In Search of Energy

Nov 23rd, 2003

there are many reasons for not having energy. lately i’ve been a bit low on energy so have taken the time to think about it. energy can be depleted by many things:

• a poor diet low in nutrients
• unabated stress
• a bad attitude (e.g., anger, upset, irritability, unforgiveness, fear)
• sleep deprivation
• dehydration
• illness
• change in seasons, weather, barometer
• excessive amounts of change
• physical labor
• exercise
• unresolved problems

there are probably other elements, but these are a good starting point for self-diagnosis.

what got me thinking about energy was a conversation with a friend this morning. she said "are you tired?" "no." "oh you look tired." at first i was miffed because i wasn’t sleepy . . . in fact i’d gotten lots of sleep this weekend. Thinking about it, though, i realized that i hadn’t had any creative inspiration this weekend. i just couldn’t get my mind working on my projects. i had enough energy to rent a movie and write a post and that was it. my post was pretty lame too…and that was a sign of low energy.

that just reminded me….in my blog i was writing about problems. unresolved problems drain energy too so i just added that to the above list.

maybe i looked tired to my friend because i AM tired. hum. as i thought about it, yea, guess i am tired. sometimes awareness is a gradual thing. because the temperature dropped dramatically overnight and the wind was cold, i decided to take a shorter walk than usual. maybe my high walking mileage was wearing me down. hum. while walking i asked my body to speak to me and tell me what would be the best care i could give it. i did some energy healing work and then quietly listened to my body as i walked.

dressed warmly, i could have walked quite a distance, but i remembered that wind for my ayruveda body type (vata) was a stressor. listening to my body i realized, yes, i am tired. i asked about the reason, but none came. i decided that the reason really wasn’t important. i would just tune in and listen for the remedy.

after a short 30 minute walk i made myself two wonderful cups of ginger tea. the day before i had been strongly drawn to a box of this tea at an oriental shop and bought it. maybe my intuition was guiding me even then. the tea was perfect. everything about it was soothing, enjoyable and just right for what i needed. the second cup didnt’ taste quite as wonderful as the first, so i figured that i had reached the appropriate dose for my condition. if good food tastes good, then you’ve stumbled upon the right food for the moment. by "good food" i mean healthful foods. for many of us junk food often tastes good….but it’s often not the right food for the moment.

next i flipped through my new books about health and healing. bingo. i got inspired. to me that translates to energy. whew. (sometimes i worry that my current condition will be my eternal condition.) yes i have energy, but my body is saying "don’t over do it." this energy is the short-term kind. my mind says i’ll want to take a hot herbal bath after a while. we’ll see if that fits when the time comes.

if someone would have talked about listening to my body 20 years ago, i would have laughed in their face. back then my body just said "give me coke, cigarettes, and a rocking chair." that’s about all i needed to be extremely content. at that time my body was so numb and dosed with stimulants that it would have been just about impossible to tune into my body without some serious training and support.

makes me smile now to think about how much easier this body awareness has become. btw i mean coca cola thankfully i never abused any drugs other than cigarettes.

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Problems Arise in Clumps

Nov 22nd, 2003

problems arise it seems in clumps. when several occur in a short time period it sets me on edge. i don’t like problems. i get a little nervous that they won’t go away or that i won’t handle them well. i guess what i’m talking about really isn’t problems per se. it’s just icky stuff, things i need to do something about like a complicated project, misunderstandings, a need to set boundaries, a project that’s gone amuck or is stuck.

but when i sit and wait for something to come to me, it ALWAYS does. i get excited. often something really cool occurs to me–a good idea for a project or a useful new perspective about myself, another person, or the planet. often solutions come to me fully formed. sometimes like tonight i have to get out of bed and write them down.

i’m wearing sunglasses looking at my monitor because my sleepy eyes can’t take the glare, and i don’t remember which button to press on my monitor to turn down the brightness.

problems give me an opportunity to be creative and to learn to trust myself. i learn (over and over again, unfortunately), that answers, guidance, solutions come to me (like the sun glasses). they bubble up after i’ve mulled over the issue and held debates and conversations in my head. then when i take a long walk, go to bed, or just sit quietly, the guidance comes. amazing really. and then there’s smooth sailing for a time.

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Redefining Perfect

Nov 21st, 2003

i love the design of the early toyota camry’s (early 90′s). so i searched and searched and found a 1991 that was in good shape – silver grey with a sunroof, power windows, and power locks. i’ve never had those features before….and LOVE them.

a while back one of the hub caps came off and i drove it that way for several months feeling like a sloth. it made the beautiful car appear ugly….but being busy and a rather low maintenance kind of person, i let it go.

then i decided i wanted to get my "clean sweep" score up to 80+ so i decided it was time to get new hub caps and get it fully cleaned in and out. since i don’t like cleaning a car (especially vacuuming the inside, yuck), i took it to a fancy car wash and for $13 got it vacuumed, cleaned, and waxed and it looked great. i didn’t know places like that existed. now i know ….and when i want to spiff something up in my life, i’ll go there. i’m frugal, so the price is right.

i knew i’d get another point on the clean sweep if i got new hub caps….but they were SO expensive (and not that fun) and i didn’t want to spring for that. so i shopped around a little and found some really classy ones at a discount store. they’re plastic, shiny, have fake bolts…..so they look like more expensive ones but i got all 4 for just $14. they made the car look perfect. i beamed with happiness. and to think they are really plastic and cheap, but they are still perfect. perfect doesn’t have to be expensive. it doesn’t have to be high class. it just has to be perfect for me. and they are. smoke and mirrors work for me…sometimes.

think how many values underpin that last description. makes me who i am. my unique finger print. your unique values are pretty cool too….even the quirky ones like the ones i just described about myself. free to be frugal. free to be quirky. free to be pleased by plastic.  You don’t have to be perfect to have a perfect life.

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A Few of My Favorite Things

Nov 20th, 2003

one of my favorite things is to have several things getting done at the same time . . . and i’m only doing one of them. it’s like a miracle. so today is an awesome day for me. a favorite day. a friend of mine is cleaning; two guys are repairing, scraping, and painting my house; and another friend is working on my web page design for cherylmillerville.com. and i’m working on the content for the web site. now if i just put in a load of laundry and started the dishwasher, i’d be over the top, hog heaven.

sometimes it’s the little things like this that bring a broad grin to my face. yea, it’s mundane maybe, but it’s the things that life’s made of. and since i’m all about getting things done, it’s just so perfect. the sun is out and we’re heading toward a high of 75 (in November!)

for me the sun is a favorite thing. i thank the sun often, literally. think about how life would suck if we didn’t have the sun. we, in fact, would all perish. when it’s cold and windy and the sun is shining, walk to the sunny side of the street, building, hill (whatever) out of the wind and be so grateful for the sun. i love to stop, take some time, and do that. we use solar energy for a reason . in fact, we would do well to use MORE solar energy in our homes and businesses.

walking is another one of my favorite things. i love LONG walks. i walk in the rain, snow, wind, and heat. but today, with the perfect temperature, it’s even better! i walk along the kansas river (kaw) and see lots of wildlife: eagles (in season), blue heron, migrating birds like great white pelicans and egrits, beaver, snakes, dragonflies and other flying insects, all kinds of birds including barn swallows and night hawks, red tail hawks, ducks and geese, and fox. and bats at night. 

i don’t know the status of the river now, but a few years back it was ranked as one of the most polluted in the country. since kansas is an agricultural state we have lots of farm chemicals….and people do love to poison and fertilize their lawns. that’s not one of my favorite things. i’m looking forward to my walk – usually 4 miles. lots of time to become aware, think, and connect with an occasional walker, biker, or runner.

haiku verse often comes to me when i walk. i tap the syllables of the verse on my thigh as i search for just the right number (5-7-5) for a haiku poem. for me this is a game and it also helps refine my thinking and language skills and my ability to become aware and appreciative of all there is around me. you might try it. type "writing haiku" into the google.com search engine and you’ll have many resources that describe the process.

one other thing i like about walking is that it’s a steeping time for me. my subconscious goes to work and dreams up all kinds of cool things to think about and become aware of. i usually come home with wonderful insights and ideas that i need to capture right away….before they are lost. long baths do that for me too. . . another favorite thing.

so many daily things to be oh so grateful for.

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The Floodgates of Creativity

Nov 17th, 2003

ha! i knew it. i figured that once i got the paper thing (block) figured out, the flood gates of my creativity would open. it finally happened tonight. is there anything that feels better than FINALLY getting energy moving?

oh, so many things i created tonight for my new web portal cherylmillerville.com. it is so much fun. now for some sleepy time tea to quell the swift flowing waters .

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Wrestling the Paper Dragon

Nov 16th, 2003

today i wrestled my paper dragon to the ground…..and won, at least for now. i come from a long line of packrats and paper hounds, and have pretty well mastered everything but paper.

one of my strengths on the http://www.strengthsfinder.com test is input. that means i love to gather and store ideas. well, i love to gather them…..but they usually end up in piles and are then virtually unusable. for 2 years i’ve been wrestling with this problem. got great muscles now. i’ve set up numerous systems. clever systems. too clever. so today i coached myself on this topic better than i have yet and the results were good.

my goals are to cut down on input, and to make it easy to file and retrieve what i gather. here’s what i’m doing to keep this system working well (hopefully).

one. maintain one simple system (alphabetical – no "clever" groups).

two. unsubscribe from all but 3 online newsletters.

three. file what i DO collect in short bursts (set timer). it’s not sexy but i’m hopeful. i’ll give a progress report in a month (or so) when i see how it’s working. pray for me, hehe.

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Frustration and the Learning Curve

Nov 15th, 2003

i was just blogging about why i love my new blog. had gotten into a long stream of consciousness thing of 6 or 7 items (pretty cool stuff i thought) when blogger.com felt i had gone on and on enough and asked me to save or cancel the post (or something). kind of embarrassing when your own blog lets you know you’ve gone on too long. so i clicked OK save (i think) and the screen went blank. in disbelief/disappointment (my mouth was wide open) i tried everything i could think of to recover my lost work/self. nothing.

had to stop, breathe, moan, have a raspberry smoothie with musliex (does anybody know how to spell that word?) on top and ponder what went wrong. still bummed so made chili. the chili’s so good. country music in the background, comforting me in my loss (he he).

why is it so hard to redo something we’ve just done and lost? that’s a great question. it relates to why we/i don’t like routine like filing paper and washing pots and pans. it takes quite an effort so we don’t want to do it again………..until we have to. a feeling of "been there, done that." no patience to retrace steps.

but in some way (i understand) it’s perfect. one of thomas leonard’s expressions. it’s all perfect. yes perfect (and annoying). guess i’m not done going off yet. being cut off like that in mid-blog (i was really building up steam).   don’t want this to happen again…so need to scrounge "help" for info on bloggus-interruptus. one thing i’ve found in life is that part of what we do is amazingly simple (like getting an account at blogspot and starting a blog). now that i’m hooked, i get a chance to do the stuff that isn’t as easy/obvious (like figure out how to let others know about this blog, post it to my web, figure out the etiquette like should i put my email in the post….stuff like that). stuff that i don’t really want to figure out.

so i take a deep breath, count to 10 and do something i know how to do (turn off my computer).

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Thinking About Stumbling. . .

Nov 15th, 2003

we can stumble into trouble. stumble into a place we shouldn’t be. we can stumble onto a solution or stumble onto a secret garden or pathway. hum it seems that stumbling "into" is not a good thing….like not being mindful until oops, it’s too late. you’re there in trouble.

and it seems that stumbling "onto" is a good thing that happens when we’re moving, on the go, experiencing and experimenting.

love those prepositions. remembering a grammar lesson: a preposition is anything a mouse can do with a box. it can go under it, around it, through it, into it, over it, above it. fascinating to me that one little word can make such a difference in interpretation for (to?) the observant communicator.

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Setting Your Heart on Fire

Nov 14th, 2003

getting ready for a spiritual study group to come to discuss Setting Your Heart on Fire….baking a pinapple upside down cake (yum), listening to country western music. hey , common, i live in kansas. it occurs to me that lots of people are judgmental about country western music. intellectuals. i quit listening for a time because i thought the music wasn’t spiritually evolved and i didn’t want to fill my space with unevolved music.

but tonight i’m drinking a beer and enjoying the comfort, beauty, and full expression of the music. the words are often quite funny too. they tell it how it is. yep. and that’s a cool kind of stumbling that i enjoy. sure i get tired of the songs about drinking and carousing…but they sure are fun to dance to. i dance around my house to the music on occasion. lovely. what i love about the music is that there is a loving community feeling. they love the family, the special one, they long for things (and have the courage to tell you about it). they’re down home. open (if not screwed up sometimes), but out there as far as feelings.

i’m a feeling kind of person, so i enjoy that. It makes me wonder about them and their relationships. it’s educational and enjoyable. so they’re stumbling too. and that’s a-ok with me. oh here’s a good one–"she thinks my tractor’s sexy." gotta go dance.

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Stumbling Toward a Perfect Life

Nov 14th, 2003

my goal is to see how many people I can encourage to stumble along with me. in the virtual community of cherylmillerville.com stumbling will no longer have a bad name cuz (think about it) you actually burn more calories and exercise more muscles when you stumble. right? stumbling is good. if you stumble toward what you want, you still get there, don’t ya? So let’s make a pact to ease up on the critical self talk while we’re on this journey stumbling toward a perfect life. cool.

You don’t have to be perfect to have a perfect life.

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