Houses of Healing

Rhythms of Life

“There are times to cultivate and create, when you nurture your world and give birth to new ideas and ventures. There are times of flourishing and abundance, when life feels in full bloom, energized and expanding. And there are times of fruition, when things come to an end. They have reached their climax and must be harvested before they begin to fade. And finally of course, there are times that are cold, and cutting and empty, times when the spring of new beginnings seems like a distant dream. Those rhythms in life are natural events. They weave into one another as day follows night, bringing, not messages of hope and fear, but messages of how things are.”
--Chogyam Trungpa

Seasonal Rhythms

The dynamics of your body extends in an expanding range and your physiology is linked to the world and universe at large. Your body changes with the seasons, with the weather, with the atmospheric conditions. Many people can tell in their bones when a change in weather is coming. Human bodies are in synch with the gravitational forces, planetary shifts, the cold and heat, light and dark, humidity and all the other variations that the seasons bring. They respond and shift their functioning according to these natural dynamics. Your body increases and decreases certain functions in response to surrounding influences.

Biological and Geophysical Rhythms and Frequencies

All living organisms are composites of different rhythms and frequencies.

The heart beats approximately once per second but this rate speeds up in the morning and slows down at night; the electrical activity of the human brain cycles in fractions of a second; breathing occurs about sixteen times per minute; many hormones are released in pulses lasting several hours.

Across all species the natural daily rhythmic cycles run in twenty to twenty-eight hours for a natural day. The most conspicuous cycles in plants and animals are these daily rhythms (Circadian). They inter mesh with other cycles that are longer or shorter than a day.

Biological activities and processes are tied to lunar cycling as in monthly processes such as menstruation and also to the earth’s rotation around the sun as is seen in such yearly activities as hibernation, migration, and reproduction.

The seven day week has no obvious geophysical correlate but research suggests that this cultural convention may reflect deep biological rhythms. Seven day rhythms are seen in many illnesses, for example the common cold, and beard growth in men follows a seven day cycle.

Annual seasonal rhythms are less noticeable in humans than in other animals but they do exist. Secretion of the male hormone testosterone surges in the fall, sperm concentration and activity is highest in the winter, and rates of conception peak in the winter. More babies are born in August and September than in other months. Babies born in summer and fall tend to weigh slightly more than babies born in other seasons and they have a greater likelihood of survival. Miscarriages are greater in the fall.

Deaths also have a seasonal pattern. Fatal heart attacks are more common in winter. This is true even in climates that are mild such as Hawaii and also in the southern hemisphere where seasons are reversed. Winter months are the time of lower resistance to infections and of higher cholesterol levels.

Disorders and Seasonal Rhythms

It has been found that people who suffer from depression have skewed body rhythms and cycles. These may include the rhythms of sleep, body temperature, and hormone release. Seasonal rhythms have also come under scrutiny. Suicides peak in the spring usually in May. Admissions to mental hospital for depression also soar in the spring. There is another smaller surge in suicides and hospital admissions in the fall. An external environmental factor - the length of daylight -is believed to an influencing factor.

The Body Has a Master Clock

In the 1960’s researchers found the key generator of body rhythms. Injuring part of a tiny region at the center of the brain known as the hypothalamus caused the loss of many normal rhythms. The hypothalamus commands the sympathetic nervous system. It speeds up breathing and heart rate in moments of danger, regulates body temperature, stimulates appetite and reproduction and controls hormone secretion. Further research found that a critical area of the hypothalamus, the suprachiasmatic nucleus -SCN- a tiny cluster of nerve cells that sits on top of the optic chasm, is the body’s master clock. The SCN directs the body’s various rhythms to work together. The SCN uses daylight signals picked up by the eyes to direct each body rhythm to do its part at the appropriate time, day after day.

Seasonal Changes

Regardless of location, in traditional cultures, there was an awareness that they were continuously affected by the changing seasons. You may live longer and be more healthy if you adapt your health care to the natural rhythms of the earth. Learning to live within the seasonal fluctuations is believed to bring health, harmony and strength to the body. It also provides a natural timetable and rhythm for a good service check and health care program for maintenance and upkeep to prevent accumulated stress from degenerating body responses.

Many people get the flu in the shift from summer to fall. In the peak of winter many suffer from depressive moods. Some people find that if they drink fruit juices or eat a lot of fruit in the winter they will feel cold and damp and get a cold. When it is difficult to adjust from one season to the next our bodies may react through lowered immune responses that leave us more vulnerable to later illness.

Sometimes the body is a bit out of step with all the changes from one season to another. That’s why many people tend to get sick during those shifting times. Sometimes we fail to adapt our habits to be more compatible to our changing body functions in response to the seasonal changes. By being aware of some of these cyclical changes throughout the year we can support shifting body dynamics so as to assist the changes. We can also take advantage of these natural shifting points to expand those dynamics that are increasing/flowing and rest those that are decreasing/ebbing. Many traditional cultures have set up associations of food, drink, activities, energies, dress, organs of the body, and emotions that are related to and affected by the seasonal shifts.

Are You Connected With Your Natural Rhythms?

Your biological clock is set to cue you to certain kinds of activities during certain times of the day. Bodies have thousands of natural rhythms for every biological function. Your moods are regulated by your biological clock. Your brain energy is just like your other natural rhythms – high at certain times of the day and low at other times of the day. Your energy and vitality follow the same natural ebb and flow. When you try to push through those natural rhythms you lose the temporal harmony of your biological clock and desynchronization, malaise, dysfunction and poor performance set in. You will run but you will never be your best.

When all your biological patterns are ebbing and flowing according to their natural rhythms your body is synchronized and performs at its peak. You will have effortless energy and vitality when you live in accordance with your circadian, diurnal, and seasonal rhythms.

Are you aware of any energy cycles that you have? Do you pay attention to these cycles and adjust your activities as needed?

Are you able to go inward and rest when needed, or are you more likely to resist and keep going?

Are you aware of changes in alertness and your thinking abilities and do you use this awareness advantageously?

Do you have the energy and passion for projects that you want to do?

When you must perform at your best do you remain calm, focused and positively energized regardless of the situation?

Are you able to naturally meet the challenges of a situation? Or does it all seem to be too much for you and you just get by as best as you can?

Can you enter a state of calmness, alertness, focus and positive energy whenever you need to regardless of the situation?

If you are worried or feeling upset can you set aside these feelings and be fully engaged in what is happening for you in the moment?

Do you have the energy and motivation to be involved in interesting and challenging situations that call for you to be your best and operate creatively?

If you have answered “no” to any of the above contact me and let’s talk about what is happening for you.

Family Rituals

Family ties, connections, and time together are an anchor that grounds your life in the world and infuses it with meaning. The rituals and routines that define and safeguard your family time are essential for high level health, happiness and personal meaning and success. Family rituals and routines make sure that healthy communication and support exists in the family structure and that the family members all hear the message of their importance.

Family rituals contribute to our individual and group integration and stability. They bind us together, hold, and preserve our essence. Family rituals and routines create family.

When I was raising my five children, we created a lively mix of family rituals. Today we are thinking about Valentine rituals, but had rituals for for all the holidays: we made candles for Easter, power wands at the New Year, and of course, Christmas cookies at Christmas and Jack-o-Lanterns at Halloween. Even now - when they are grown with their own families -we still engage in many of these rituals that were put in place during their childhood – they have staying power.

Rituals are not just for holidays. One of my favorite family rituals was reading to my children after breakfast. My kids were homeschooled so we had the opportunity to participate in what might seem like luxuries of time. Instead of dispersing after breakfast, we looked forward to the next exciting chapter of the current book. We read many and varied adventures, but our favorite was the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

I now carry on this family ritual by reading to my grandchildren. The oldest are school age and live in different houses so the logistics are a bit tricky – but a good ritual can tolerate some flexibility.

Keeping family rituals provides a shared continuity that is so easy to lose in today’s fast paced, high technology society. When my children hear that I am reading a book to my grandchildren they inevitably wax into “Oh, I remember when grandma did that with us….” and tell the story of their own adventure with the tradition.

Here are some questions to help guide you in designing your family rituals.

How do you enjoy spending time with your family?
What things do you like to do with your family?
How do you let your family know that they mean a lot to you?
Do you eat dinner with your family? How often? Is it a pleasant experience?
Do you go out together on outings? Is it a pleasant experience?
What makes your holidays and ceremonies such as birthdays and anniversaries special?
Do you have family rituals or routines that protect and safeguard family time?

“Those bound in a fraternity of one mind stand stronger than a fortified city.” -- Antisthenes

Appreciation Rituals

“Each Night Before You Go to Bed, My Baby”

When we were younger, my husband and I would get in bed at night and spend a few minutes talking about our day. Over the 38 years this custom helped us remain connected even as it has evolved.

Our daily review had slowly turned into noting all the problems we had to deal with. And when that got to be a bit depressing for bedtime talk we just dropped out the whole review altogether. When we noticed we were missing that connection we started up again with a new form – appreciations – and we love it.

At first it was a little forced but now it has grown and evolved into a robust and nurturing tradition.

Our Appreciations

We start by talking about at least three things we appreciate about the day. Sometimes we do have to reach a bit to find three things but mostly many more than three things just come flowing one after the other.

We also add at least one appreciation from each of the following categories:
• What we appreciate about each other
• What we appreciate about ourselves
• What we appreciate about our health
• What we appreciate about our wealth/ prosperity
• What we appreciate about ourselves as the creator of our own life

Plus, every night we rotate through all the members of our family and say at least one thing we appreciate about whose ever turn it is

We also add a thing or two that we appreciate about our dogs. (Yes, we are dog people.)

We end our Appreciations with our intentions for the night and our intentions for what we want to create for tomorrow.

I Don’t Have Time For That

You might be looking at this idea and get tired just thinking about doing it. Maybe it seems overwhelming to you – “I can’t think of that many things to appreciate” or “I don’t have that much time I have to get to sleep sometime tonight”. But that is probably you just being stuck in your old ways.

Really, it only takes about 5 minutes. It is relaxing and fun to do. Plus, it is supportive, nurturing, and soothing, builds a great connective relationship, and certainly helps you sleep better than thinking about all that went wrong that day or all you have to do tomorrow.

You can always find something to appreciate.

I remember the day that our granddog Ko-Hai got hit by a car. We really love that dog and it was such a touch and go day – would he make it or not? Just before going to bed, my son called from the animal hospital and wanted to talk to me about the Vet’s recommendations. The vet thought we should put Ko-Hai down. Ko-Hai was having a really hard time and didn’t look good at all. According to the vet “dogs who get hit by cars going 55 mph don’t live.” My son and I talked at length about what to do. We cried a lot and in the end he choose to let Ko-Hai have his chance to recover.

When I got in bed after that phone call and my husband started our Appreciation ritual, I just cried and said I could not find anything in myself to appreciate that day. But he started anyway saying we had a lot to appreciate:
• Ko-Hai was still alive
• Luckily, the person who hit him knew whose dog he was and came right away to tell us he had hit Ko-Hai. If he had not done that Ko-Hai would have certainly died by the side of the road and we might never have known – just another missing dog
• We could appreciate that we had been able to find Ko-Hai after he had been hit. He had staggered off into the bushes before he fell down.
• We could appreciate that the nearest vet had still been open (it was Saturday) and was able to stabilize Ko-Hai for the hour trip to the Emergency Care Animal Hospital.

Yes, even in the face of something sad and scary and traumatic there were things we could find to appreciate.

Taking the time to appreciate your life changes you in ways you won’t understand until appreciation becomes part of your life. I can tell you all the incredibly wonderful things appreciation does for your biochemistry – real chemical and physical changes. How appreciation helps reduce your experience of stress. How it makes you more creative and intuitive. How your relationships are better when you practice appreciation. And these are all good reasons to make appreciation a formal part of your life. But the biggest gain you get from setting aside time every day – no matter what – to review and savor what you appreciate in your life is that it helps you to live this wonderful life full-out.

Right now -this very moment – pick 3 things you appreciate about today. And now design your own Appreciation Ritual.

And Ko-Hai is fully recovered now and as sweet and loving as ever.

Winter Physical and Emotional Replenishment

Winter is a time of moving deep inward. It is a time of conservation, rest, storage and quiet replenishment. When winter comes upon us there is a darkening of skies and a blanketing of growth. The cold drives us to huddle in our den and seek our warmth from within. We move toward greater receptive and introspective energy and slow our outward expansion.

Winter is the time of rest. You may find that you need more sleep and require more down time and actual rest. In winter, you may need an earlier bedtime and a later wakening time. Because of this pull toward rest, you may also be drawn to mediate, pray, dream or contemplate more deeply to restore your spiritual energy.

Autumn energy drives us downward to our roots where we hibernate through the stormy, housebound times of winter. The darkness of winter pulls us inward calling us to be more receptive to our own needs and the counsel held deep within us.

Seemingly contradictory, the Winter Solstice - the beginning of winter - is actually the harbinger of light. Devoid of outward growth in the dead of winter, every day from the solstice forward gets longer.

As we draw deeper into ourselves and mimic this contradictory aspect of winter, we too are in the process of storing, building and generating our own light. The light must first collect internally before it is strong enough to sustain our outward growth and expansion.

To facilitate growth in the newness of spring, winter is the time in which you need to take special care of yourself through nutrition, warmth, and rest.

Winter Correspondences

Water is the element that corresponds to winter. Water governs the metabolism and controls the bladder. Water is the essential fluid of life through which all things must pass. Water makes up the majority of the human body. Water is the receptive element, the element of the emotions and winter can be a time of deep emotional experiences.

The kidneys and the bladder are the two body organs that deal with the body’s water and are associated with winter.

The kidneys "open to the ears" and the ears are the sense organs associated with winter wellness, as is the sense of hearing and the ability to listen.

The kidneys are seen as being the storage place for our life force. They are the seat of the cycle of transformation and they generate our will and ambition. The kidneys are related to the adrenals, which generate energy, warmth, and sexual and reproductive expression in the body.

The kidney/adrenal connection is the foundation of the body’s energy expression - both outward reaching and inward gathering. A healthy, vital kidney/adrenal connection allows for the proper balancing of opposites: calm yet energetic, strong yet nurturing, active yet restful. Disruption in the kidney energy in the body may show up in a number of ways including:

Problems with the bones

Problems with hearing and the ears including ear infections

Problems with the head and the hair including hair loss

Problems with sexuality and libido, reproductive problems and urinary problems

Slow or poor growth of the mind or body

Accelerated aging

Excessive fear or insecurity

A loss of the "sparkle" in the eyes

Fear is the emotion of winter. Like the winter, fear can be deeply rooted internally. When there is poor or weak kidney/adrenal energy, excessive fear, phobias and general anxiety are likely. Restoration and rejuvenation of the kidney/adrenal energy resolves this fear and opens up the pathway to joy and loving expression. Often deep fears and insecurities will not give way to insight and understanding until the kidney/adrenal pathway is restored and strengthened.

The climate is cold and the direction is north - the place of wisdom, introspection, intuition, and ancestral guidance. Groaning is the sound of winter and the color of winter is blue and black.

The kidneys govern the storage of the life force in the bones and the bone marrow. "I felt it in my bones" is an indication of a deep and intense intuitive knowledge. Winter is a good time for undergoing restorative bodywork.

The sexual organs and sexuality are also water/winter elements. Either too much sexual activity or too little sexual activity may be related to the health and functioning of the kidney/adrenal complex. Traditionally the predominate energy flow through the bladder occurs between 3-5 PM and through the kidneys between 5-7 PM. During this time, relaxation and rest may be required to stay emotionally centered and receptive. If you have difficulty getting through this time of day you may need to regenerate your kidney/adrenal pathway by including in your diet nourishing winter foods.

More about winter nutrition a bit later.

Respiratory and Digestive Wellness: Part 1

Autumn is a time for harvesting. It is a time to clean out the old and make room to put up the fruits of the summer.

We gather all of the results of our hard labors of the spring and summer and put them up for use during the contraction of the winter. If you have a garden, you will be busy taking in your last harvest and canning, freezing and putting them in storage. At the same time, you will be cleaning up the debris in the garden and settling and fortifying the gardens for winter.

Autumn is the time in which we prepare for the rest and contraction of the coming winter. At the autumn equinox, the dark of the night is equal to the light of the day and each day after the dark predominates until the Winter solstice. Everything in nature contracts and pulls its spirit inward and downward.

In autumn we begin to bring our focus closer to those parts of our life, that anchor us – our work, our family, our home. We are called to look to how it is we are going to "make it through" to the spring. Do we need to clear out some space so that we can store that which is most needed? Do we need to finish outwardly focused projects and nurture and prepare ourselves for the inwardly draw of winter? Autumn is the time to pull your focus in to your self and down to your roots.

The lungs and large intestine are the two body organs associated with autumn. The tissues of the body associated with autumn are skin and body hair, the sense organ is the nose and the bodily fluid is mucus. The emotions associated with the Metal element of the fall are grief, worry, and sorrow. White is the color of autumn’s element – metal- and can be seen in the whiteness of the facial hue of someone with an acute or chronic lung problem or in someone who is grieving. The flavor of the fall is pungent or spicy and this flavor can be seen to open up and stimulate the senses and the lungs.

The autumn is a good time to work at keeping your lungs and your digestive organs healthy. This is especially true if you have digestive or bowel weakness or face a long winter of colds and other respiratory problems.

More to come.

Let Nature Restore You

Did you ever notice that when you fly in a plane that as the flight attendants give the emergency instructions they always tell you to put your oxygen mask on first and then attend to your children. Makes sense.

Women who have too much to do for everyone else sincerely wish to be of service to others. But they often neglect to tke care of themselves first. They wish to see those they love and care for thrive and be whole and be the best they can be. They forget that in order to help others thrive and be whole and be the best they can be that they must first be thriving, whole and the best they can be. To be of the greatest service they must first put on their own oxygen mask and then attend to others.

How can you restore and replenish yourself for your own sake and for the sake of others?

The very first thing to do is to stop. Allow your body to be still. Take yourself outside and find an attractive place in which to be still. Ask permission to visit. Feel the consent, get comfortable, and just be still. Even if your mind is demanding and restless and urging you to "get things done" allow yourself to be still.

Give yourself 20 minutes of stillness at least once a day. And if you are feeling a bit on the wild side go for 20 minutes of stillness twice a day.

When you are outside in a natural place and are still, you are being resychronized as you entrust yourself to the supportive and loving embrace of nature. Nature is the repository of the common ground of wholeness that you both share. She will replenish and rejuvenate you if you simply place yourself in her presence and allow yourself to be still letting her reconnect you with the wholeness that is inherent in both of you.

You don’t neccessairly have to do much else. Be there. Be still. And you will recognize again this common place of wholeness.

So many things are trying to turn you outward. It is important for you to find a way to turn inward. This inward turn is needed to reconnect with your intuitive, mysterious, magical, soft and brilliant side. It is the light of those qualities that will enable you to love, tend and care for those you wish to nurture into wholeness. This inward turn is what affords patience. It is what internalizes your focus. As you allow your energy to move inward and downward, you concentrate your power and become orderly and efficient as you hold your direction. Allowing your pace and rhythm to match that of the natural place surrounding you lets you experience your peace and wholeness.

Be still. Be patient. Be at peace. Be powerful.

"We have forgotten what we can count on. The natural world provides refuge…Each of us harbors a homeland, a landscape we naturally comprehend. By understanding the dependability of place, we can anchor ourselves as trees." --Terry Tempest Williams

The Power of an Enchanted Place

"Pleasure is icing on the cake. It goes beyond comfort--it’s possible to be comfortable without feeling your heart sing!--and it goes beyond mere function. It’s humor, surprise, delight--and above all, beauty."
-www.care2.com

Did you ever have an enchanting meal in a beautiful setting where everything infused you with the experience of beauty?

Have you looked through magazines with pictures of a gorgeous, relaxing, and peaceful meal time settings and felt the power of a perfectly designed setting?

There is something wonderful about nourishing yourself in an environment that exponentially enhances and amplifies the experience.

Or you could skip your meal because there just isn’t any time to eat.

Or you could eat your meal while driving - wolfing down the food in one big bite while attempting to cut across traffic.

Which experience do you think is better for your mind, body, and emotions?

Your digestion, emotions, and body rhythms are all intimately connected. If you are multitasking while eating the output of your digestive enzymes is dramatically reduced. Even reading or balancing your checkbook while eating lowers the output of your digestive secretions – which means your digestion is not so good.

If you don’t have enough digestive enzymes and digestive juices you won’t break down your food as well. You won’t have access to the vitamins and minerals in your food. You won’t absorb the food’s nutrients. This leaves you open to developing nutritional deficiencies and begins a downward spiral for your moods and energy.

The solution is to make mealtimes more sacred, more enjoyable and more environmentally nourishing. When you sit down to eat - the food, table setting, and surrounding environment should generate a feeling of calmness, serenity and openness to receiving nourishment.

It’s better to sit down and give yourself some leisurely time to meld with the nourishment of the food. At least every once in awhile, enhance your digestion, enhance your mood, and enhance your energy by eating in a beautiful setting.

I make sure I eat my breakfast in beautiful surroundings. Weather permitting that is in my gazebo. Or I eat in the dinning room - never at the kitchen counter. I find that a beautiful breakfast extends beautiful energy throughout the day.

For your breakfast, try sitting down in a clean and clear space in which you feel good. You might use your best dinnerware. Have a vase of flowers on the table. Use your crystal glasses and pressed cloth napkins. Make special effort to present your food attractively on your plate. Or drink your Morning Tea from a beautiful teacup.

Bring your awareness and sense of elegance and beauty to the breakfast table. Let the power of the setting work its magic on you - reconnecting you to your natural rhythms and nourishing your moods and energy throughout the day.

"Be faithful in small things
because it is in them that your strength lies."
- Mother Teresa

For questions or help about reconnecting to your natural rhythms through better management of your physical, emotional, mental, psychological and spiritual energy call 434-263-4669 or e-mail.

 

The Do Nothing Break

"We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are."
--The Talmud

Finally, Amy just threw up her hands and in her frustration declared that she just didn’t know what to do and was sure that she would never be able to figure it out.

Amy and I were 3 months into her Mood and Energy Management Program. She was doing the work to resolve her food allergies, her problem with candida, and her adrenal stress. She was going through a lot of change – taking new herbal tonics, mapping out strategic times to take her supplements, eating more frequently and she had let go of eating super sized fast foods. As she cleared her physical symptoms she began to get a sense that her financial life needed changing. But how, what, where, when and why – she kept asking these questions and ending more confused than ever. So I suggested that she start all over again.

Years ago, my first formal training in healing was in the Seven Steps of Healing with Susun Weed. It was a logical and esoteric system for building a comprehensive, multi-dimensional approach to healing. The first step is defined as "returning to the void". It is here that we reconnect to our natural rhythms. It is a creative step for returning to the source of the problem - a place where course-correction can take place.

Returning to the void is like calling a time out. You stop trying to figure things out. You cease all your attempts to make things happen. In essence you "do nothing". It is a place of silence and stillness. You don’t go there to seek answers. You’re not asking any questions. You just do nothing. You might rest, sleep, sit quietly, walk in the woods, sit on the beach, cry, knit, even sky dive. You are just being where you are and allowing things to sort themselves out.

There are times when doing nothing makes a lot of sense. It is only when we return to our natural rhythms that life around us is given the space to naturally sort itself out. As we are doing nothing, we are more likely to notice things falling into place as opposed to when we are so busy trying to make something happen that all we can see is the jumbled mess we are making.

I suggested to Amy that she let herself return to this creative do nothing space. She spent the rest of the day sleeping, and crying. She let her husband tend to the kids, get the meals and follow up what needed to get done that day. She dozed and slipped into doing nothing.

The next morning she awoke with the same problem but her frozen, frustrated state had dissolved and she had a clear plan of action in mind –she felt confident in her first actions and she knew where she wanted to end up.

Is it Time for You To Do Nothing?

Are you confronted with a problem that you are sure can’t be solved?

Are you in the midst of a healing crisis that doesn’t seem to be resolving?

Have you gotten caught up in something that has gotten way out of hand?

Are you trying to follow everyone’s else’s advice and getting nowhere?

If you find yourself in a maze of confusion, are confronted with an unresolvable problem or find yourself in a situation that you don’t want to be in - take a Do Nothing break. Let things settle out.

Stop… Do nothing … and allow things to untangle themselves as you reconnect to your natural rhythms.

"Listen to the sound of the river and you will catch a trout."
-- Irish proverb

 

The ultimate guide to productivity – What’s your secret?

I've been tagged! Aaron Potts tagged me to participate in a new round of assembling a volume of great information from a wide variety of sources.

The idea was originally started by Ben at the Instigator Blog and he called it The Ultimate Guide to Productivity Group Writing Project.

Participants list their best productivity habits, highlighting the most effective one if they want to, and link back to Ben's site, as well as to who tagged them for the project.

Here is my contribution:

Personally productivity - getting things done – is a hot topic. As a culture, we are obsessed with getting things done. Just look at all the time management systems and our “need” to go faster to get it all done.

What are you thinking about most of the day? Your To Do List, am I right?

And what are you waiting for before you let yourself think about all those wonderfully dreamy things you long for in your life? To get your To Do List done.

Many believe Getting Things Done is the path they must take to have what they want in life. Have you seen the backlash about the DVD The Secret? What’s  the biggest grip? That positive thinking and positive feelings alone aren’t going to get you what you want in life - you have to Do things if you expect anything to happen in your life. And you have to do a lot of things. And you have to do the right things. And you have to get these things done on time for them to matter.

My nature is to be super productive and get scads of things done. I’m as attached as anybody to getting things done. I have endless ideas and projects popping up in my mind. Every day there are hundreds of things I would like to do. Some things I have to do. And more things I should do. There is an endless conveyor belt heaping more and more things to do on my ever-expanding plate.

Having seen my productive capacity land me in burn out a few times, I've learned to approach productivity more strategically.

I have changed my definition of productivity

I have redefined productivity as the art and science of successfully moving toward what I want to experience in my life. At this stage of my life productivity isn’t just about getting things done. I've taken the focus off just doing things and put the focus on a strategic plan as to what, where, when, why and how to do things.

These days I am more interested in sustainable productivity. Sure, it used to be no problem staying up all night to meet a deadline, skipping meals, getting up early, going to bed late, rushing and hurrying to get more done. But that is not sustainable. Going about it that way - you will sooner or later (usually sooner) fall over in exhaustion or just succumb to incompetence and lack of effectiveness – and end up with little or no productivity.

I now have two main guidelines when leveraging my productivity:

• Productivity is really all about learning to effectively manage your energy – all of the different kinds of your energy – physical, mental, spiritual, psychological, and emotional. See Ten Things I Do Everyday to be Simply Successful for some of my best energy management tips.

• I go to great lengths to NOT rely on will power. Will power is a very expensive premium fuel. It does not burn cleanly and it leaves a lot of residue. Instead of will power, I use a number of tricks to overcome energy inertia (see below).  Plus, I leverage the power of daily rituals and routines (more below). I save will power for when I have to do something I really don’t want to do and there is no way out of it. Which is – thanks to the way I have set my life up –rarely.

With those two principles in mind, I then use a little productive strategy.  I am on my sixth reading of Sun Tzu’s The Art of Strategy and it has permanently rewired my brain to think about the Five Working Fundamentals of strategy: Tao; Nature; Situation; Leadership; and Art. And I am always taking those into consideration when nurturing and supporting my productivity.

Here are some of my favorite Productivity Tips

1. The Power of Place

I’m a firm believer in the power conscious environmental design. Set up the right environment - in the right way - and it pulls you into productivity.

My office has everything I need to do the work that I do in the way that I like to do it – at my fingertips. I don’t fumble around for anything. My organization is exactly suited to me. And my office is beautiful – I love coming into my office and it uplifts me.  I have the greatest office chair in the world. I spent a ton of money on it but it has more than paid off in enabling me to work effectively and efficiently. I have no environmental bumps that get in my way – it's sheer “zoom, zoom”.

And it is not only my work space that is set up to facilitate my productivity. All the rooms in my house are elegantly set up to support me (and the family) in doing what the room is designed to do.

I don’t get distracted by running off to gather what I need to be productive.  I anticipate what I will need and put everything that I will need in one place and keep it there. I design my environments to make it easy to focus on the task at hand.

This little forethought enables me to carry through to completion without delays, distractions or unnecessary running around.

2. Rituals and Routines

I have a plethora of rituals and routines that keep me on track. Here are a few of them:

• The beginning and ending of my days are very ritualized. This is a long term strategy to keep me going over the long haul.
• I respond to my email once a day. And I have an effective strategy for keeping my email box clear – this keeps me ahead of information overload.
• Like Aaron Potts, I use the concept of “task times”.
  • The main hours of a work day are devoted only to work. The main hours on an “off day” are devoted only to life. I avoid mixing life and work on the same day – way too much angst as to when to stop doing one and start doing the other. Before you know it half of the day is gone because you couldn't decide what to do when.
  • I take 3 days off work every week so that I am not life deprived and yearning for something beyond work.
  • My work days are divided up into client days and project days. Most weeks I give myself some client days and some project days. And my project days are further sub-divided into writing; marketing; networking; etc.
  • This year I’m taking the task time division a bit further. Every other month I take an entire work week with no days off. And every other month I take an entire vacation/life/holiday week with no work days. Still working out the kinks in this but so far I like it.

If you have to go through every day deciding every minute what to do from the hundreds of things vying for your attention it will be exhausting and a big waste of time. Setting up effective rituals and routines enables me to use my energy getting things done rather than negotiating with myself about what to do with every minute.

3. Overcoming energy inertia

Despite all the strategies, support and environmental designs and systems that I have in place I still find myself sometimes languishing. I have even written (and use!) an e-course filled with strategies for overcoming the natural inertia that overtakes us all some times and that keeps us from taking the actions that count and responding effectively to change.  Here are few of my favorite techniques excerpted my popular The Way of Change e-course: 

Implement a follow through strategy

Many times we don’t take action until things get serious and our survival is threatened. Our brains are hard wired to be alert for the things that our threatening to us right now. We are not really hard wired for taking a preventive approach.

To override this natural tendency you can trick your brain into following through more naturally. In their book, Following Through: a Revolutionary New Method for Finishing Whatever You Start, Steve Levinson and Pete Greider outline several amazingly effective follow through strategies. My favorite is called "Leading the Horse to Water". As Levinson and Greider explain it - you can’t make a horse drink water if he is not thirsty. But put the horse where the water is and he is more likely to drink it.

Here is how I use the strategy: I have made a resolution to walk four days a week. Many days I just don’t feel like it or I feel that there are more important things I should be doing. On those days I make a deal with myself that I don’t have to walk if I don’t want to - but I DO have to put on my walking shoes. Strangely, once I get my walking shoes on I have no problem following through with the walk.

Do Something! - Go for the Breakthrough

Sometimes you just have to start and get quick results– even if you don’t feel that you are ready or have everything you need to start. Waiting until "you are ready" can frequently lead to nothing happening. Consider using a Breakthrough technique that is designed to produce quick results and get you started right away. This might seem a bit scary but the big advantage in starting now is that only in actually taking the steps will you be able to explore all of the relevant issues that will come up as you are actually doing something. You can continue to research and refine your project as you go along.

Here are the steps to the Breakthrough technique:

• Choose a project that you will complete and present to the world – make this a stretch goal

• Side step elaborate planning and go for a result now

• Set 5 compelling, urgent and short term goals with regards to your project- skip over the planning and analysis phase

• Set a non-negotiable date for completion – think in terms of days, weeks and months and not years

• Every day take some action towards accomplishing the purpose

• Include "Just in time" education and training as needed

• Focus on what you can do now with what you have

• Take the time to reflect and capture insights that are being gained along the way. This will allow you to discover the breakthrough expansion routes that are naturally clarified as steps are taken toward the goal. As you do this you will naturally expand your capacity to create the desired future.

Be willing to play the divine fool - Explore and discover

Let’s face it - life is nothing but change. Your life will be full of quirky twists and turns. There is no straight path to some as yet to be revealed ultimate destination. You will never know everything and you will never be able to be sure you are making the right choice at the right time in the right place. In order to successfully navigate change and move and act in spite of the uncertainty - you have to merge a bit with the archetype The Fool. You know the one who once in awhile forsakes practical wisdom and prudence and is willing to travel in the dark with her eyes closed skipping over the hills with lightness and freedom.

In the end, there may be a deeper kind of wisdom in being willing to be wrong, take the wrong path, make mistakes and end up in some strange and unforeseen place. Only by being courageous enough to take the action and make the mistake will you ever really know the hidden wonders, glories, and possibilities of the heart and the spirit.

4. Every day in as many ways and as often as I can I build positive emotions and moods.

This creates an upward spiral of exploration and discovery within and around me. When I feel good, I’m naturally inspired and have great energy for getting out there and doing what I want to do.

Negative emotions and moods engender withdrawal and constriction. They help us to fight, flee, or protect ourselves. Negative emotions and mood also restrict and lessen our energy -- not a great supportive environment for making changes and exploring new things. And certainly not conducive to productivity.

Positive emotions and moods "build and broaden". They build capital for creativity, growth and development and more exploration and discovery -- a better and more conducive environment for successful change.

Positive affective states undo negative affective states and give us more energy for new ideas and experiences. Positive affective states are the fertile ground for more successful interactions and achievements. Build an upward spiral of positive emotions by practicing appreciation, gratitude, and forgiveness. Savor your pleasures and mindfully create fun in your day. Want to know more about how to create positive moods? Check out Top Ten Ways to Generate More Positive Emotions in Your Life

I know you have probably heard this many times and it seems so common place as to not be important. But I cannot stress enough how much more you can do when you are in a good mood than when you are in a bad mood. Talk about energy efficiency – being in a good mood is the ultimate premium fuel.

5. Act on a whim

Now this may seem counterintuitive to all of the structures and systems I have set up to encourage and nurture my productivity but it is actually the balancing act.

I love structure and routines, systems and rituals because they free me to be as wildly creative and spontaneous as my nature embraces. Nothing kills productivity like being bored and uninspired and doing what you don’t want to do when you don’t want to do it.

Paradoxically (or so it seems), the more order and regularity I bring into my life the more space and energy I have to be original and creative in my work doing what I want to do when I want to do it. Because I have so much order and regularity in my life, I can trust myself to follow the call of the wild when I get a whim to do something that I just am so excited about.

Ever notice that when you really want to do something how amazingly easy and effortless it seems? How quickly you get it done and how great it turns out.

When you allow creativity, spontaneity and flexibility to be present in your life and you are guided by inspiration productivity is not much of a problem.

When you are doing what you want when you want to do it you don’t have to worry about getting things done – it just happens.

I believe that as a culture we are so obsessed with getting things done and with time management because we have lost our connection with knowing what we really want. Instead of being guided by what we really want to do, we keep whipping ourselves into doing what we have to do or what we should be doing.

When you know what you really want and stay connected to that you have an infallible energy guide that takes you step by step through what to do and when to do it. Building a little trust in your intuition and staying anchored in what you really want to do allows you to hear that little voice of your inner inklings or whims.

If you are not doing what you want to do in life you might as well forget about productivity because there is no way you are going to be truly productive. You might churn out a lot of things, cross off task after task on your to do list but you will not have the experience of “having the power of producing; producing readily or abundantly; or causing or bringing about” something. True productivity is grounded in a fertile, fruitful, and prolific relationship with “what you really want in life”.

6. I keep a sharp eye open for “productivity snatchers”

My favorite is “let me just get one more thing done”. You'll recognize this: It is time to break for lunch and you make one more phone call or write one more paragraph and before you know it your can’t think straight because it has been eight hours since you’ve eaten and you have not had a drop of water all day.

So now, whenever, I hear myself saying “just let me do this one more thing and than I will...,” I immediately launch into my mentally pre-taped message to myself that goes like this: “You know that if you don’t stop now you will end up missing lunch. Then you will get cranky and grouchy and there goes your positive moods and creativity. And you will get tired and your thinking will get clouded. It might seem like you are getting so much more done but it will end up taking you 2-3 times longer. So step away from the desk, take the break and come back to finish up quickly and easily. Step away from the desk - NOW!”

It used to take about an hour before that talk would get through to me but now I can zap that productivity snatcher in only a few minutes.

Other productivity snatchers include:

• Having to do any number of unrelated tasks before you get to the one that really counts
• Having to know every step before you start anything
• Having to learn “just one more thing” before you do something
• Continuing to do things that just aren’t working in the name of persistence
• Going for perfection in the name of excellence
• Filling your day with busywork

The trick is to learn to distinguish the productivity snatchers from the intuitive whims. But the more order and regularity you have in your life and the better you are at managing your energy the easier it is to know what voice you are hearing.

The Real Value of Productivity

I believe that being productive is an important part of life. I don’t think, however, that our ultimate success or failure in life is going to depend upon the actions we took or didn’t take.

Life is much more multi-dimensional than to be just centered on our actions. I believe that our actions are simply an outward manifestation of our internal vibrational state. I have started to see the actions that I take more as an outward flowing of my entire vibrational state rather than as my attempt at effecting some change in the world. First, I work internally and then the inspired actions just flow.

Without internal power and alignment behind our actions, I don’t believe that an action can carry much power in this vast universe of things.

I do believe - and my experience validates - that there is nothing more delicious in life than having a dream or desire and then taking actions that seem to flow you toward the manifestation of that dream. I have to side with “Abraham” (the Law of Attraction) that taking actions increase the joy and bliss of bringing forth my dreams into the world. When I take actions that are merged with my internal dreams and desires and I see their manifestation – I do feel the natural and wonderful power of being effective in the world.  And for me, that is the true value of productivity –as a path for us to experience ourselves as effective in the world.

Okay! To further the project I tag:

Andrea Lee
Suzanne Falter-Barns
Robert Middleton
Vicky White

Are you still trying to manage time?

"Make the state of your mind more important than what you are doing."
--Hugh Prather

My husband, David, and I had a little tiff yesterday. We trade off making the meals and it was his turn to make dinner. And, one of the changes we are working on is eating earlier and taking a walk after dinner in the extended twilight. When I noticed that it was time for dinner, I didn’t remember him leaving the office to make dinner. Turns out he hadn’t – he was busily trying to get ONE MORE THING done.

This is a classic example of the ongoing struggle with time. Probably every one of you has more to do than time to do it. We hurry. We rush. We are absolutely convinced we can do more than one thing at a time. And, do in 5 minutes what actually takes more like 30 minutes to do. Somehow, we continually trick ourselves into believing that we can get it all done.

There is nothing to do about time. Time marches on, as they say. You can’t manage time; you can only manage yourself. Everyone has the same amount of time in every day and, as much as we want to speed up what we do in that amount to time, there is always a limit. David is always wishing he was The Flash but even The Flash can’t go fast enough to get everything done.

Here are some things you may be doing in hope of getting more time:

• Missing vacations - Because there’s not enough time to stop working.
• Microwave your meals – Who can afford the time to really cook when it’s so much quicker to just zap it?
• Choosing cut up frozen vegetables – Chopping that broccoli is just plain tedious.
• Limping along on 6, 5, 4, or 3 hours of sleep – Who needs repair and regeneration of the body, anyhow?
• Recess? – Get rid of it. Put those 5-year-olds to work learning something for heaven’s sake!
• And using all that technology that’s suppose to save us time - When not waiting on downloads, answering IMs or sleeping with our beepers, that is.
• And on and on

Keeping up with the times can deceptively keep you from the things you really want to do. Rather than being a victim of time or having time be your taskmaster, you can begin to look at how you can better manage yourself in relationship to time.

Ultimately, you are the one who gets to choose what you do in each moment of time in each day. When you choose to do something, you are simultaneously choosing not to do many other things. That simple fact often escapes our conscious recognition. So choose wisely.

When David chooses to get ONE MORE THING done, he is also choosing to forget about our exercise and accept the natural consequences of that choice. (Which is me being upset)

The first step to managing yourself in relationship to time is to keep reminding yourself that you are in charge of your actions. You can break the grip that ticking time has over you. You can chose for yourself and stop getting caught up in tyranny of the clock. You can manage yourself and give up trying to manage time.

" You are in the driver’s seat of your life and can point your life down any road you want to travel. You can go as fast or as slow as you want to go … and you can change the road you’re on at any time."
--Jinger Heath