Scoop the Poop, Super-cognitive-flexibility, Bam

 Well, this weekend was truly amazing. I feel so many new possibilities open to me. So many new ways of being. I feel flexible and limber in my... I don't know what to call it. My fundamental belief structures and identity. My old crusty ways of thinking and being and beliefs just feel... easily discardable. I would give this program I just did two enthusiastic thumbs up. But I should probably hold off on the endorsements until some time has passed and I can say what kind of changes it has wrought on me, long term.

I only have a few minutes left of the weekend, before it is time to get ready for bed, so I shall keep it short.

Suzannah is away, visiting family for the week. I'm alone with the cats. It will be interesting to see how I manage on my own. I predict a lot more purchases of pre-made food.

I was doing the course All Friday, and all weekend, until about 2:00, when I had lunch, and then after a tiny bit of housekeeping, went back to work writing student reports that were due tomorrow. Finished around 7... Did I have dinner? I don't remember having dinner? Ah well, it was a late lunch, and a big lunch. I'm not really hungry anyways.

Got to: write a bunch of calendar events in my paper calendar so I don't miss them.

Write something else that's time sensitive

Scoop the poop (the cat litter)

And I'd like to clean up a bit, but I don't think that's realistic. Maybe I can start cleaning up tomorrow after work, unless I need to do something more I didn't know about with the student reports.

I'm not overbusy. I'm not exhausted. I took a little nap, and then was fine and finished the reports. I have all the time I need, because I'm not trying to get more done than the time allows for, and that's ok. I have total confidence that I can handle this. If not perfectly, then good enough. Bam!

Oh, and then I'll have a good night chat with Suzannah, most likely.

<3

Have a nice week all,

-I Out

See you on the other side

 Welp, the internet isn’t working and I spent about 15 of my precious 25 minutes of lunch time trying unsuccessfully to make it work. When you have so little available time, it makes each moment seem precious, but conversely it stings that much more when some of those minutes are wasted, either by myself, or by technology.

It’s just about time to create and send out student reports and then time for student conferences. The busy just got busier. Also, there is a weekend coming up that I’m looking forward to, hopefully there will be a lot more freedom and joy and authenticity on the other side of it.

And a call tonight that I’m looking forward to, kind of in the same general arena. The arena is the idea that we have a lot of beliefs and stories and thought patterns that overlay our original nature, that of freedom and joy and whoever we really are. Attachments and neuroses, in Sanskrit the term is samskaras, impressions left on us from previous actions and experiences. We uproot that, and we get that much closer to freedom. That’s what I’m doing intensively now.

This is rather late, because it's been busy, and I'm just finishing up this draft and posting it before I go into total immersion, no contact with the outside world till sunday. So if you send me a text and I don't respond right away, that's why. Normally if I don't respond right away I just don't have the time/brainspace, but in this case I'm going to try not to look at my texts etc. at all this weekend.

See you on the other side!

Spiritual Yelp. Recharge. Longer is better (?)

 It’s that time of the week again! That time when I write about what I’m doing during my lunch break. Hello and welcome back. I just finished a rather busy weekend. And I suppose busy week. It was an exhausting week. But then I finally got a chance to sit down and talk about all the stuff that was bothering me, with my mentor. My doubts about myself as a teacher, all the things I wished I was doing better, how exhausted I was. They listened patiently and gave their encouragement and advice and sympathetic ear. Perhaps the most encouraging thing was just how open they were to the conversation. I’m often afraid to impose on anyone except my very closest friends, when I’m feeling down, but they were really welcoming.

Then I had a spiritual course over the weekend with an enlightened master (via zoom, of course.) And, though most of the specifics weren’t that exciting or new, the transformative energy that she was dishing out was I guess pretty top notch, because I’m feeling a lot better today, despite only having about two hours of ‘weekend’ time this weekend. A lot of the stuff that was bugging me, just doesn’t have it’s teeth in me nearly as much.

I think we all need stuff like this regularly: something that recharges our battery’s. For me I think of it as recharging my spiritual batteries. But it’s an amalgam of learning new things, healing from old, being inspired, and having profound experiences of silence, peace, and such. At least, that seems to be the kind of thing that I often end up at.

A theory I have, about spiritual masters: true masters have an energy about them, that they infuse into whatever they do, to the point where they could almost just be gargling on stage and you’d come away transformed. I don’t know if it’s really that stark, but I don’t have strong beliefs one way or the other about a lot of the more esoteric stuff that she talks about. Yet, the transformation that she can catalyze is undoubtable. I sometimes think of myself as a spiritual pragmatist: if it works and works well, I don’t really care about how or why, as long as it’s all integrious. 

And if I find something that works better, I’ll drop the previous thing and use the better way. I’m good at giving different things, different modalities, a fair shake. I can set aside my prejudices and practice what’s being taught long enough to discover if it works or not, and how well. There’s something to be said for sticking with one musical instrument rather than continually switching to a new one, and the same with spiritual practices, but here I’m really talking more about healing and growing modalities. And, there’s nothing wrong with trying out a bunch of musical instruments to see which you want to commit too. Also, screening your music teachers carefully.

OK, this was a longer post because my co-teacher was out for a chunk of the day, so I’d already eaten lunch with the kids by the time it was time for my break. Lucky you? I don’t know if longer means better though, in the case of these posts.

One of my friends suggested I should become a yelp for spiritual/growth  practices, and that’s not a bad assessment of what I’ve done with my life, I suppose.

In any case, the year is finally coming to a close, I will get at least a few blessed weeks off, and it’s going to get more intense, as reports and parent conferences are coming up, along with other growth/spiritual stuff I’m doing.

Love, bye,

-Isaac

Vaccines, expectations, and the mental game.

 Here I am with another Monday lunch update.

I’m getting my second dose of the Covid vaccine this afternoon, which means I get to leave a little early (woo!). I’ve heard that people tend to have more reactions after the second dose, so we’ll see how that goes. In any case, it’s exciting to think it will only be a few more weeks till I’m safe enough to go into IKEA. And others stuff, I guess? I’m kind of a recluse anyways, so it doesn’t make too much difference to me. I suppose it opens up more date night possibilities once Suzannah is also vaccinated, but even once vaccinated, it’s not quite back to normal. I haven’t been keeping up with the news, but I’ve heard snippets about stuff like new strains of Covid, etc., and I imagine this will effect how people do things for years to come. But still, safe enough to maybe go on a real vacation somewhere.

Back to my big project, getting my time managed and under control: it’s been said to me, or at me, that the feeling of being overwhelmed and not having enough time, is mostly about my own thoughts, beliefs, etc., rather that just literally not having any time. I’ve started tracking my time, and just the process of bringing my awareness to where my time is actually going is enlightening. And humbling. It has made it clear that yes, I really am creating my own sense of hurry and crunched-ness.

At a basic level, I am choosing how I use my time. I choose what I do, and I choose how much I try to do in a given time. The first issue is trying to do two hours worth of work in one hour. That’s just bad scheduling, and leads to a feeling of not having enough time, though ultimately I’ve created that feeling by creating an unrealistic expectation. It’s like number setting, where you ask 90$ for a peanut and someone says that’s outrageous and only pays 1$, but it only cost a tenth of a cent to the seller. We base what is reasonable, when we don’t know, off of initial numbers that are given to us. Also like the AA saying, ‘expectation is premeditated disappointment.’ This is especially true if expectations are unreasonable.

The second thing is just, how am I actually spending my time? Some low priority tasks only take a moment and are ok to sprinkle in. Some take a long time, and are not worth it, especially when I only have a small amount of disposable time. I sometimes choose to do those things, instead of things that would be more helpful to my important goals. There’s no one to blame but myself, and I need to do some hard questioning about why I’m choosing those things. Habit? Addiction? Fear? Procrastination?

In any case, that’s where I am right now: I realize there is a mental problem, and am working on getting my mind right. As I continue to try and create good time management and organization habits.

Aaaaand, that’s all the time I have for today.

Goodbye!

-Isaac