Looking forward

Candleglow

Tori led me to the idea of having a word for the year and I explored Christine's list for ideas. Nothing really struck me and I ended up feeling annoyed that I couldn't remember the concepts that had followed me throughout last year, even though I remember that there were three clear messages that I kept encountering. (I am sure they will come back to me when I am not looking!) Today my husband and I started our planned spiritual practice for Sundays this year. It was during that time that it came to me. My word for this year is truth. In all the areas that I am focusing on, truth is core, which leads me to my grateful intentions for this year:

  • to make spiritual practice part of my life
  • to live richly and mindfully
  • to declutter and simplify my living space
  • to tailor my job to suit me and explore career options for the future
  • to nurture our family bonds
  • to treat my body more respectfully
  • to spend my time on what matters to me
  • & finally and perhaps most importantly, to make lots of art that comes from my own heart with my own voice

Truth runs through all of those. They may not be specific, measurable, achievable goals in the GTD et al sense, but I will deal with those kind of goals elsewhere. These are more a definition of how I want to live, not what I want to do.

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Declutter, and I mean now!

After waking up oh so early this morning and staying up for 3 hours, I crept back into bed with the man and the cat, thinking that he would wake up soon and make us both a cup of tea and we would get on with the sensible, grounding back into real life, day we had planned. Instead, we slept and read and drank tea and slept most of the day away. Another way of phasing ourselves back into real life, beating lonesomeness and celebrating us. I felt guilty, but the practical and wise one said that this was the perfect day to set the stage for 2008 - this year we will be making a sacred space on Sundays, and changing the shape of our week, redistributing housework so that it isn't the focus of the day, and keeping work issues out of our personal space. Reframed like that, who could argue?

Now we are relaxed and happy, we've set up our work week, and are just pottering around home. Having got rid of my first 10-things this morning, I am feeling more relaxed about 'catching up' - a) I don't need to and b) I can do it in stages. I quite like the idea of finding sets of 10 like things, so I will find extra sets here and there. I do want to do more today, so I think I will have a blitz on my artroom before making dinner. The title of this post comes from me feeling procrastination setting back in.

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10 things a day

Carla Sonheim suggested a clear out for the new year. Which I thought was a great idea. Couldn't wait. Then the overthinking nonsense started. I wasn't getting back home until early on the 4th. In the taxi from the airport I started overthinking things, "hey, if I get rid of 20 things today, tomorrow and Sunday then I'll be all caught up". No pressure though, right? So when I got home I conked out and slept for hours, then more or less got up and went to bed again. So then I woke up on Saturday and thought, "okay, I can still do it if I find 30 things today and tomorrow". That freaked me out a little, so I didn't really try. What is wrong with just jumping in where you are? Nothing, of course and I am trying to learn that. So I've started...
My first ten things are here, with a bit of explanation.

Join us if you would like to, just comment here if you want, or even better, join Carla's 10-things flickr group.

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