Mere Inspiration

The 10 Second Rule

I've been thinking about conscience a lot lately. Conscience in the sense of that inner voice or feeling inside that tells us what's right and what's wrong. Unfortunately, I've gotten skilled at ignoring my inner voice in many areas of my life. Food temptations spring immediately to mind. Snarling at the kids rather than making the effort to stay calm and compassionate.  Also avoiding tasks that I really don't want to do right now. Blogging, for example, or washing dishes, or putting down the book I'm reading. Lots of things like that. The problem is that the more I ignore my conscience, the easier it becomes to ignore it the next time. This bothers me, but too often I can't seem to help it.

I checked a book out at the library a couple of days ago called The 10 Second Rule: Just do the next thing you're reasonably certain Jesus wants you to do. This is a short book by a man named Clare De Graaf, who I was pleased to see lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He's practically a neighbor. De Graaf suggests that we attune ourselves to the voice of our conscience, and follow what it says right away, before our minds have a chance to gear up and justify our way out of it. Why should we adopt the 10 Second Rule? De Graaf puts it concisely:

Christian character is shaped less by our big, dramatic decisions than by the cumulative impact of thousands of small acts of obedience. Those small acts shape our character and prepare our hearts to accept more bold assignments from God. They are the building blocks for a life that God blesses.

The purpose of obeying the 10-Second Rule is to help us develop these habits of obedience, beginning with the small things...That's how we develop good habits. It's also how we break bad ones.

Today I have been practicing this Rule, and it has been very helpful. This blog post, the first in over five months, is one success. Normally whenever the impulse to sit down and write comes up, I let my mind convince me that it's really not a good time, as there's too much to do around the house, or I really don't feel like it right now, or any number of other excuses to stop me from being productive. Days, weeks, and months can go by with me sitting around telling myself I'll get to it some day. 

Acting at once on the inner promptings of my conscience is a powerful way to begin to live my life according to God's will as much as I can. And I can look forward to more, as this practice moves outward from the personal toward more conscience-led "generosity nudges," or impulses to help or encourage other people. According to De Graaf:

When the Rule has become second nature---when you find yourself praying for, preparing for, and anticipating how God will use you---when you begin looking for more "neighbors" to help in unique ways---then the Rule has progressed, for you, from a rule of life to a lifestyle.

Related articles

• The Habit of Keeping a Clear Conscience (trinityspeaks.wordpress.com)

Mindsight

There's a new book available at the library called Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation, by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D. I grabbed it on a whim, as I so often do, and it turned out to be a fascinating read.

The book, Mindsight, is written from a scientific perspective, with an emphasis on brain structure and function, but the author uses case histories to illustrate his points in an interesting and accessible way. He also has a unique perspective that translates brain functioning beyond a mechanical medical paradigm into the realm of empathy and interrelatedness among human beings.

What does the word "mindsight" mean? It is a word that Dr. Siegel coined to describe a powerful concept, which he describes in part as follows:

Mindsight  is a kind of focused attention that allows us to see the internal workings of our own minds. It helps us to be aware of our mental processes without being swept away by them.

Peter Siegel attended Harvard Medical School at a time when the mind-body connection was not acknowledged. He was repremanded repeatedly for taking his patient's feelings into account during the treatment process. This came close to driving him out of the medical field, but he persevered, and specialized in the fields of pediatrics, psychiatry, and psychology.

Here is his definition of mind:

The human mind is a relational and embodied process that regulates the flow of energy and information.

The part of this book that fascinated me the most, and seemed to apply most to my life, was Siegel's hypothesis that mental health comes from an integrated, harmonious mind, as opposed to a rigid or chaotic mind. He envisions the healthy mind as a river flowing between the banks of rigidity on one side and chaos on the other. In his words:

Sometimes we move toward the bank of rigidity---we feel stuck. Other days we lean toward chaos---life feels unpredictable and out of control. But in general, when we are well and at ease, we move along this winding path of harmony, the integrated flow of a flexible system.

And how does mindsight help us stay in a state of harmony and integration, out of the states of chaos or rigidity that seem to be common in many of our lives? A final quotation from Dr. Siegel:

How we focus our attention is the key to promoting integrative changes in the brain. With the integration of consciousness, we actually build the skills to stabilize attention so that we can harness the power of awareness to create choice and change.

Siegel's patients learn to use exercises that increase their awareness of their minds, among them meditation and journaling to learn to separate yourself from your emotions, a "body scan" to increase awareness, and breathing and relaxation techniques. The key is to learn that we are not our emotions, and that they do not have to control us or run our lives.

There is so much more to this book than I have the space to go into this post. Reading this book has already helped me a few times to separate myself from my emotions when I was upset. In a later post I might go into how Siegel's concept of mindsight can lead to increased empathy and improved relationships among people.

 

America

I was listening to Simon and Garfunkel recently, the album The Essential Simon and Garfunkel. One of the songs I enjoy is called America, partly because it mentions Michigan.

'Kathy,' I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh

'Michigan seems like a dream to me now.'

It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw

I've gone to look for America

Paul Simon wrote this song in the early 1960s. As I listened, it struck me how genuine that song sounds. It is as if a friend is talking about a trip he made, in a conversational way. As I listened, I could see in my mind the bus the characters were riding, Simon gazing out the window, Kathy leafing through her magazine. It's so simple, the images are so clear, the dialogue woven beautifully among the descriptions. I could almost be riding in a seat near them on the bus.

In the last verse, he sings,

'Kathy, I'm lost', I said, though I knew she was sleeping

I'm empty and aching and I don't know why.

Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike

They've all gone to look for America 

All gone to look for America

All gone to look for America

As I listened to the song, I was struck by how young Paul Simon was when he wrote this song. He was in his early twenties, and now he is known all over the world for his music, a body of work which spans nearly 50 years. A yearning came over me, as it often does when I watch or listen to someone who is really good at what they do. A yearning to do something good and worthwhile, something that makes a difference or brings some beauty to the world.

I feel like I've been searching for what that something is all my life. I try different things, art, writing, crafts, but always end up thinking "That's not it," and moving on to something else. Often, after a year or two, I cycle back to the craft or writing I was doing earlier; sometimes I just leave it behind and never return. Some day, perhaps, I will have to choose something to specialize in. And in the meantime, I blog, I read, and I explore.

 

 

Becoming Complaint-Free, Part 2

In my last post, Becoming Complaint-Free, I talked about the book A Complaint-Free World, by Will Bowen. I ended the post with a few questions. Will I commit to becoming complaint-free? Would you? And why would we want a complaint-free world anyway?

I still haven't decided on the answer to the first question. In the weeks since I wrote that post, I have been wondering about it. Do I want to commit to becoming complaint-free? Every day lately has been something of a struggle just to maintain any kind of mental equilibrium. Things have been so busy in my life that some days I come home and cook lunch in my coat so I can run back out the door as soon as I've finished feeding whoever needs it and rush off to the next commitment. As I am a person who needs a lot of down time to read, think, and be still, this overcrowding of my time has been difficult. Complaints have been coming thick and fast out of my mouth.

I realized a few days ago that I process verbally, so some of this complaining was a legitimate way for me to figure out how to make my life work while still meeting the needs of my kids, pets, husband, and household (not necessarily in that order). That's what I told myself anyway, and maybe it's true. Anyway, I took the bracelet off a couple of days ago. I am not ready to commit to not complaining right now, so why pretend? I'm going to give it a few days and see what happens. 

As far as why we should have a complaint-free world, I think it is very important. The most important aspect is actually the mental one. Learning not to complain internally about anything. I think taking on not complaining out loud helps one grow into that state of being. 

To accept joyfully what you are given in life, and to quietly make necessary changes without poisoning the space around you with all your opinions, would be a powerful way to live. I believe that wearing the purple bracelet for two months or so with the intention of not complaining, criticizing, or gossiping has really made a difference in how I see life and react to it. I still haven't gotten through an entire day without complaining, and now I'm not even wearing the thing, but I know it's the right thing to do. So why can't I commit to it?

As I sit here writing this blog and thinking about just saying, "I commit to never complaining again," I notice that saying that doesn't feel safe to me. The question is, do I let that not-safe feeling stop me, or do I just go ahead and do the best I can? I'm sure this whole issue is a microcosm of my life in general and how I do things. Therefore, I am going to go into the kitchen and put the bracelet back on my wrist and declare that I commit to being complaint-, criticism-, and gossip-free....

It's on. I'll keep you posted.

Becoming Complaint-Free

I came across a book in the local library one day last November. The title caught my eye, and I picked it up and brought it home. It was called A Complaint-Free World: How to Stop Complaining and Start Enjoying the Life You Always Wanted, by Will Bowen. 

The concept of this book is simple but powerful. The challenge is to go 21 days without complaining, criticizing, or gossiping out loud. Three weeks. This is the length of time it takes to establish a new habit. It sounds easy, but I have found it is anything but. The author of the book himself says that it took him months to get through his first complaint-free day. But he did make it eventually to his 21-day goal, and it changed his life.

In order to keep the goal of not complaining, criticizing, or gossiping in the forefront of his mind, Will Bowen came up with the idea of wearing a purple bracelet, one of those silicone rubber ones that people wear to support various causes, on his wrist. Whenever he caught himself complaining, criticizing, or gossiping out loud, he would switch the bracelet to his other wrist. That was it. The whole program. Easy, right?

I sent away for a purple bracelet for myself and some for my family, those who wanted to take it on. They arrived on December 8, 2011. I put mine on at once and started the challenge. I have to admit that I still haven't gotten through an entire day without complaining. On my best day I made it to 1:15 p.m. Most days I complain some time within the first hour of getting out of bed. That is sad. I know I am a terrible complainer and criticizer. I have known that about myself for years. But I didn't know I was THAT bad. A few times I ripped the bracelet off my wrist and threw it against the wall. But I always put it back on again. I have improved. I don't complain or criticize as much as I used to. I just can't get to the point of not complaining at all for one full day.

I think the problem is that I am not truly committed to becoming complaint-free. I would like to stop complaining. It would be nice. But until I commit to it, decide that no kidding, I AM going to stop complaining, until I get to that point, I will keep giving in to the desire to gripe and whine and let my attention wander from the goal. 

Next post: Will I commit, truly commit? Would you? And why do we want a complaint-free world anyway?

 

 

Firing the Monkey's Paw

A couple of years ago, I realized that I was using that old short story The Monkey's Paw, by W. W. Jacobs, as my financial advisor. I had read the story as a child, and it had made a strong impression on me. It is a horror story, which might go a long way to explaining the horrible state of my finances. 

The story, for those lucky enough not to have read it, is about a poor, old couple who are told about a shrivelled monkey's paw, which is supposed to have the power to grant three wishes to its owner. The friend who shows them the monkey's paw suddenly throws it on the fire and tells them to let it burn. He tells them that the last wish of the man he got it from was for death, and shudders when asked about his own wishes. Though the paw was repulsive to the touch, the husband pulls it from the fire and laughs at all these warnings. Even though he admits that he has all he wants in life and can't think what to wish for, the couple decide to use the paw to wish for 200 pounds to pay their mortgage. (Interestingly, I remembered this amount as $25,000 until I reread the story while writing this post.) As he makes his wish, the paw twists in the old man's hand like a snake. 

The horror begins the next day, when a well-dressed man knocks at the door and tells the couple that their only son has been killed in a terrible accident at work. The company is sending them 200 pounds as compensation for his death. The suspense and terror keep building after this point.

For some reason, when I read this story long ago, I concluded subconsciously that in order to get rich, someone you loved or perhaps you yourself would have to die. Anything good would soon be followed by something bad. This belief has kept me playing and living very small. Other experiences besides this story contributed to my financial pessimism, of course, but over the years, it was the picture of the monkey's paw that would surface in my mind whenever I thought about the possibility of wealth in my life. 

Last week, when my husband and I were setting ambitious financial goals for 2012, the monkey's paw popped into my mind again. I realized it was still influencing my thinking. 

The next morning, I spent some time thinking more deeply about the story, wondering if there was more to it than I remembered. I realized that I had misinterpreted the meaning of the story entirely. The moral of The Monkey's Paw is not that bad things always follow good things or that having lots of money leads inexorably to disaster. Tragedy came to the old couple, not because they had wished for 200 pounds,  but because they ignored all the warnings about the monkey's paw and used such a talisman at all. I'm sure that if they had wished for a pile of mud, that too would have come to them in some horrible way. The story is  a warning, but not a warning against ambition. It is a warning against evil. Evil means lead to evil ends. 

There was nothing Godly or good about the monkey's paw and its twisted curses have nothing to do with the true financial blessings that come from honest work and sincere prayer. If only I could have thought this through years ago, but I guess we can only see what we're ready to see. Well, I'm ready now, and I'm firing that thing. 

Visual Hymns

I have always loved sculpture. Representative sculpture, especially classical sculpture, not modernistic blobs and spikes. I don't know why, but I have always been drawn to it.

When my husband and I were married, my parents generously gave us a trip to Paris for our honeymoon. I loved Paris, and one of the things I loved the most about it was the abundance of gorgeous statues everywhere in the parks that we explored. Mostly ancient Greek in style, they were breathtaking to me. I especially loved the fountain with four hippocampus (a mythological creature, its front half a horse, serpentine fish tail behind) filling the center, looking so real, as if they would burst out of the water and clatter/slither across the square, heads tossing, water flying everywhere. 

During our visit to the Louvre, I was most moved by the sculptures. The Three Graces, Venus de Milo, so many others. Stunning. At the Notre Dame Cathedral I spent a fair amount of time checking out the many stone gargoyles. Of course, part of that might be because we had climbed all the way up to the level of the gargoyles, and could see them close up -- as well as a terrifyingly high view of the city. I all but clung to the wall behind me.  

An amazing number of our honeymoon photographs were pictures of statues. These were all lost, thanks to my elderly cat with kidney problems -- but that's another story.

When we moved to this area of Michigan late in 2003, we lived for six months in an apartment complex near a cemetery, a modern one without headstones, but one which had several life-sized statues of Jesus. I was captivated by a statue of Jesus sitting, surrounded by children, who gazed up at him, leaning on his knees, the smallest sitting on his lap. In this statue he looked so loving, holding them, smiling at them. I walked there often, and used to stand in front of this statue, feeling some of my longtime animosity toward Jesus healing, washing away. Even though I had come out of my atheism five or so years earlier into a belief in God, I still felt some hostility toward Christianity, somehow still resisted, mistrusted Jesus, still held back. Here I began to open myself to trusting Him for the first time.

Somehow, contemplating this beautiful representation of Jesus awoke inner feelings of His presence, brought forth an awareness of Him that I had never had before. It was not the statue itself, but the feelings that it called forth and my response to them that healed me of my longtime suspicion, any vestiges of my old dislike, for Christ and Christianity. I realize now that God probably used my long-time love of sculpture to draw me there and to soften my heart.

I did not mean to write about all this. This post was inspired by an article that my sister emailed to me about a man (a former handyman) who is rescuing religious statues from Catholic churches that have closed. He rescues the statues, restores them, and is planning a museum to display them. These beautiful statues, according to the article, are often neglected, shoved in closets, broken and faded. What an act of love this man is undertaking. I definitely would like to visit this museum. 

I am not Catholic myself, but I love religious art, especially statuary. I believe that if a painting, a statue, stained glass, architecture, any work of art or beauty, draws the heart up to God, to heaven, to Jesus, then it has fulfilled its true purpose. I feel sad that so many modern people and modern churches seem to have turned their backs on this kind of art. That so many flat, square churches with their ugly buildings seem to have rejected beauty itself, as if it were not God Himself who created all beauty, all song, all joy and loveliness. Contemplating a religious statue or painting is no more idolatry than singing a hymn to God is worshipping the music. I think of religious art as a visual hymn, a visual focal point, like a lens aiming my thoughts, my mind, and my heart toward God.

 

LIfeVision, Part 2

I regret that I am taking so long between posts. Amazingly, life has gotten even more busy during this last part of summer. Lots of driving back and forth from northern to southern Michigan, and from our small town to the larger town where the dentist orthodontist, shopping, and gymnastics are located. So many appointments last week, and up north again this weekend. I long for time at home, preferably hanging out on the deck. 

Right now I am waiting for my son's gymnastics class to end, in an hour or so. Rather than make yet another round-trip between towns, I decided to wait here at the gym and get some blogging done. Didn't even check email or Twitter first. 

In the first part of this post, LifeVision, I talked about wanting to actively create my life inside of God's will for me, as best as I can understand it, rather than passively letting events happen to me. I said at the end of the post that I wanted to explore this further in another post. 

It seems a pretty simple concept, actually, but when I talk about creating my life, taking an active role in it, I sometimes worry that I might not be submitting to God's will for me. This is a difficult distinction for me. I am probably over-thinking it. I do that a lot.

When I say, "Let it be done to me according to Thy will," I don't believe the implicit continuation of that statement is, "And I will sit here, unmoving, inactive, waiting for Thy will to happen to me." No, I believe that I should be receptively active, meaning actively living while staying receptive to, listening for, the direction toward which God wants me to direct my actions. I think, then, that life for me becomes a process of living, moving forward toward what I think is right, taking the actions that seem right to me, listening all the while for what God wants for me, in prayer and quiet alone time (when it is available). 

And, I have to admit, too often I am paying no attention whatsoever to what God might want for me. Even if I know what I should do, I ignore it and do what I want. My will be done. It's pretty easy to tell when I'm in that kind of a place, because I am generally a lot more crabby and impatient, and I eat a lot more sugary comfort foods. Which leads to more crabbiness and less inclination to seek God's will. Deep down, though, I always know that this is a temporary state of mind. I will snap out of it. It's just a matter of how much time I want to waste thrashing around like a little kid having a tantrum.

Speaking of which, I have been trying to wrap up this post for days, so I am going to stop wrestling with it and leave it at this point, open for discussion, if anyone feels so inclined. What do you think? If you intend to live according to "Thy will be done," what next? How do you do it? How do you listen? And how do you deal with the resistance that comes up, if any, when you try to surrender to God's will?

LifeVision

I'm up here at my parents' house, without my husband, but with the kids. Don't have time for a long post, but I want to get something in here before I go home tomorrow. I don't know how it is with most families, but in my family, we are often up to something transformational. It is great that I can come up here and we do real work on the problems and issues that one or any of us have that are getting in our way.

Sometimes we just talk and explore ideas, dreams, or frustrations, and sometimes we really thrash things out. Of course, we also spend time just hanging out talking, playing games or going to the beach or the fair, having fun together, but we're always there for each other, and we all are committed, sometimes more than other times, to growing and improving in our lives. I love that about my family. I share that with my husband too, of course, but I really treasure that I can also spend this time with my parents and my sister taking on our lives.

Sometimes it has its ups and downs. Everybody doesn't always feel like moving out of the emotional dumps they might be in. We have our down times for sure, maybe lower than most, but at bottom we know that we are always there for each other. We give each other space to grow or even to stay the same.

Anyway, I read something today that really summed up the way I try to live my life. It was in the book The E-Myth Revisited, by Michael E. Gerber, subtitled Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It. I like subtitles because they often sum up the point of the book better than I can. I checked the book out because I thought the "E" in E-Myths stood for Electronic, but it actually stands for Entrepreneur. The gist of the book is that most entrepreneurs start their businesses because they love doing a certain skill or task, and most businesses eventually fail because of a lack of big-picture, long-range planning.

Here is the excerpt that I found so exciting:

Great people have a vision of their lives that they practice emulating each and every day.

They go to work on their lives, not just in their lives...

I believe it's true that the difference between great people and everyone else is that great people create their lives actively, while everyone else is created by their lives, passively waiting to see where life takes them next.

The difference between the two is the difference between living fully and just existing.

The difference between the two is living intentionally and living by accident.

I am not trying to say here that I think I am a great person. That is not true and is not the point I want to make. I am saying that I do not want to float through life waiting for what happens next, without having a vision for how I want to be and what I want my life to be about, inside of God's will as I best interpret it.

There are a lot of ideas here to explore, and some reservations I have had about this whole concept, so in my next post I want to talk about what I think it means to work on creating one's life according to God's will.

"the dip"

It's been a long time, about seven weeks, since I posted to this blog. I was going to say it's hard to come back, but actually, it's surprisingly easy. If I followed my usual style, I would never come back to it again. At the very least I would spend a decent amount of time agonizing over whether I should get back to a blog I have neglected so shamefully. Past thought habits have been telling me that this phase in my train of serial interests is over, so forget about it and move on to the next one. I don't feel like being limited by that, and I'm not in the mood to agonize, so I am just plunging in again.

Several of the books I've been reading lately are by Seth Godin, blogger and marketing genius. His books are short, easy to read (but not always easy to understand or implement), and thought-provoking. Two of the books I just finished are Free Prize Inside and the dip. The Dip is subtitled A Little Book that Teaches You When to Quit (And When to Stick). How appropriate.

Godin says a lot of people quit when they should be persistent, and stick with things that aren't working for them and are leading them nowhere. I don't have much of a problem with the second, but I could write a book on the first. I quit a lot. I even wrote a post about it, called "Resistance is Futile". Shortly after that post, I quit the blog for almost two months.

Here are a couple of quotations from Godin's The Dip:

Strategic quitting is the secret of successful organizations. Reactive quitting and serial quitting are the bane of those that strive (and fail) to get what they want. And most people do just that. They quit when it's painful and stick when they can't be bothered to quit...

This is how he explains the Dip:

At the beginning, when you first start something, it's fun. You could be taking up golf or acupuncture or piloting a plane or doing chemistry---doesn't matter; it's interesting, and you get plenty of good feedback from the people around you.

Over the next few days and weeks, the rapid learning you experience keeps you going. Whatever your new thing is, it's easy to stay engaged in it.

And then the Dip happens.

The Dip is the long slog between starting and mastery...

The Dip is the long stretch between beginner's luck and real accomplishment...

The Dip is the set of artificial screens set up to keep people like you out...

The point of Godin's book is that how you handle the Dip determines your success in life. What a great lesson for me. I know how to quit dead-end jobs or activities, but the problem is that I often don't push through the tough parts when I'm doing something worthwhile.

Godin says,

"Successful people don't just ride out the Dip... No, they lean into the Dip. They push harder, changing the rules as they go... Dips don't last quite as long when you whittle at them."

When have you run into a Dip in your life? How did you handle it? Do you know when to quit and when to persist?