I did not write a post yesterday. I did not have an inspiration for a post. I tried waiting, fingers on the keyboard, mind searching, digging, not finding. I decided not to wait.
I feel like when I am waiting, I am focused too hard on wanting, and when I am focused on wanting, I am also focused on what I do not have. An idea or enough of anything – money, chocolate, fun.
When I start thinking about lack, then it is time for a change.
One of the strategies in my eBook, Breaking into Blossom, is change, inspired by Pauline Oliveros’s Poem of Change. The point is to change anything, your position, your location, your mind, your body. Dramatically, imperceptibly.
A few weeks ago, I listened to an Abraham workshop with Esther Hicks, and she said, “Make the fun that you are having unrelated to anything else.” What that meant was to not make the fun you are having dependent on how much money you have, how great your blog post is, how your health is, how your kids are doing or anything else.
For the past three years, we have been trying, but not really trying, to sell our house. We love our house, and don’t particularly want to move. But we also feel it is time to have less to take care of, or rather, to be taking more care of what has become most important to us – our creative endeavors and each other.
So I need to stop waiting there too. Stop waiting for a buyer, for a resolution to that uncertainty. Because here is the thing: if I am waiting, I am not really here, not breathing this breath, not dancing the dance of this moment, savoring what is here.
Not waiting is one of those changes that requires vigilance, noticing – so that I can tell if I have slid back into some subtle, cramped form of waiting.
What are you waiting for?
The poet, William Stafford, wrote everyday for 50 years. He was asked in an interview “What happens on those days when you are not inspired to write, or you aren’t happy with the poem you wrote?” He answered, “I just lower my standards.”
I was told this by a former neighbor of his soI think this is a true story.
The Neighbor also told me that once at a party William Stafford was engaged in conversation with 2 people who had view points and ideas on life that were very different from his. Maybe even offensive to him. They were negative, closed minded…….basically terrible to talk to or be around. After Williams Stafford broke contact from these guest, the neighbor said he went up to him and asked “Bill, why did you talk to them so long? They were terrible to talk too.” Bill said, “Well, if you don’t really listen to what they are saying, but only listen to the sounds the words make, it’s actually quite nice.”
I hope this one is true!
I LOVE this!