like because sometimes  too much happened overnight. If it does happen I'm home by 11:30. Then it's an hour or two dealing with International Thriller Writers (I'm on the board), doing AuthorBuzz.com work (it's a marketing company for authors and publishers) and lunch.

At 1PM or there about I sit down to write my current novel in progress. (These days it's the follow up to my latest novel of suspense - THE REINCARNATIONIST) And other than a dog walk to break up the afternoon, I write until about 6.

Then a few phone calls with friends while I'm making dinner. Then dinner. Then more days than I'm happy to admit, lately most days, its more work until midnight or so. Either the novel, AuthorBuzz.com or working on my blog, or teaching (I teach a marketing class for authors - http://www.writersweekly.com/wwu/courses/marketing.html)

Which begs the question. If I'm working pretty much all day and often far into the night how do I recharge?

I love to paint. I don't get to do it often enough but I pick up a paintbrush as often as I can. No one sees what I do – I'm just not good. But this I do for me and it recharges me like nothing else. I think because compared to writing its physical versus intellectual and cerebral versus philosophical. Paintings, like music move you without logic. Writing and reading for that matter requires thinking, logic.

I love the movement of painting. I can stare at colors for hours, mix blues and greens into each other for no other reason than seeing them bleed together like the ocean. I love the smell of paint, the sting of the turpentine in your nose, the overwhelming scent of the linseed oil, the feel of brushes, buying new brushes and running one down your cheek and feeling that smooth silky touch of the sable I love touching thick rich watercolor paper with its tiny indentations where the color pools. And I lust after the idea that when you paint you can create something in an hour or an afternoon and look at all of it at once. See the whole. Take in all of it all at the same time.

And when I emerge from the dream of those colors, as long as I don't focus on the quality of what I've created, I'm ready to go back to work. More than refreshed, I'm spiritually and creatively recharged.

And lucky to have found a effort that feeds me and fuels me.

M.J. Rose (www.mjrose.com) is the internationally bestselling author of nine novels, on the board of International Thriller Writers, founder of AuthorBuzz.com and runs the popular blogs, Buzz, Balls & Hype and Backstory.

THE REINCARNATIONIST (Reincarnationist.org) is her most recent novel. It's a Booksense pick for September and is on sale now both online and in stores.

Sans Calendar

I finished my column for March Body+Soul yesterday and I automatically went to check it off my to-do list - done! But that list is gone.  I understood in that moment how addicted I have been to my calendar.  It felt so freeing to not be able to check it off. Free from the tangible part of my addiction to productivity!

I'm off today for a six day aurvyvedic cleanse. I've been preparing for it for two weeks - although slipped up a few times with bites of chocolate and last night, two glasses of wine and pizza. Boy that tasted good although doesn't feel so good this morning. I'm such a light weight!

Ironic

My computer did a very inexpleciable thing early this morning and ate my calendar file. All my appointments, all my speaking engagements, all the to-dos- gone. Erased. No longer. Can't find the file anywhere and I haven't backed in up in months.

I have to say instead of being totally freaked out I'm laughing. It's not that I believe stuff like this happens because God is nudging me rather I see it as an opportunity to be nudged--more retreat!

Responding to Phyllis

Phyllis wrote me today:

"I have followed your blog for a while and have your latest book too.

I know that you're doing all of this retreating in the spirit of taking care of yourself, but I have to be honest: When I read about your 9-month retreat all I experience is jealousy and resentment.

If only I could take 9 months off and just focus on myself and not worry about making money, or having a business, or sending out newsletters. If only the only things I had to worry about were a teenage daughter and a puppy. Please.

Is it because your husband is bringing in enough money for the whole family that you have this luxury or are you actually putting your financial security on the line by doing this retreat?

I'm truly not trying to rain on your parade. I just have to give voice to this frustration I feel at thinking about you relaxing, enjoying, not worrying about stuff...when over here it seems like those things aren't possible. Do you have suggestions for those of us who don't have the luxury of 9-months for retreat...or do you think it's all just a state of mind and any of your readers could do the same 9-month retreat that you're doing?

Can you get real with me about how you're giving yourself the space to do this?

How much of it is based on external circumstances (like hubby making enough to support the family so it doesn't matter if you generate more income) and how much of it is out of necessity for your own sanity no matter what cost it has to your financial picture, or your clients, or whatever?

I want to be able to celebrate your huge step toward self-care with your retreat, but so far, no matter how many times I reread your posts on the topic, I still feel angry, resentful, and jealous. What can you share with me on this? Obviously I'm stuck and hurting around it - and I'd prefer not to be."

    Thanks Phyllis for your honesty. It is so good to hear because it reminds me of when I've absolutely detested other folks (writers, friends, people I don't even know) when they've taken time off, or have support/ help in their businesses, or work and play in ways that felt like too "much" or too "easy" to me. "How nice for them," I would grouse, "but that would never be possible for me because..." Resignation was my shadow friend and "not possible for me" my linguistic clue I was forgetting I could choose. In fact, I spent years jealous as hell at another well-known self-help writer because of her self-indulgent life. If only she had____ or did she ever have to_____? She had no idea what it was like to _____!

I am not for a moment suggesting that you are doing what I did-- really, it's so huge to link what I've done in the past to this retreat choice of mine. Until September 1st, it would have NEVER OCCURRED to me I could or would take nine months off. I still can't quite believe I've declared I am-- really? Oh really, Ms. Fancy Pants Self-Indulgent Jen? Who the hell do you think you are? And really, are you taking time off or only pretending to, because you are still working!!!
            (Shush little voice, I am doing my best.)

    I am privileged. I have money in the bank. I have no debt except my house. No man is financing my retreat  (although that would be most wonderful and reminds me of  this). I've never had a man financially take care of me. What a turn on that would be!

    For years and years, I let my fear of not having enough money run my life. I let it push me and pull me--it represented safety, I guess. Being safe and being able to say "F--K off" to anyone  who tries to tell me what to do. I don't know how or even when but that fear has dropped away. Gone. (Okay, mostly gone, except if I spend too money, which is a good reminder to stop.)

    I know in every fiber of my being that this retreat is essential. I may go through a big chunk of my savings. I may discover I have nothing more to say or teach. I may discover I have something more to say or teach but no one wants to hear it. I really have no idea what will happen and I can't do anything else right now but this.

I'm also really really really curious to see how much I am willing to let go and receive. Is there any truth to this idea that Spirit will provide? That I can lean back, arms open, heart to the sky, and trust?

    (Remember too, I am working some--I decided to do this retreat without any planning so I have commitments, which is actually grand as I get to watch how I can make my work hard or how I can flow with it.
    I'm also spending as little money as possible-- which can also be grand when I remember it's my choice and because it doesn't mean choose between paying the heat or eating.)

Looking forward to everyone's comments!

What is this Retreat Thing?

I'm in an itchy/ twitchy mood-- in the midst of life, it is going to take more effort to retreat. No, not effort. Remember Jen: no forcing, no holding back. When I remember this mantra, I taste the mood/ the space / the energy I crave. Perhaps I feel so itchy/ twitchy (let's just go ahead and add bitchy): I haven't been focusing my time through the lens of "no forcing, no holding back."

Here's the thing: I don't want to make a big honking plan for this time off. I want to simply follow my nose, my heart, my curiosity and my flight rules, which I am going to jigger a tad. They were:

Do little as possible
Minimize friction
Enjoy

How about:
Do little as possible
No forcing, no holding back
Enjoy Purposelessness

To answer Rebecca's questions from a week ago will help me get focused so here goes:
I'm curious what retreat means to you? This one. What will be different for you in the next nine months? What are you doing differently? Are you stepping totally out your ordinary or are you weaving into your everyday? What are you adding? What are you eliminating? Or are you just asking/living a question?

To me, a retreat means: following my inner knowing as much as the time as possible and doing things in a different/rarefied/altered way. Traditionally, you fasted or you didn't talk or you sat in a dark cave to focus your senses, to strip away distractions and alter your ability to perceive. Cleanse the doors of perception and all that. What I have explored, and what so much contemporary spirituality is about, is how to do this work in the midst of life. So in a way, it's much more interesting and applicable to be doing this at home AND I SO WISH I WAS AT A RETREAT CENTER at least today.  :)

I have no idea what will be different for me in the next nine months. I could write a laundry list of what I want to be different but I suspect that would lead me away from my flight rules and thus from what I most need.

I'm eliminating: self-improvement, spiritual practices done in an attitude of getting enlightened or better, doing favors for people, answering all my emails, beginning any new projects, trying to figure out anything about what I want to do in the future, gobbling up learning, trying to fit into any brand or box or platform, trying to make money, trying to be smart, trying to understand difficult books, writing my newsletter or blog regularly, trying to build a business, trying to make art that means or does anything, trying to be anything other than lumpy me. Not even trying for that.

I'm adding: reading whatever I want and starting a million books and reading only a tiny bit and going on to something else if I don't like it, making art as a talisman not as a product, going to The Raj for a deep cleanse, seeing how I can bring this retreat into the retreat I'm leading next month and my speech in South Dakota, softening my tendency to be a hermit by saying, taking the Drawing on the Right Side of Brain class so I can move more deeply into drawing, more compassion, more compassion, more compassion, more time in nature...

So far I'm weaving my retreat into my ordinary life because like I said above, it's more interesting and let's face it: it would not be cool to leave my teenage daughter for 9 months.  That said, it's the weaving part (especially where it comes to new puppy and teenage daughter) that is not working so well for me.

I'm less of living a question than using those flight rules as mantras.

That helps me. What about you Rebecca?