Dream report

I had a crazy dream last night.  I dreamt that I returned home after being away for a short time that I had been robbed.  If could actually remember it correctly I think it was that I came home late and stumbled through the house and then woke up to realize that my house had been robbed.  However, it had not just been robbed it had been completely emptied and stripped of everything.  There was nothing in the house except my green kitchen table, a very very old refrigerator that I had to put back on the wall as it was hanging off and an old coke machine.  I went out to my car and it had its windows broken and everything was out of it as well.  I would start thinking about calling the insurance wondering about how I would replace everything, and then would get distracted and wandering through the rooms just staring at the emptiness.  It turned out that there had been many robberies in the neighborhood but mine was the only one where they had emptied the house.  I went down to check on my old lady neighbor and she looked scared and shaken and said they had taken some things from her house but had not hurt her and not taken everything.

I have lots of repetitive dreams but this one was brand new to me.  I am not sure really where I was going with it in my head but maybe all the buddhist readings are getting to me.

A bit of contemplation going down this morning

Meditation felt like a roller coaster this morning.  My mind was so busy with nothing that mattered and I sensed it was like a defensive strategy of my mind.  I was so busy with diversion thoughts that I felt very far from the real essence of things.  I noticed that all I was about was thinking about problem solving work issues or replaying things that have happened or might happen and it felt disingenuous.  It is difficult to not be consumed by these irrelevant strands of thought - the natural activity of the mind.  In my meditation practice, we leave our eyes open  during the meditation. One of the weirdest things I have experienced is to realize your so lost in thought that you are not even really seeing anymore.  It is almost like I am suddenly blind or they have stopped transmitting to my brain.  I snap to and wonder where I have been, even though I know I have been on the cushion but really I have been miles and miles away.  The eyes turn off when these thoughts take over which makes me wonder what I am missing in my real life when I get so caught up in thought.  

I noticed this specifically after listening to my Shambhala Contentment in Everyday Life final class.  It was an amazing teaching that I keep going back to and trying to really absorb.  My teacher spoke about how we all know there is more to us than the natural activity of the mind, especially once you start to really notice what that natural activity entails.  We have a basic distrust of ourselves and how others interact with us because we know that we do not really know who we are.  She spoke of accepting that we are more than these thoughts, we are basic goodness and that when you have faith and trust in this fact you are free to be more honest with yourselves and others.  "We want to tell the truth and still celebrate who we are"   She said we have a natural longing just to know ourselves. I am not sure if this true.  As a society we seem to strive to stay numb and asleep at the wheel, and it is still a struggle for me why we go away from ourselves rather than towards.

She taught that we all have a source of wisdom and compassion in our being and it is open and clear, naturally inquisitive, and never fails us. We have to experience a glimpse of this and we do that through self-awareness and on the mat with the contentment and meditation practice.  This is why the Buddha sat with himself for so long - to get through the deception to the truth of his being.  Once we get a glimpse of this natural wisdom and power, this knowing haunts us and an appetite starts to develop.  The more we see of this the more we begin to trust ourselves because we know there is this capacity and faculties to know ourselves.  We begin to notice when we are a little arrogant or creating deception or puffing ourselves up on and off the mat and we look for the strength to be more honest and see the truth in what we say and do.

It is funny to me that it comes back to trusting in yourself.  I have more trust in others than I do myself.  It is easier for me to believe in others because I do not know the same dark secrets I know about myself.   My fear of failure and success, my lack of execution and the emotional limitations create a deep sense of distrust in myself.  If I cannot trust myself what can I really offer others about myself and the world.  Perhaps this is what attracts me to the Shambhala training.  The idea that I am basic goodness.  The idea that I could experience myself at a deeper level and really know who I am.  The idea of an honest real interaction with the world.  Something to contemplate.

Grooves

All this time off and I have done almost nothing.  Well that is not entirely true.  I have worked a little (maybe more than a little), read some, watched movies and read most of the internet.  I am not sure what I feel like I should be doing but time is passing in my life without any real intent.  I am often really busy so some down time is not necessarily bad as long as I am living my life and not escaping from life.  This time off has given me the space to think more about my current downward spiral, a common phenomenon, and how once again to reenergize myself and propel myself in a different direction.   However, the thing I love to do most is to contemplate, strategize and determine the course for a new path.  The thing I am never able to do is actually implement and follow through on any of my well designed plans.  I am frozen and unable to put in the effort to make the change.  Why?

 This morning I was reading an article: Why New Years resolutions do not work?  

This is how it is with our emotional reactivity to life. Like attracts like. We will actually seek out and even the circumstances of life that will fit into the familiar neural grooves of our limbic brain. It is important that we stress this point: even if a pattern causes us to suffer we will (albeit often unconsciously) thoughts, feelings and actions that are familiar in lieu of the unknown, which to us seems more scary. Hence the saying, “Better the devil you know than the one that you don’t.”

I totally get this from an intellectual perspective.  I have taught myself ways to hide and become numb and they are the easiest choice at any given moment.  My brain prefers these patterns and prefers firing the neurons through these wide grooves created through years of my heavy use of these habitual patterns.   I get that.  I get that it takes maximum conscious effort and consistency to create these new patterns and eventually the brain will prefer these grooves instead of the old ones.  I get that too.   I just cannot hold on to the new groove for even a day.  

I find myself swearing to a course of action in the morning but by mid-afternoon I have already started to rationalize and compromise my once steely resolve.  I begin to think of tomorrow as the new day and why today does not really matter.  I am living my life for the resolve of the next day which leaves today empty and vacant of purpose.  Today does not matter is a scary way to live - given it is the only thing that really does matter.   I have been struggling with this constant lack of commitment and joined several virtual groups to try to draw motivation.  I find myself amazed at the strength and will of these random people, but it has not even tickled a small piece of me into action.  The ra-ra and the good stories let me know it can be done, gets me back in planning mode and the I am lost to the action.

The doing, the action is a hard one to solve and not for just me.  It really is just doing it but there has to be something that drives and keeps the commitment real.  I think the answers to why we hide and want to be numb in the first place are somewhere hidden in the understanding of suffering and ego.  I do not quite have my head around how to accept these thoughts as just thoughts, the mind as just another sense with perhaps too much  and that the now, the right now is all that really matters.

Reflections

It is that time of year again where I look back and evaluate, judge and beat myself up for everything I did not accomplish.  There is something about a random date of January 1st that gives an illusion of a brand new start another attempt at getting it right.  However in the dawn of the new start, I cannot help but look back at the year that is passing underneath me and wonder how did I fare this year?  Not very well from the outside - I weigh more, am less healthy, have unclear goals and motivations, and I am actively running away from myself.   This is not really surprising as every year the goals are the same and I consistently disappoint myself.

Highlights and lows from this year:

• Left my super-stressful job and went to another similar job but with about 1000% times less stress.  It cut my commute and the people I work with are much easier, but in the end I struggled with how to use my life better.  Still lost on the shores of inaction and avoidance.
• Swam in open water - long time fear never quite conquered but managed to deal with the very high anxiety of not drowning.  I even managed to go to the pool and swim actual laps.
• Reintroduced myself to Shambhala Buddhism which is bringing a new grounding to myself and my life.  I had hoped in some ways it would solve my whole lazy unmotivated issues but it is creating an openness and a path I had not seen.
• Started working on my plan to get out of my current work into something more meaningful.  I made some hard choices and turned down some really interesting opportunities and I think it is the right choice.  I am excited and nervous and terrified I will plan this change to death and never step towards the path.
• My boys are amazing.  I love them more every year.  I miss them more too.  Their steps into adulthood and away from their mom is heartening and melancholy at the same time.  I can see the days ahead where they are lost to me engaged fully in their own lives.  
• I found out my adoptive father passed away this fall from google.  I was not mentioned in the obituary and my last attempt to reconnect that i sent early this year was ignored.  It is so very sad to have lost that opportunity to reconcile and has left me with much to contemplate.
• Lost all motivation toward running, losing weight, marathons, health, and have been on a see-saw of anxiety of HATING the way I look to HATING the idea of self-discipline and motivation.  At a real loss on this one - but that is not anything too new.

2011 in a nutshell.  Some highs.  Some lows.  Heading down a path that is kind of in progress.  Each and every day I struggle to stay present and accountable.    A few things I am doing in the near term:

• more writing as I am trying to get back on that horse again.
• meditation and dharma study
• contemplation on my self-destructive eating and drinking habits.

Same stuff.  Different year.  

Push Homework Redo

I am thinking about my goals and my push goal and it does not set well with me.  I feel like I made another list like I do every year where it doesn't really push me to a new place that I want to be.  I am also with some of my goals of if they are really things I want to do.

So this was my list.

1. I have run a 4.5 hour marathon

Do I really want to do this?  Am I ready to commit to the level of effort that I need to do this?  This is time consuming and physically exhausting.  I really would like to be able to say I am "real" runner.  I think this one has to stay.

2. I have complete a triathlon

This is a definite.  I am disappointed with myself for not having this one knocked of this year.   These goals are going to take real discipline towards working out.

3. I have lost 15 pounds

This one will happen if I work towards 1 & 2.  I don't think weight loss should be my goal.  If I am doing the things I want to be doing this will just happen.

4. I meditate every week as a regular practice

This is a keeper.

5. I have paid off my credit card debt

This is a keeper.

6. I have moved into a new home in the city

This is a keeper.

7. I have a regular yoga practice and I can touch my toes

This is a keeper too, even though it feels like a lot to take on yoga, meditation and running/tri.  However I think it is a necessary component for my mind/body balance.

8.  I have written a short story

I am not sure this one is still real.  I talk about writing all the time but I never write.  I have a story in my head that I would like to get out.  Is this a goal that is really one of my top 10 that I would like to do?  I think this might be a keeper but I am on the fence.

9. I have performed a story or poem at an open mic

This is like the short story goal that it is something I would like to do but I am not sure I would put it as my top goal.  It is a balance activity that gets me doing something more than just exercise.  I am not sure if this is a keeper.

10.  I can swim with confidence and no fear of drowning.

This was a lame goal.  If I can do a triathlon I can swim.  I must have lost steam and just through this down there.  

So where do I land:

Push: I have become a teacher or mentor for others to live a better life.

Health Goal: Run a 4.5 Marathon

1. I have run a 4.5 hour marathon
2. I have complete a triathlon
3. I meditate every week as a regular practice
4. I have paid off my credit card debt
5. I have moved into a new home in the city
6. I have a regular yoga practice and I can touch my toes
7. I have performed a story or poem at an open mic
8. I have gone on a vacation with my family.
9. I have become actively engaged with compassion orientated non-profit organization
10.  I have become a teacher or mentor for others to live a better life.

Push Jump Start Day 3 Homework

Push Goal - this is supposed to be the goal that is really the one that is going to make the other ones more likely.  I have thought about it and I think the regular meditation practice is going to give me right mindset for my other goals.  It is also very hard to put myself on the cushion and face the thought inside my head. Focusing on the here and now and not the future will also help my goals be more present in my mind.

Push Jump Start Day 2 Homework

Homework

The goals you set should be things that, when you achieve them, you’re going to be over-the-moon proud! They take work, but they’re exciting enough that you’re motivated to put in the sweat equity.

Think about the 10 things that you would love to see happen—financial, physical, personal, from a business standpoint, from a spiritual standpoint, from a relationship standpoint, anything that you can think of—12 months from now. (I told you this would be fun!)

Just list your top 10 goals. Leave your Push goal and your health goal blank for now. We will identify them in Days 3 and 4.

GOALS!

Date: 11/12/2011
Push goal: 
Health goal: 
1. I have run a 4.5 hour marathon
2. I have complete a triathlon
3. I have lost 15 pounds
4. I meditate every week as a regular practice
5. I have paid off my credit card debt
6. I have moved into a new home in the city
7. I have a regular yoga practice and I can touch my toes
8.  I have written a short story
9. I have performed a story or poem at an open mic
10.  I can swim with confidence and no fear of drowning.

So let’s take a look at your list of 10 goals. As you read over each one, ask yourself:

Is each goal specific? “I want to be thin” is too vague. Give it a measure: a size, a body-fat percentage, a specific range—something that can be quantified.

Specifics give you confidence, keep you accountable, and hold your feet to the fire. “I am making more money” and “I have paid off some of my debt” are way too easy and too vague for someone like you—someone who is going to kick ass in the next 12 months!

Do I believe I can accomplish this goal the next 12 months? When you set goals that are vague, such as “improve health,” you never really experience the satisfaction that comes with checking something off your list. Pointing to one of the numbers on your goal list and saying proudly, “Wow! I did it!” feels pretty darned amazing. I want you to set goals so cool that you can’t wait to tackle them.

Could I dream even bigger? Don’t be afraid to hope. Go big! When I did this goal worksheet with my best friend in the spring of 2010, she listed that she wanted to earn $500,000 with her home business. I said, “What?! No way! I know you. I know your passion and how organized and committed you are to growing your business. I also know you’re already on your way to hitting that financial goal. So what you’re saying is you hope you can maintain that momentum? No way, Monica. What’s a number that would be really exciting, but really tough? The kind of number that means getting focused?” She said, “Well, I guess to be earning $15,000 a week would be crazy cool.”

A year later, guess what she was earning? Yup! And hitting that financial goal allowed her to fulfill most of the other numbers on her list. Her husband retired from his full-time career to work side by side with her helping other couples navigate the waters of running a business together. With www.partnerwithyourpartner.com, she learned to snowboard, took eight vacations, cut back on her personal training clients so she was home more often, hired a personal assistant, spent more time with her family, and, most importantly, she created a far less stressful and far more balanced life for her husband and their triplets. (Yes, you read that correctly. Parents with triplets are living a balanced, low-stress life? Yup, and you can, too!)

I tell you this story because it drives home an important point: Somewhere along the way, people lose belief in themselves. They forget that they too deserve the possibility of a perfectly designed life.

So let me push you. Pretend right now that you and I are looking at your goals together. Would you be able to say your goals are very challenging? Are you stretching yourself? Will your goals require you to do things differently? Do they push the status quo? If you don’t aspire toward greatness, you cannot achieve greatness. It’s really that simple. And if you aspire toward small things, you will achieve small things. Sure, you can set your goal to be “I want to organize my closet.” And I bet you’ll actually achieve it. But, we’re talking about setting some jump-off-the-cliff, this-is-scary-but-I-can-do-it kind of goals!

Once you’ve listed your goals, asked yourself those three questions, and are satisfied that each and every one of the 10 goals you listed is both doable and crazy cool, go back and ink ’em. That’s right. Write them in ink. There! You’re committed now.

PUSH Jump Start Day 1 Homework

Today’s Homework

This little exercise has changed the lives, career paths, and fitness journeys of thousands. Read today’s assignment undistracted. Grab a pencil and paper. We’ll transfer this information to your smartphone, but your best thinking is done old-school style—with a sharpened No. 2 pencil and a crisp piece of paper.

Start by brainstorming your priorities.

Priorities are those things that are so important that if they were stripped from your life, you would be devastated, unfulfilled, and living without purpose. Who do you want to be? What do you want to accomplish? What makes you happy? What do you think is your purpose in this life? What gives you pride? What do you wish to be remembered for at the end of your life? What do you want people to know was most important to you? What makes you feel good about yourself? What areas of your life are of great importance yet you believe you must keep yourself accountable to honor them?

Renee's Priorities:  

Compassion to others and myself

Giving back to the world

Family - ensuring they are safe and taken care of and have what they need

My health and ensuring I am able to do what I want to do

Sal's happiness

Living life and experiencing new things

Financial Freedom

Place a star next to the five areas that are most important to you.

Now list the three priorities (in no particular order) that you have identified as most important to you. Use just a few words to identify each category, such as “faith,” “family,” “career,” “my charity,” “my health,” and so on.

Rewrite the list in order of importance to you

My number-one priority: Family - happiness, safety and ability
My second priority: Compassionate living - towards myself and the world
My third priority: Experiencing life -- freedom and openness to experience

Take the priority you’ve listed as number one and complete the following statements:

The reason(s) I have placed the greatest importance on this area of my life is because:

I will honor my number-one priority by doing my best to: ensure I am able to be clear, focused and compassionate towards others.  Making good decisions about work, finances and my own focus.

The following action(s) would be inconsistent with my commitment to my top priority:  Making decisions that would limit my clarity of mind and make me inaccessible to my family or the ability to care for them.  

To honor my number-one priority, I will limit the following:  Hmmm....not sure what I need to limit.  I think just the negative self-talk and restlessness and living life without purpose.

To honor my number-one priority, I need to make the following changes:  I need to make decisions that protect my family and yet still provide me with a healthy state of mind.  I need to build a life and world that is the role model and direction that keeps them safe, happy and provides while still allows me to feel as if I am living the life that makes me happy.

Now you’re ready for the last question on the worksheet—and it’s so important it gets its own section.

Creating Your Top Priority Statement

With as much detail as possible, create a “top priority clarity statement” in the space below. Here are some examples.

My number-one priority is to fortify and honor my relationship with my family by spending more time together, listening, engaging, and sacrificing to help each member feel important, admired, trusted, respected, and supported in our everyday lives and to limit activities and pursuits that might be harmful to these relationships.

My number-one priority is to build my business by being present, disciplined, and focused on serving my customers and committing to learning everything I can about leadership, management, and business success and eliminating excuses, distractions, and unproductive pursuits.

Here’s my own top priority clarity statement:

My number-one priority is to be present and actively involved in the lives of my husband and children; to demonstrate through my actions that my children are more important than any personal pursuit; to work to strengthen my loving, respectful, and supportive relationship with my husband as a means to provide the best possible environment for my family; to raise self-sufficient, confident children who believe they can do anything; to limit any activities, pursuits, or relationships that might take me away from my family; and to weigh all decisions against what would be helpful, harmful, or indifferent to my family’s emotional well-being.
Now write yours. Take all the time you need.

Write or print out your top priority clarity statement and post it on your computer, near your desk, in your kitchen, on the inside of your medicine cabinet. Memorize it. With this statement front and center, it’s miraculous how clear even the toughest decisions become.

My number-one priority is to live my life with compassion and inquisitiveness that allows me to provide the example to my children and live a life that can provide what my family needs to be successful, healthy and happy.   

contemplation

Phone is dead.  I use my phone as a meditation timer so as decided to write as my phone hopefully comes back from its current dead state.  I closed my mail to try to keep myself more focused when I write and hopefully will keep myself from wandering off too much.  I have decided to try to go on an information/data diet.   I am cutting back my RSS feeds, removing reddit from igoogle, and trying to avoid too much facebook time.   I am on the other hand building up my google+ and learning how to use the circles of people so I do not just consume anything that comes in.   I have come to realize that I consume so much that I am barely left with a moment of space in my life and definitely do not have the time or space to create my own thoughts.   All this data shapes my life and my thoughts and yet it is meaningless to my real life.  I find it interesting and desirable to learn, consume, be knowledgable and yet the price is making my life about the data I consume rather than the air and earth I walk.

Ok my fear.  My fear is this is just another theme that I am picking up and running with for a little bit and in a few months it will be long forgotten.  Why would it matter if it is?  I am struggling for meaning and without it I feel lost.  I do not mean meaning like why am I here, what does a god want for/from me, but more how do I bring value to this world.  What is my purpose as I see it and want it to be?  I do not think anyone can answer that question for you and I have been running from and toward this for years.  I like challenges and pushing myself to explore and learn but I do not like commitment to an idea.  I never want to say I believe or have faith and that I have chosen a direction.  I am really not sure why I am so adverse to staking a claim on a belief or direction and why I am so judgmental on myself about what direction I go.

There are so many things I want to do in my head but I never get close to them.  I would like to play the guitar, meditate regularly, story slams, write, play the piano, knit, exercise regularly, read, explore, burning man, art shows, literacy volunteer, and that is just the list that came out right now.  All of those take commitment, dedication, practice and time.  I have to pick as I cannot do it all.   I want to find the thing that fits me and work towards those thing but I am paralyzed into doing nothing and it leaves me feeling empty.   Thinking about the Buddhist philosophy and loosening the grip of the emotions not feeling the draw of some of my triggers makes me more confused not less because I try to guess which of these do not matter in the scheme of my everyday.  None of them really matter, which is why they just stay on the list and never really get done.  How do you choose which thing fits you best?  I hear runners talk about how much they love to run and how much they miss it when they are not running.  Not me.  I hear the same thing from meditators about the mediation practice.  Not yet.  A woman said last night - not at the beginning - but when I got used to the effects of meditation I would miss it if I stopped for too long.  Not everything is for everyone, but how do you know what is for you when in the beginning it is always awkward and hard?

What would you say to your 10 year old self?

My dear sweet self I know each day is a struggle, you are not alone.

Spending most moments begging for attention and hiding from trouble

You feel restless, never safe, and unable to sleep, you will find that place.

The world is a crazy place, beautiful, wild, harsh and kind.

You can choose to be an explorer, an artist, a poet or an architect.

There are such cool things you can do and see, you cannot imagine.

I know right now you only get to see people hurting or pushing you away.

You want so much for someone to love you that you put up with the hurt

Sweet self, this is not life, this is not your future, it is not what you deserve.

You know when you have your headphones on and your listening to your records

Your foot is tapping and heart is singing and the whole world drops away

Your life can feel that good for days, weeks, months maybe years on end.

A heart can be hurt so that it feels like it will never heals, but scars heal.

Days can seem so dark that the joy will never return, but the clouds lift.

Dreams can be battered down and lost, but hope can unearth them.

Try to learn to love yourself before you try to get it from anyone else.

The only way to stop the “I’m sorry's”, is to believe in yourself.

You are strong, compassionate and capable.  Life is waiting for you.

Forget TV and Videos.  In the future everything is at your fingertips.

You can learn anything, ask anything, see anywhere, and meet people from anywhere

Ideas are no longer limited to the people in your house but the entire world.  

Freedom is your future.  
Life becomes your choice.

You will feel love and safe

You will be excited and feel joy.

It is worth it in the end.   Hang in there.