Just a Little Crashlette

NOTE: If you would like to post a comment, select the desired Blog under Blog Archive on the right-hand side of the homepage, and then click on Post a Comment.


I have always wanted to be like Flo (yes, that's her to the left -- is she cute or what!). Flo, the Singing Checker of Albertson’s for 25 years, is the epitome of The Joy Experiment. Flo touched everyone who came through her line at the grocery store with her joyfulness. Her customers would gladly wait longer for Flo to check them out, in hopes that some of what she had would rub off on them, if only for a moment. If Flo were still around today, I would invite her over for coffee, so I could ask her, “Was it always this way for you, Flo? Was there a time in your life where you had to work at being joyful?”

But, I am not like Flo.

I was on a high since beginning The Experiment. Thinking about, writing about, talking about Joy as a daily focus was impactful. And then came the crash, not a big crash, a little crashlette. I awoke Thursday morning and jumped out of bed (this is totally out of character in my Pre-Experiment life). Seemed like this day would be like a standard happy-go-lucky Experiment day, but then I climbed on the scales. Seven holiday pounds staring at me, my heart immediately sank. Ten days of leisure, eating and drinking whatever moved me, had finally caught up. I was shocked; after all, I had worked out TWO FULL DAYS. Surely I should be down a couple, not UP! In my life my days have been controlled by the scales; down a pound, mood is up; up a pound, mood is down. It was so bad that one day, in a tempest of frustration, I actually threw them in the garbage after drowning them to make sure they would NEVER haunt me again. About a year ago I purchased a new set, and we had been peacefully co-existing. But then, my weight had been not too hideous. Now…they are making me cranky. Well, I promptly flipped them off, climbed down from them and sulked through my morning. (Is this kvetching or reporting?)

Then work. I had been in a state of nirvana at work since beginning The Experiment. I had been Ohming my way through my days, calm and centered. And then a ridiculously frustrating beaurocratic faux pas threatened to undo something I had been working on for several weeks. This hit me hard and I could feel my body tensing, stomach knotting, a tsunami of tears just waiting to burst forth. This felt like the good old days, the days before my New Year’s challenge.

I really liked the feeling of being joyfully alive that encompassed my first few days of The Experiment and now fear engulfed me, fear that it was only short lived and that the mindless shuffling through the day would return.

So, here’s what I did. I put one foot in front of the other and carried on. I got on my gym clothes, put on some lipstick, smiled in the mirror and then headed to the gym. I then came home and took a shower, and took special care to fix my hair and makeup and smiled in the mirror yet again. I pretended that I was joyful and before you know it, my spirits started to pickup. I had made a choice to feel good. It didn’t kick in immediately, but it did kick in.

So, choosing joy will not be easy every day, but many days it will. Climbing inside is not the best way for me to stay in Joy. Joy needs to be nurtured and shared in order to survive when seven excess pounds are weighing you down.

So, perhaps some day I will be like Flo. God bless you Flo for sharing your joy with all of us. You let us know that being playful and joyful is possible every day, and for that everyone whose life you touched sends you thanks. I double dare you to look at her face and NOT smile.

As for me? I now have a picture of Flo printed off and staring at me on a regular basis. That kind of joy is still contagious and I want to catch me some.

Lynnie

Click on Flo, to read more about her life of service through joy.

Deficit Spending

Two days ago I reclaimed 12 hours a week of my precious life from my employer (and by the way, I was giving it away, they weren’t taking it). I have committed 2 hours/day to gym time (and the occasional house vacuuming) and writing the blog the other evening took 2.5 hours…there’s a problem. I have gone straight into deficit spending.

So, here are my own personal ground rules. I won’t write lengthy blogs (if I write too late into the evenings I can’t sleep, I get so frigg’n joyful) during the week, but will devote more time on the weekends. During the week I will continue to share only smallish tidbits of miracles that happen during my day. And thus, I will get to keep my sanity. Lynnie with no sleep…it’s not a pretty picture.

OK then.

Something really has shifted since making the commitment to The Experiment. Perhaps what shifted is really only my awareness, but I do sense it is more than that. My Sister e-mailed me to tell me that on the very day I committed to The Joy Experiment she had made a personal commitment to gratitude. These two independent commitments were made 2,000 miles apart and without knowledge of the other. Yesterday at work a colleague told me he was on the verge of “something big.” He said that he wasn’t ready to talk about it, too close to his heart. In the past, I may have pressed him for information, but because of The Experiment, I told him that whatever his “something big” was, I wanted him to know that I had just signed a mental contract (more about this exercise later) in support of his idea. He was very touched…he said words could not adequately say how much that meant to him. I realize now that this exercise is about more than just joy, it’s about thankfulness and recapturing vitality. It’s about feeling hope when it may feel as if the outside world wants to infuse hopelessness.

So, here’s what’s different in my life. I feel better about work; I feel better about my body; I feel more present with the people I talk with at work. And I just got a sporty lapel pin from my daughter that says “grey hair is the new blonde.” I’ll take it that as NOT a slam on my intellect, but rather a statement that grey hair IS sexy. Take that Miss Salesperson who thought my friend was my daughter.

Not too bad for a few days work.

Lynnie

PS A very happy birthday to Lia Joy! Now there’s a girl who lives up to her name!

Reclaiming 12 Hours of Life

I want to become an archeologist of my heart. I want to examine all of its folds and crevices, unearthing resentments, discovering their antidotes. I want to make them disappear into the ethers only to be recycled as pure joy.

OK. That’s the dream. Here is what it looked like today.

The Kvetch: I awoke at 5:15 a.m. in order to make my 6:00 a.m. teleconference. The good news about these early morning meetings is that I can attend in my pj’s. The bad news? I am not much of a morning person. I was struck with that familiar burning in my stomach. It had been absent for ten full days; ten workless days of getting familiar with my couch, reading books, watching movies, getting caught up with family and friends – it was bliss. Next came waves of an intense desire to cry. I think I was just sad to be leaving the cocoon. Then I remembered The Experiment. I can’t be doing this. I can’t be having a meltdown on the first day, and THAT felt like pressure. Crap. What did I get myself into? I logged on to work. The pace was the usual, 30 e-mails awaiting immediate response, IM blinking, teleconference happening.

I have unearthed a resentment. It’s having to get up at 5:15 a.m., when you would really rather sleep until 6:30; it’s having to attend evening meetings when you would really rather have a quiet dinner at home and read a book or garden or go to a movie; it’s finding yourself too tired at the end of your 12 hour day to do much of anything that might actually be good for you – like exercising for example. I have been anesthetizing my frustrations with a cocktail, and then collapsing into bed way too many nights. Good grief! I feel resentful just typing this. (Kvetching = 258 words)

Through the magic of feeling some sense of accountability (after all I was going to have to write about how I found joy today), I stepped back from the feeling and wondered how I could turn this around. What is the antidote? The few months prior to the Christmas break I was putting in a good 12-15 hours extra every week. I was gifting 12 hours of my precious, precious life to the company! I contacted my boss immediately and told him that I would be signing off for “a few” hours in the late morning every single day. I told him that I wanted to spend time exercising (or whatever), and that the time would be marked out in my calendar. His response was a single word – “good!” And over IM, in a matter of seconds, I reclaimed 12 hours of life. Twelve hours every single week, effective immediately.

I had joined an Athletic Club a few days ago, but was unable to get in to see the Personal Trainer until tomorrow. I considered for a second gifting 2 hours of precious life back to the company, especially since it was so kind as to just gift me 12 back! Somehow I knew if I didn’t take the time today, I wouldn’t take the time tomorrow, or the next day or the next. I got my butt down on the floor and did my back exercises. I stretched, I lifted, I did abs, I felt how good it felt to be moving my poor, atrophied body. And then I vacuumed my house, followed by a leisurely hot shower. And then and only then did I take my slow-moving back-side into work.

In this action of empowerment, the resentment was transformed. Or so I thought. I told a colleague of my plan to no longer work more than 40 hours a week; I justified this with some grumblings about the company taking more than they give, blah blah blah. But I caught myself. The next time I told the story it was about taking care of me and not short-changing the company. And then it truly felt transformed.

The high of transforming this resentment had me walking off the ground all smiling all day. It truly was a day of joy.

One last word about finding joy. It lurks everywhere, that joy. Last night I celebrated the dawn of ’07 by sharing a marvelous meal with dear friends, topped off with joy on a fork -- white cake with lemon curd filling and crème anglaise butter cream (and yes, it was as good as it sounds), washed down with joy in a glass -- an Oregon sparkling wine made from pinot noir and chardonnay (and that, my dear ones, is how to make a liver smile). Go forth and seek joy wherever you can find it! (Joy Story = 245 words)

Lynnie

PS Happiest of New Years to you. I have heard repeatedly that people have a sense that 2007 will be something special. I feel it too.

PPS Where in your lives are you giving away your precious life? Where are you leaking time that could be spent in a way that would move you forward?

Prelude to an Experiment

I don’t know about you folks, but I have noticed that we have elevated kvetching to competitive sport status. We call each other when we have a story about something hideous that has happened. We bond on our blues and loneliness. I find myself saying all too frequently “WHAT’S WITH PEOPLE!?” in response to something that somebody somewhere has done that I think is rude/inappropriate/mean…you get my drift? Somehow I don’t think living in a constant state of disappointment and frustration with my fellow man (and with myself too), is any way to carry on a life. So, in order to break the kvetch cycle (I am Lynnie, I am a kvetch-a-holic, it’s true), I concocted The Joy Experiment. For 365 days I will focus more on joy than the kvetch. If I kvetch, I will devote at least as many words (plus one more) to joy, as its antidote. The goal is to see if the adage “what you think about, you bring about” is true. Can I bring more joy to life?

I want to share with you the story of the last two years of my life, so that you will really understand what compels me toward this experiment. This IS an exercise in saving a life here.

‘05 was a year of mourning. I lost three loved ones…first, my Dad, three months later his best friend and my second Dad, my dear Uncle…four months later, a lifelong friend. By the time she died, I was so numb that I barely felt it. The year is a blur of blackness, and rightly so.

‘06 was the year of change and chaos. I thought it might be interesting to “shake things up a little.” Yes, I actually lived to eat those words, but I was desperate to dust off the darkness of the previous year. I began the year of change by selling my Miata, because I could no longer feel the joy that it used to bring me (never occurred to me that maybe I was just sad over the huge loss I’d experienced), and, frankly…I was a little tired of having to constantly borrow a car every time I needed to carry home anything bigger than a bread box. So, I bought a mini min-van – from sexy to frumpy – and yes, I am hoping this is not a trend here. Then I sold my house of 9 years -- the 1939 house I had remodeled from top to bottom, as a way to distract me from the sadness of my divorce. It was a lot of work and I was tired, so saying goodbye to it was easier than I ever imagined it would be. I moved into my temporary home - a 500 square foot basement apartment and two very large storage units; all the while, searching for a newer house that would encourage more free time and simpler living AND (and this is no small feat), throwing a perfectly lovely wedding for my daughter here in Oregon, while she lived states away in blissful anticipation of the day. Six weeks before the wedding my Chihuahua was mauled by a German Shepherd, while I (knocked down on the ground to Chihuahua height) helplessly looked on. In the remaining six weeks I tended to the myriad of wedding details, worked full time, visited my dog daily at the vets (yes, he’s fine – a real trooper that one), bought a townhouse and arranged subcontractors to remodel it nearly top to bottom.

And did I mention that I got a new job in 06? And did I mention it was the job from hell? I went from being a Project Mgr/Team Lead to the Cut’N Paste Queen. I spent my days cutting and pasting data from one source into another. But as everyone reminds me regularly, “at least you have a job.” Downsizing has hit my company hard; most of my old colleagues are long gone. It’s like working at a funeral every day. It’s no picnic for those of us remaining.

‘06 was also the year I turned 50. I never thought it would bother me, but it did. And to finish out this very special year of my life, while Christmas shopping with a friend two years older than me (and yes, she bleaches her hair blonde, and yes, she HAS had a boob job and tummy tuck, and yes she is worth millions and so has the chicest and hippest clothes ever, but still this HURTS), the sales person looked to me and asked if I would like to share a dressing room with my daughter. She then tried to make it better by saying “Oh, but I love grey hair…my grandmother has it.” Bitch. Still makes me mad. She was no spring chicken either.

It was inevitable, me hitting the wall, and when I hit it I hit it hard. The year of focusing intensely to accomplish all that had to be done had caused me to deny any of the feeling that comes with all of that change. My body had decided it was time to get my frigg’n attention. Not being one to cry much, I found wailing uncontrollably for hours on end a bit disconcerting. 24 hours of tears and bed, and it was all out, and the weight that had been sitting on my chest had begun to lift.

So there you have it…now you can see why THIS particular experiment appeals, on this first day of 2007.

So, I know that is a lot of words devoted to kvetching, and I am not going to write that many words on joy, because you would all be bored to tears. This will be the one and only time I will break the “more about joy than kvetch” rule. Hold me to it.

Lynnie