Incredible Variety for an Amazing Price...

 ... and a noble cause.

When the student is ready, the teacher appears... again?

I took a class from Tanya at Blogelina earlier this summer, but I was really not a good student.  And I do know how to be a good student.

I've been on a week-long, device-free vacation in the North woods.  It was wonderful and I did not suffer withdrawal symptoms, and now that I'm back I am appreciating the amazing role of virtual reality in our reality... and I'm looking forward to playing with it.

I know that much of what I have written about is what I intend to do and don't ever do-- I remind myself of my teenage son who spends have of his vlogs on YouTube begging people to subscribe-- but the thing I will give myself credit for is that I plow forward.  This time, I may start a whole new blog because I'm interested in WordPress and I want better focus.  I think the sheer diversity of my ideas slows me down because it makes it hard to decide what to do or create or write about.

If you want to give it a shot, too, click on the "How to Really Make Money Blogging" banner, where you can take a $25 class for only $5!  (that's the price I'm getting too)  I don't know if it's the same class that I took a few months ago for free, but if it is, it's worth it because maybe, MAYBE I'm ready now.

Practically perfect in every way

Tonight, I was in an online chat room, a place of encouragement within Brook Noel's Make Today Matter life system, tonight, musing about what to write on my blog.

"What do you usually write about?" someone asked.

"My imperfections," I said, trying to be brief, and reflecting on my willingness to be vulnerable lately.  "Life journey."

"How about writing about something that is perfect about you?" she suggested.

Change it up.  I like change.  I knew right away I needed to do this post, but I've been lost in perfectionism (and trying to write a different post, not the one I needed to write) about figuring out what  is perfect about me.

Everything I want to write about is either less than perfect, involves giving myself credit for accepting my imperfections, giving myself backhanded compliments, highlights the good traits that complement my flaws, is wonderful or excellent but not perfect (very much in the eye of the beholder), and so on, and so on.  Or, I could write a list of almost-perfect things about myself, that would perhaps, by sheer volume, appear to approach perfection (a modern-day Mary Poppins, say I).  Or I could dissect the word 'perfect' and find things that fit every little part of the definition, and that would be a close approximation of perfect.  We could get some thesaurus action goin' on.

Or I could just quit and say, forget it, people, nobody's perfect.  Nobody has even one perfect thing about them.  Excellent, but not perfect.  Unique, even, but not perfect.  Or I could make a joke about my sports fandom or my hometown or some other affiliation being an obvious sign of perfection.  Or I could tell you that my husband thinks I'm perfect and the rest of you boys and girls can just eat your hearts out.  Or I could wax philosophical and tell you about Plato's cave and that I am a shadow that is an image of perfection.  Or I could tell you that God is Perfect and I'm a child of God made in his image, so there must be some perfection involved.

Or I could veer off and teach you the word "perfect" in many languages.  Or I could give you a mouthwatering recipe for the perfect morsel and IT would be perfect enough for enough people that my sharing it would reveal that I have touched perfection.

Or I could just keep brainstorming long enough to hit upon the one thing, the one little thing about me, that is truly perfect.

And at that moment, I would hang my head in disappointment and soberly conclude my post, with the realization that telling you my perfection would instantly spoil it, and I would lose the only perfection I have.

You see my dilemma.

Don't Ask Yourself What the World Needs...

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

~Howard Thurman

Is it possible to be too alive?  I get so excited every day.  Some days more than others.  Some days I'm overwhelmed.  But every day something stirs me.  I have another brilliant idea and then wonder when I can make it happen.  Or does that wondering come from my scarcity mentality, knowing there is not enough time to do what I want to do, so I am withholding nourishment from that part of me that wants to be alive?  

This morning I had an idea for a book.  That, in and of itself, is not surprising.  I have had many book ideas.  Many good book ideas.  I have a whole collection of books waiting to be written.  This morning was different, though.  I've been excited about ideas before, but this one had me dancing and singing.  This one had my dear daughter thinking I had gone a little wacko, and pretty soon I was so excited that she insisted I tell her my idea.

I said, "OK, if I tell you, you have to be my cheerleader.  You have to be the one who tells me I can do it, I will write this book even if no one else thinks it's worthwhile."

Dear daughter, a fourth-grader, asked, "What if I don't like your book idea?"

I told her it was okay to say so, but she still had to be my cheerleader or I wasn't going to tell her.  She liked my idea, and my next idea about my idea, and my ideas about my ideas, and okay, it may have been just the joy of seeing her mom giggle and exclaim, but she was sold on it.

I had quite a bit of trouble concentrating on my work much of the day.  My work did not involve anything remotely related to my book idea.  I'm a good worker and I got focused and got lots of work done, and by the end of the day, I wasn't even thinking about the book, and I had had many other brilliant ideas, some of which competed directly with the idea of writing my book.  Now, in the quiet evening, many idea later, I feel as alive as ever.

Still a little too alive.  Or no-- not too alive, but too hungry.  Each idea is not a sign of life, but is instead a hunger pang.  In order to come alive, I need to nourish myself.  I need to find the right "food" to fuel each idea.  Then I may come alive.  What seems like "alive" now is just knowing that I need to be.  The excitement of an idea is like the saliva that increases when I see food after going a few hours without eating.  And now I see the part of the quote that I missed: 

and go do it.

That is what it will mean to come alive.

A dear friend once told me that my "energy and enthusiasm for life" were "unparalleled."  I quote her to myself when I need a boost (i.e. I don't quite feel as she described).  In this moment, though, that energy and enthusiasm looks like a craving, my soul telling me it needs nourishment the same way my body might hint when it's lunchtime.  

And so, we are back to Give What You Crave.  I am grateful for my special daughter who helps me do that.  At one point this morning, I said, "Now I'm feeling a little deflated."  

"Why?" she asked.

"I'm so excited about my book, but a little voice in my head just said, 'You have to clean your house first.'"  I whined.  My shoulders slumped.

Dear daughter just looked up at me, a determined look on her face, and said, "You have to write that book."  

I am blessed.

There's a crack in everything

My April 1 post was about signing on to the Ultimate Blog Challenge and why I refused to consider it setting myself up for failure.   I gutted my way through the first five days.  The pros were:

• I was proving to myself that I could do it (building mastery is one of the skills I'm working on in DBT therapy)
• I was building momentum
• I appreciated having the support of a community instead of just blogging into space the way I had been
• The writing itself was therapeutic
• I was pleased to do something from my agenda on a daily basis (instead of everyone else's)

The cons:

• I had yet another thing on my to-do list.
• I was staying up late to blog, getting behind on sleep.
• Some days I was blogging instead of other, more important things
• I was seeking approval (mostly from myself)
• I felt exposed and shrunk back from it

I didn't write any posts on the weekend.  At first, I though, weekdays, that's pretty good.  Five of seven days.  That's consistent.  And I cut myself a break because my dog had gone missing.  It took time to make and put up posters and call around and cry and all that.   After three days, we found her, and she had been safe the whole time, but then my inner taskmaster flipped a little switch and said, alright, now you have to get back to that blog.  That might have been okay.  But other things came up, and I did write.  I have long observed that I can't blog (at least not on this blog, with themes so vulnerable) unless I am well enough to do so.  I wrote 26 pages last night and 4 this morning, but they were all for me.  Not suitable for all audiences.

What happens when I blog for 5 days and then not at all for 3?  What is that 3-day gap?  A lapse?  A failure?  A crack?

Art by Shari Elf http://www.sharielf.com/2010.html

I need for it to be just a crack.  So many obstacles pile on, so many mistakes are made one after the other, I start to feel broken.  I know it's the Perfectionist and she doesn't necessarily deserve my attention, so it helps to take my brokenness and narrow it down to a crack.  A crack that is there for the purpose of letting the light in.

This verse reminds me how much beauty I do find in imperfection.  A little wabi sabi going on.  I love collage, mosaic, patchwork, any kind of art made from beach glass, or driftwood, or old lawnmower parts, or recycled material, or random found objects.  Taking something incomplete or useless and making it part of a whole.  Repurposing it.  Ringing the bells that still can ring.  I am reminding myself now to apply my attraction to imperfection in art to my life.  The imperfection of 5 days on, 3 days off, of a blog challenge can be something that appeals to me.  I can look at those 3 days as just a crack, and write another post while the light gets in.

Self-Talk is Applied Linguistics

For many years now, I have been greeted every morning by Brook Noel, in her Good Morning newsletter.  Brook is a best-selling author who provides solutions and support to help women live their best lives.  The Good Morning emails are an anchor for me.  I read them for years before I ever bought a product or took a class (now I am a Make Today Matter lifetime member).


The concept is simple:  quote, reflection, affirmation.  I unsubscribed for awhile a couple of years ago when I had a particularly bad attitude and wanted to cling to my depression, but I came back.  Many of the emails are repeats, and I've started to have my favorites.  Sometimes it's the quote that packs a wallop, other times Brook's reflection strikes a chord, and still other times the quote and the reflection are okay but the affirmation is just what I needed to here.  This is the one that came this morning, and it's one that always makes me sit up a little taller and open my eyes a little wider.  And this time, I saw a dialectic in it very much like what I am practicing in dialectical behavior therapy.

Optimist, pessimist or poptimist? 

(Brook Noel's article from April of 2008)

When I was in high school, I called myself Emily the Eternal Optimist.  I don't recall why I gave myself that name, except that I always tried to be optimistic.  The thing was, I wasn't really great at actually allowing my feelings, the "negative" ones, and then moving to optimism.  In eighth grade health we had a unit about stress, and we took a test of our life stress.  It has been many decades but I believe it was much like this one, only age-appropriate, ranking stressors based on how recently they had occurred.  I remember going up to the teacher and asking if I had to include my parent's divorce, "because I have no stress about that" or my dad's fight with cancer (he wasn't out of the woods yet!) because I was "dealing with it really well."  She said, yes, if it happened I needed to check it off.  I guess the Perfectionist wanted to have the lowest score in the class, so I could win the prize for Least Stressed.  The other kids thought I was weird because my whole family and I practiced Transcendental Meditation, so I needed to prove that I transcended stress entirely.

Fast forward a decade or two, and Emily the Eternal Optimist ends up with postpartum depression and anxiety, morphing into regular ol' clinical depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and an eating disorder-- which are all labels for excellent book learning, impaired emotional intelligence (in my case).  But hey! getting with the program now.  I was much like the friend that Brook Noel describes, jabbing myself repeatedly, hurting myself with my internal dialogue, over and over, like water torture.  I still am, I guess, but I am learning a new language.

Self-talk is a special language.  I don't know if I'm an optimist, a pessimist, or a 'poptomist,' but I am a linguist.  I appreciate the opportunity to use language to explore parts of me that aren't made up with words.  That's part of why I'm out here in the blogosphere, being vulnerable with friends and complete strangers; I need to practice the language of emotions and positive self-talk.  And to teach it.  I taught French and Spanish for many years, words fascinate me, and I approach everything as if it were a language (even math).  So I can't really learn this new language unless I have a way to share it with others who might need to learn it, too.

Thanks for the practice session.  You are way better than flashcards.

Every obstacle is a vehicle

Maybe it’s cliché to say

• We can turn closed doors into windows of opportunity
• When a door closes, another one opens up.
• Focus on problems, you get more problems.
• It’s a process but it doesn’t have to be a problem.

I don't mind clichés.  I love quotes and borrowed words and my own little phrases.  I can hardly think without words and I need words to turn my thoughts.

Today I was excited to have the right amount of me-time between work and dinner out with friends.  The right amount is not enough time to go home but just enough to plant myself somewhere and write a blog post, maybe answer some emails.  This morning my daughter asked me why I was bringing the laptop to work with me.  I gave her a wise mom answer, “Because I am.”

Spring has finally arrived in Minnesota (high of 51-- it's all relative) and I am thirsty for it.  My face drinks in sunshine.  I thought I could plant myself on a bench in front of the library, get my fresh air, connect to the library’s wi-fi, and tippy-type away, briefly getting the best of both worlds—natural and technological.  Feeling connected and connected.

Nope.  My computer cannot seem to find the wi-fi today.  I took the laptop inside, but still no luck.  I have had a tendency to get myself worked up over things not matching my plans or expectations, even though I consider myself a problem-solver.  I am a concrete random, according to the Gregorc mindstyles, so I tend to create problems if none present themselves.  Part of dealing with depression is difficulty making decisions, so I often get tangled up in that.

However, I have been practicing radical acceptance and non-judgment and all kinds of skills and self-care, and had a few successes under my belt already today, so I was able to make a quick decision.  The library would close in 20 minutes.  I could drive to some other wi-fi, closer to my dinner destination, or I could grow where I was planted.  I chose to sit right down and type in a word-processing document (not straight into Blogger?! Gasp!) and just get started.  The technological connection will come later.

And, when the library closes (in two minutes now), I will not go chasing after another wi-fi connection.  I will take a walk and get my outside time, then go to dinner.  Still getting the best of both worlds.  I made a decision and went with it.  After years of second- and third-guessing myself, I am pausing to appreciate the beauty of this.

You made it to the bottom of this blog post.  Do you think this was a simple, elegant and effective solution?  Do you wonder what the big deal is?  Is it obvious to you that the snag was never really an obstacle?  Do you question the value of writing about something I should have been able to shrug it off in the first place?  I’m curious, and proud to say that I don’t need judgment or advice.  I need my own approach.  I need to be willing to name obstacles “obstacles” so I can do the next thing.  Knowing what an obstacle is, I can go over it, under it, around it, through it, or put wheels on it and make it a "vehicle." 

What's this all about? Part II: GIVE

If "crave" represents scarcity, then the "give" part of my blog represents abundance.  

I get a kick out of playing with words and phrases.  The day I came up with this phrase, I was in my cubicle at work (does anyone have a cubicle at home?), frustrated with cravings, but had been in therapy enough years to know I needed to do allow my feelings and do something with them.  It just wasn't my first choice.  A snack would have been my first choice-- or Ed's first choice (ED = eating disorder)-- but I took a break and pulled out a piece of paper and doodled and wrote words.  

I wrote "crave" over and over.  I wrote everything that rhymed with "crave."  I wrote everything that started with "cr."  I drew a casket ("grave" rhymes with "crave).  I googled "crave."  Every phrase I saw was about satisfying a craving (here I was trying NOT to give in to the urge) or reducing cravings (believe me, just the word "reduce" triggered my scarcity mentality).  Then a rhyme stood out from my list:

GAVE

CRAVE

While my scarcity mentality had me trying to get, not give, and I knew all about giving in to cravings, I realized that there was something different there.  Something I needed to flip around to flip my mindset.  So I brought in the what-ifs:

What if I GAVE what I CRAVE?

What if?

Instead of the drained feeling I get when I've given and given and have nothing else to give, I felt the teeniest bit of spaciousness.  Room for abundance.  A hint of a new well to draw on.  What if?

Well, first I would have to know what I crave.  The idea of going around handing my co-workers candy bars because I wanted them was laughable.  Not that I don't like to share or bring in the occasional office treat, but I pictured myself physically giving what I craved, and I looked silly.  Clearly, that is not what I craved.  I needed to figure out what it is, and then figure out how to give it.  And to whom to give it.  

I was awfully good at giving to others (whether or not they appreciated was I was giving)-- or I thought I was.  Of course, I ended up taking any time my well ran dry, generally making a mess of any giving I had done.  But at least it was something I had practice at, despite not being good at giving to myself.  At first, I practiced mostly on my husband.  When he was driving me up a tree, I paused to figure out what I was craving from my interaction with him, then I identified what his variation of that might be, and I looked for a little way of giving that to him.  When I felt judged by him, and pointing out that he was being judgmental didn't help, I identified my craving for acceptance, then turned it around and figured out a way to accept him.  

After that, I got a little obsessed and tested my phrase all over, practicing on everyone, and learning to give to myself.  I'm not an expert at giving what I crave, and it has not solved my problems, and it doesn't replace the Golden Rule, or the Serenity Prayer, or any other tasty morsel of love and wisdom, but I have one more tool in my toolbox for turning my mind from scarcity to abundance.  If I crave, then deep down there is enough to give. 

What's this all about? Part I: CRAVE

When I first started this blog, I had coined a phrase for myself.  It helped me reframe situations, and I named my blog for it.  I meant to build up some sense of my journey and connection, and then tell you about how I came up with the phrase.  My epiphany.  Give what you crave.  My twist on the Golden Rule.

It was a nice idea... but it was nearly two years ago.  I'm not sure I remember the story.  Either it wasn't such a stroke of genius that it left me with a lightning-bolt scar on my memory, or I have SO MANY fantastic ideas that it is a mere flicker in a city of lights.  Maybe we'll find out someday, but for now, I am taking my phrase apart to reveal what it's about (and maybe what I'm about, and maybe even what you're about).

Craving comes from a scarcity mentality.  I have been craving (food, attention, touch, intimacy, security) for most of my life.  I do have a modicum of self-control, but I didn't trust (a) myself with my desires, or (b) the universe to provide for me.  One way that I played that out was by developing a binge-eating disorder.  Associating cravings with bingeing is not a big leap, but I used food for so many years to keep my real feelings (and non-food cravings) in check, it took a long time to be able to recognize the subtleties of cravings.  I'm still in treatment, and it's still a process.

When I was craving food, or escape, or desperately trying to understand what was wrong with someone else that they weren't giving me what I craved emotionally, I started to ask myself what I was really craving.  There are all sorts of ways to get at true emotions, and for me, equating them with cravings made them something I could relate to.  Craving?  I know all about craving.

In middle school, I would crave a particular food-- a chocolate malt, or a banana split-- and the feeling of needing to have it would overwhelm me.  I would whine and carry on.  Sometimes I got what I wanted, sometimes I didn't.  Not only that, the Perfectionist was at work.  She knew exactly what constituted the perfect banana split, and if a sauce ended up on the wrong scoop of ice cream or there was only half a cherry instead of three whole cherries, with stems, one on each scoop, the Perfectionist was disappointed.  It's easy to see, now, that I was setting myself up for failure, but I didn't know.  I didn't even know the word "perfectionist" until my eighth grade English teacher took me out in the hall to let me cry away from my peers.  I had gotten a zero on my poem about cucumbers.  I was overwhelmed, and when he used the word "perfectionist," I knew it was right on-- and it also felt like the right thing to be.  What else could I be?

These are episodes in my life story where my cravings culminate in binges.

BINGE

Because I'm Not Good Enough

Finding out what I really crave, and reminding myself that I am good enough to get it, or that I deserve it even if I don't get it, has been the crux of, well, years of therapy.  Every craving came from a sense of lack.  The switch flipped for me when I found that if I could identify what I was craving, even if I felt that I had nothing to give, I could give the littlest bit of it.  If I could give it, that meant it existed, and it (I) was enough.  Cue the music ("Constant Craving," of course).

Come back for Part II, the "give" part of Give What You Crave.

Why I'm going from 0 to 60 as a blogger

Perhaps my "why" is that I'm an April fool.   I am joining the Ultimate Blog Challenge and plan to post EVERY DAY this month.  My last post was last August and my blog seems never to have gotten off the ground. Of course, then I went and started another one.  So the idea of adding a daily blog post to my already busy life when I've never had any consistency with it would appear to be setting myself up for failure.  This after my last post was my definition of SUCCESS.



I have a lot of whys between August and April.  Some answer the question, why commit to this? others answer why now? and still others answer why blog in the first place?  I'm going to let them all live together in this post.

• I appreciate the value of making commitments
• One commitment I made was to "dialectical abstinence" as part of a DBT therapy group
• I used my unique love of acronyms to reduce my anxiety around planning (this allowed my to make better commitments to myself)
• I developed habits of prioritizing 3 actions a day and letting the rest go
• I value community and actively seek it
• DBT therapy group
• Real Love in Marriage self-help/support group
• Make Today Matter lifetime member
• Wendy Joy Hart's Procrastination Cure Club
• Intentional interactions with friends and family
• I am really appreciating the idea of practicing habits
• Training myself to move forward even if I don't have it all figured out yet
• Since January first, I've added habits & sharpened skills
• Decision-making
• Prioritizing
• Setting an intention, following through
• Positive self-talk
• I have brought some other long-standing habits out of hibernation
• Practicing TM
• Writing in a gratitude journal
• Sometimes I need a gimmick to get something done
• I took an online course about writing a home-based business plan
• I severed some attachment to needing approval
• I got some approval and support when I made it clear I needed it
• I reduced hours at my job, not to blog instead of work, but to focus on eating disorder recovery and get systems in place for my family to better navigate our busy lives
• A side effect of the reduction and refocus is that I can choose more things that are for ME, such as telling my tale bloggily
• I get to have a hobby that is not just escape, but true renewal (yeah, I still escape... Scramble With Friends, anyone?)
• It says "Give your blog a boost!" and Hello! My blog needs a boost!
• I liked Michelle Schaeffer's emphasis on results being motivating.  I bought into the idea that maybe if I blog every day for a month I will see results instead of dawdling forever.
• I wanted an excuse to be on my computer
• I love a challenge
• I am impulsive 

There you go!  From zero to sixty on April first.  Let's see what speed I can maintain and what that means for speeds in other areas of my life.

Emily's definition of SUCCESS

SUCCESS

Sing Unabashedly, Creating a Conscious, Effective Story of Self

Sing 

Unabashedly, 

Creating a 

Conscious, 

Effective 

Story of 

Self

This "backronym" illustrates my idea of what fully inhabiting my Self would look like.  "Sing" does not have to be literal; I do like to sing, but "singing my song" is expressing my authentic self.  Success could have many definitions, but all of them amount to telling one's own story.  "Creating" indicates my active involvement in that story (not a victim of what happens to me).  The story needs to be conscious (aware, intentional, appreciative) and effective (if I don't like what my story is doing for me, I need to tell myself a different story).  S.U.C.C.E.S.S.

I originally submitted this definition to Abundance Tapestry.  She had asked for a definition of success, and my favorite game to play these days is to make up affirmations from names and words.  I've decided I love this one so much, I will repeat it to myself for the rest of the week.  I am telling myself what I need to hear.  You might notice how well this definition goes with my vision.  I have a theme song, too, but you'll have to hang tight until I'm ready to sing it for you.

Molting

When a spider molts its exoskeleton, it is vulnerable.  It has to pull its fresh legs very slowly out of its old, hard shells of legs.  If it pulls a leg up too fast, it could tear the leg, leaving it behind in the old exoskeleton.

I know this cool stuff from reading with a six-year-old when I was babysitting earlier this summer.

I started this blog over a year ago when I my spidey senses told me I had outgrown my old exoskeleton.  I had a new, soft one underneath, but I had to ever-so-slowly extract myself from it.  I have had to slowly pull my big ol' sausage thighs out of those painted-on jeans.  So slowly.  Sometime I needed to stop and rest and just hope no predator came by to find me.

So I haven't written since February, because my exoskeleton needed to harden first.  I sure have been working and growing in all that time, though.  It took starting a new blog to come back and post in this one.

I crack me up.  I never guessed that my journey through authentic life life would make me into an arachnid.

Oh what a tangled web we weave,

When first we practise to deceive!

Sir Walter Scott, Marmion, Canto vi. Stanza 17.

Scottish author & novelist (1771 - 1832)

Oh what a tangled web I weave,

When I must of my skeleton take leave!

Me, Em

One Day My Trout Bum Soul Just Opened Up

Bathroom Reading

My son (age 12) commented that a person could learn a lot about my husband and me by looking at the two books we left perched on the edge of the bathtub this past week.  The young man is ever-so-perceptive.  Even if you couldn't read English, you could judge us by our book covers: mine brightly colored, patterned, effusive, full of symbols, and drawing your eyes toward movement, and his muted but intense, earthy, quietly beautiful and amusing, slower.  When I found my husband, one family member comments that he was good to keep me "grounded," because I had my head in the clouds.  On good days, he is my anchor and keeps me safe; on bad days, I feel weighed down by him.

I said to our son, "You know, Papa's book is about his soul, too."  He thought I was taking issue with the point he had made and quickly lost interest in the subject.  I will explain to you instead, using words from each book.  I alternated and in each case opened randomly and counted down to the tenth sentence on the page.

When you give of yourself for the sake of love, the impersonal, immutable, perfect laws of the universe demand that you must be rewarded tenfold.  On the other hand, it would be a tool that was lovingly and carefully crafted by an artisan of legendary skill for the sole purpose of catching trout.  All that I do, I do for myself.  I consider this one to be a local artifact of considerable significance, and I show it off every chance I get.  You must be strong in order to be compassionate.  The band notched comfortably against the worn spot on the foot of the reel-- so it was the one.

Well, now, if you know what that meant, you know he and I belong together.  If you don't know what that meant, but you like it anyway, then you're like me, at least a little bit.    If you don't know, and don't care, you might be my husband reading my blog for the first time, and you might give me a confused hug anyway.

        

Vision

I fully and enthusiastically inhabit Life through willing expression of my authentic self. 

I fill the world with joy through creative dynamism, sharing, love, brainstorming, imagination, and artistic presence. 

I sing my song, dance my dance, tell my tale, and celebrate.

There will be more, but I just need to break my silence and put my intention out there.  You are welcome to  tag along and see where I go with this, and it is not my intention to make you wait another 4 months for that.

Happy birthday to me!

"This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it."  Psalm 118:24

Some days are easier to rejoice in than others; today is an easy one for me.  I have always enjoyed my birthday.  I love having a day that's about celebrating my very existence.  I don't think it's selfish.  In order to celebrate myself, I have to appreciate life.  To feel truly celebratory for my incarnation, I need a keen awareness of all of reality, and to choose the good despite the bad.  I am overflowing with gratitude, and it is spilling out as joy.

Today I am in a fabulous mood.   I feel loved.  I am enjoying Facebook and email greetings.  My spouse and kids have the day off, and I woke earlier and got out of the house without having to shoo anyone else along.  I am giving myself a mini-retreat at Starbucks before breakfast.  I am cozy in a purple cable-knit sweater for GLAAD spirit day.  I am thinking about but not worrying about 99% and 53% and all that jazz.  I am loving my friends and counting my blessings.  

I haven't been writing in this blog, and I think I know why.  I blog when I feel secure-- and when I have time.  If I am too busy to blog, I might be cramming too much in.  If all of my writing is happening in my journals or emails, then I must not be ready to share it with the world.  When I am feeling good enough to be authentic AND public, I can blog.  Of course, that means only certain things are shared.  I will experiment for the next month by checking in with myself about Giving what I Crave.  If I am up to posting, I will.  If not, I will consider that a gauge of my self-care and see what I can do differently.

Here's another thing: I keep wanting to control the direction of my blog when it's not meant to be a polished product.  I imagine each post as a collage element about myself and my journey, building up slowly, positioning, rearranging, gluing, and then at some point you will start to see the picture and I will be ready to disclose what Give What You Crave is all about.  The deal is, it's the other way around.  There is already a picture, I am just focusing on different bits at a time, and adding to it.  I don't need to structure it because it will structure itself.  Trying to order things has prevented me from showing you the artwork of my life.  Today I am committing to trusting in the infinite organizing power of the universe, and I am sharing today's corner of the collage with you.

A dear person in my life who is also a reader of my blog, told me my blog is different from most kinds she reads.  I like that.  I have seen all kinds of blogs so I feel like there is nothing new.  But I am increasingly aware that everyone has stories and everyone needs to tell their story.  It pleases me to tell my stories, to my family, friends, and anonymous others.  I don't need to do it in order to fabricate a sense of identity or importance, just as I don't need birthday greetings to celebrate life.  But it helps. 

I am totally in love with...

...myself.  My Self.  Life.  Love.  People.  Air.  Crickets.  Joy.  Distant shouts.  My new laptop.  Time.  Space.  Sleep.  My husband.  God (as I understand God).  Bliss.  Transcendental Meditation.  Friends.  My kids.  Words.  Ideas.  Excited gasps.  Possibilities.  Feeling.  Books.  Music.  Tutoring.  Being busy.  Green beans.  Purple beans that turn olive green when I saute them.  Turmeric.  Deep breaths.  Radio.  Spring in my step.  Letting go.  Fingers.  Song.  Now.  Tomorrow.  Again.  School.  Snuggling.  My therapist.  My Surrendered Circle.  My high school memories.  Water.  Rain.  Curls.  Paper.  Denim.  Purple.  Cell phones.  Imperfection.  Cheesecake.  Bibliotherapy.  Release.  Highlighter pens.  Tear-by-hand Scotch tape.  Tabs.  Movies.  Surprises.  My middle schooler.  Drama.  Clocks.  Skype.  Copper.  Elbows.  Sun hats.  Ballpoint pens.  Scrapbooks.  My dogs. 


I told myself if it took me more than 10 seconds between things I love to think of the next thing, I would stop.  I got lost in the happy feeling in my core for at least that long. 

Of course, it took me longer to tag than to write.  Some words that have never been tagged anywhere were getting their 15 minutes of fame.  Until I found out that I was limited to 200 characters and deleted most of them.  Another post someday, I promise.  (I'm making a promise to the words, not to you, dear Reader)

And I thought of enough more things that I am in love with that I could do it all over again, but I love self-care, so...

I am pleased that I broke my blog-silence and can contentedly put myself to bed.

The ESC Key

I'm building up to the meaning of the title of my blog.  If life is one big problem, than that phrase is my answer.  But it's not that simple, of course, so I want to share bits and pieces of who I am, and when it starts to come into focus, I will have a ta-da post explaining it.  I'm not ready yet.  If you follow along, you can be part of the process.

Today I want to write about hitting the escape key.  I am not going to tell you my whole sob story and bring it to a dramatic conclusion.  I am so many stories, mosaic bits that you (and I) see at odd intervals and angles.  There is nothing horrible going on for me to complain about, but my life tends to be chaotic.  I am so used to spinning around in it that it can be hard for me to see what I do to keep things in chaos instead of inviting order.  Chaos is to be expected when you live with other people, when both adults in the household work full-time, when there are two kids, and now two dogs in the house! 

The dogs were just added last week, and some may judge our adding them to our terribly messy, disorganized, in many places dirty, house (CHAOS by FlyLady's definition) and busy lives.  They are choices, though, like everything.  They are bringing joy to our lives and I do know that it was a decision I did not make lightly, and I did not bring them into my life in order to distract myself from important work.  I pack my life too full and it is frequently a way to avoid some ugliness or fear or sadness.  But that is not the purpose of the dogs, so I feel good about it.

I have an eating disorder.  I have been making strides in recovery and feeling really, really good.  Very happy.  Many of the chaotic bits of life have been becoming orderly and I have been HAPPY and not using food as a substitute for love, to ease anxiety, or... any number of ways I have made food dysfunctionally useful beyond its actual value as fuel for the body.  I have dealt with many changes and worries in the past through week, in a variety of adaptive ways, and have been grateful to people in my life, especially my spouse, and proud of myself, and hopeful. 

In the past couple of days, however, I hit some road blocks.  I'm not saying what they were, but I wasn't taking good enough care of myself to access the sense that obstacles can be overcome.  Part of the stress was grief over letting go of the eating disorder itself, which I let propel me right back into it, bingeing and inviting old [unhelpful] messages from one part of me to the others to repeat themselves.  I left my fine spouse thinking I faulted him for my foul mood.  I thought again of needing to escape.  I hadn't needed the idea of "escape" in a long time.

The word "escape" reminded me of a message I intended to give myself.  The escape key on a keyboard has these 3 letters:  ESC.  I've discovered that I like to ply language into positive self-talk (to combat the negative messages that I seem to give myself too readily), and one of my favorite methods is using acronyms.  ESC to me needs to represent Exquisite Self Care.  The phrase came to me from SARK, and I have found it all over the Internet, now.  The word exquisite is essential because self-care has to be so much more than the basics.  Here is parenting blog that shows someone else's experience with ESC, and her resource (one I haven't tried yet).

I created a chain in my mind that is helping bring me back into balance.  When I thought, "I just want to escape," it triggered the phrase "hit the ESC key," which reminded me of Exquisite Self-Care.  So I looked back and saw that despite all the fantastic things happening in my life, my self-care has not been exquisite.  I will post more about what "exquisite" means to me, but for now, I just want to share the book that I got the phrase from. I'm tempted to try to say it all at once, but I am sticking to the mosaic approach.

Theme and Variations, Permutations, Combinations

Did you  ever feel like you were working equally hard to belong and to be unique?  To blend in and stand out?  To be normal and special?  To be understood and enigmatic?

I think that some of my friends would be surprised to know that I struggle with these aspects of defining myself.  Some may think I wholeheartedly embraced my quirks; maybe others think I'm not that different, what's the worry?  I have been writing and rewriting my own story for a long time.  About a year ago, my most desperate need was to be authentic, and felt like life wasn't letting me.  As I became braver about sharing, surrounded by many very kind people struggling to be true to themselves, too, I discovered that I can tell my stories over and over in different ways.  Changing the delivery does not makes the story (me) less true.  Withholding certain details from certain people does not erase my reality.  Choosing to perform in certain situations does not make me a fraud. 

Some of that anxiety is still there.  Sometimes, when I want to connect with my friends on Facebook, I stare at that faint question: "What's on your mind?"  I try to catch the thoughts as them go by.  I try to pick one that is clever or amusing, or Important.  The perfectionist editor kicks in again, and won't let me post unless I find the best status.  I get to thinking that if I pick one thought to share all the other thoughts will be jealous.  Did you bring enough candy for everybody?  Then, sometimes, I say, forget it, I won't update my status, I'll just pick a friend to catch up with.  And the same thing happens.  I read some of this and some of that, I consider chatting but can't decide which of the people I love can have my attention at the moment.  Next thing I know, it's bedtime, and I haven't shared a smidgeon of myself.  The lessons here are:

1. The indecision, perfectionism, and identity questions come from the same place:  FEAR
2. I can choose, and choose again, and choose once again, who I am and what I share, and how I make myself matter.  I choose LOVE, not FEAR.
3. A vital choice, time and time again, is to LET GO.  There are so many things I've wanted to do, but thought I couldn't do, because it had already been done.  When I let go of the need to make things happen a certain way, I get to emerge as a creative variation of the universe.
4. If you happen to be one of my Facebook friends, chat me up when you see I'm online because I really need someone to snap me out of it!

Letting it out

I have composed many blog posts in my head since my first one.  I'm sure any number of them would have been better than this one will turn out.  However, I am practicing a skill of DOING IT ANYWAY.  Potential is abundant; when I fail to act because reality doesn't match the potential I imagine, I am not coming from a place of abundance.  Even though my dreams and hopes and plans are exciting, inspiring, and even POSSIBLE, my "scarcity mentality" keeps me from getting much closer, holds me back from Abundance.  Hold me back from my own power and the richness of life.

A few years ago, after coloring Easter eggs with my kids at my mother's house, I got all worked up when it was time to throw out the pretty water.  This happens every year; I don't want the fun to stop, I feel like I want to go on coloring forever.  That year the water was in clear glass tumblers, and I stacked them up in a rainbow and looked at the light streaming through them from an outside window, and I took some photographs.  I whined a little about having to stop (remember, I'm the adult here-- my kids were off doing something else by now) and was agitated, and my mom, an artist, said, "Emily!  You need a creative outlet!"  I laughed and said, I do, I really do.

Every year I get kind of the same way about Easter eggs.  One year, I splashed the color into the snow.  Another year, I dyed the sidewalk.  This year, I rinsed my hair with the egg dye.  No one remarked that the color was different (I couldn't tell) or that I smelled like vinegar, but my hair rinsed magenta for the next three days.  So, it's a little quirky. 

I keep stopping and starting.  I have hundreds of ideas of "outlets" and I keep telling myself no.  I have ideas for going into business, by myself, or with my mother or a friend, and I keep dragging my feet when others do not embrace my crazy ideas.  This blog is my new outlet.  It is the beginning of a network of outlets.  I have spend years reading, absorbing, processing in therapy, twiddling my thumbs, and now I need to let it out!  Express myself!  I have many ways of expressing myself, but this is one that I need now.  Even if I go weeks between posts, even if I ramble, even if I write masterful prose that never moves from the space between my ears to cyberspace, I am letting it out.  I'll call it starting and starting.

First Step

I have stayed up way too late messing with this, and I'm finally doing the best thing and writing a quick post to get started, and then putting myself to bed. It is an apt introduction to me, I suppose, for me to share that I spent nearly 2 hours fiddling with the design and haven't had anything to say yet. My perfectionism can be powerfully crippling. I live in a world of potential, and my inner editor did not want me to start my blog until I knew how everything would turn out. Until it was perfect.

So, I do have to laugh at myself, for being myself, I guess. I intend for this blog to be about redefining perfection, or at least the way I stumble along through reality, now that I am letting go of fears. The time it took to get to the first word of my first post (on the day I said, that's it! I've been waiting for years to write this blog! I'm starting tonight!) was a prime example of exactly why I'm challenging myself to do this. I am chipping away at my shell, poking my beak out, and embracing reality. I am filled with love and enthusiasm, and I can't wait any longer to share it with you, and with this vaguely vulnerable, public version of myself. And at this moment, I am loving myself enough gently tell myself to turn off the computer and to tuck myself into bed.