Spring, birthday, garden.

 I need to write more posts, so here's a short one that's more of an update than a musing: the leaves are fully out now, spring is in full leaf, the early flowers have bloomed and dropped, the weather is warm and sunny and delightful to be outside in (as long as you are in the shade, or out during sunrise or sunset.) So far the bugs haven't been bad at all, which is a huge blessing here in Iowa, where mosquitoes and biting gnats are the norm. Not sure if that's because of the huge temperature variations waking them up and then freezing them, or it's just not time for them yet, though there are certainly bugs out. Haven't seen any fireflies yet.

I'm thinking about plans for my birthday party. It's 40, so I should probably do something. I feel like my larger parties are more about me giving a gift to others, rather than about me, whereas the small one I do with a few intimate friends, are for my own sake.

Suzannah is hard at work on the garden, pulling up grass/sod to create a vegetable bed, and planting perennials and trees and some of the seedlings she's been growing in the guest bathroom.

The fruit tree's she planted last year had lots of flowers on them, now dropped, and I was worried their branches would break, if they all became fruit, but it looks like the trees were smart enough not to turn any of the flowers into fruit this year, which is fascinating.

OK, I'm gonna arbitrarily end there for now. Perhaps you'll get another some time soon, but probably not until the end of the week. We'll see how things go as I start up internship and need to start adding more clients to my caseload so I can get enough hours to graduate.

I hope you're getting some spring beauty where you are now as well, both internally and externally. I always find it easy to be happy during spring, as long as I get outside regularl.

The end of break. Fancy names and fancy hats. The right time.

It is the last day of my wonderful week long break. I'm now in the familiar stage of thinking/feeling "oh no, there is so much that I wanted to do that I didn't get done" with the accompanying worry.

On the other hand, it's much milder than when I was a teacher, probably because I'm actually looking forward to the work I do each day. And, rather than feeling like I had squandered my time and didn't get anything important done, I did in fact make a lot of progress on the #1 task I had set for myself this break, that is, cleaning up the mess in my office. I did several other areas as well, throughout the house, and set up some very simple systems to keep my office nice and tidy (very simple: throw all the stuff on my desk into a box at the end of the day and put in on a shelf off to the side. Simple, but effective.) I also got a bunch of little tasks done. Items that were just sitting around, not getting done because I didn't have time and not getting put away because I didn't want to forget that they needed to get done at some point.

It certainly reminded me how nice it was, to have periods of time that are not high demand, where I can take care of my environment and myself. There were still a bunch of other things I did during the week, I didn't get to spend the whole thing cleaning and tidying. There were various tasks, and I spend some of the time doing further research and reading related to becoming a better therapist. I find that whole field of research fascinating, which is a good sign, since it will not take much effort to get me to keep learning and growing in this area. I am naturally very curious and motivated. I wish I had more time for that now, but currently I really need to focus on the basics of graduating, getting certified, and making sure I can do the basic, often administrative tasks that are fundamental to the insurance, ethical, and legal requirements. But I'm really looking forward to when I'll have more time to dive deep into the nitty gritty of how to get better at the actual work of counseling.

I think I probably shouldn't wait till I come across the perfect time, as I don't think that will ever exist. But this week gives me hope that, though I can't do as many projects as I would like, I can at least do one every now and then.

The next big one will be preparing for and passing the NCMHCE exam, that will allow me to become a mini licensed counselor. "Mini" meaning I still need a few thousand more hours of supervised practice before I can work independently. The official term is "temporary" but I'm not a fan of fancy names for simple things. Though I do like fancy words. But I like them like an elaborate costume hat with a giant feather : it should not be worn seriously, but for the entertainment of all.

On another subject: I know I talk about time a lot, and using time well, and that may seem excessive, but consider this: time is so precious that no matter how much you pay, you can never get a single minute back, once it has been used, and all other forms of wealth, happiness, love, and purpose, can happen only with the grace of time acting as a container for all the other experiences. There is a Vedic saying,  that time is God. Though they also say everything is a part of God, so it's not actually special in that sense, the fact that they name it as such, is a reminder of it's value. To waste time is to literally waste life, the two are inseparable. So, a focus on using one's time well is not a mere pastime, but a goal of essential importance in everyone's life.

May you use your time well and cherish the time you have,

I Out

Heaven

 I've got a week off. I've decided to spend a big portion of it cleaning, tidying, and getting rid of old stuff I don't want/need anymore. A good ol' fashioned spring cleaning. Along with clearing out the old gunk/junk phyisically, I'm also going through my overstuffed task list, taking care of all sorts of little tasks that have piled up because none of then are super time sensitive. but they just kind of have an almost phyisical weight to them, as they pile up. Like being buried alive, one grain of sand at a time.

In any case, it feels fantastic. I'm super productive. Well, maybe just decently productive. But that's enough to feel great. Often my breaks in the past would end up getting swallowed up by one rabbit hole or another, and a fair bit of it has been that, but also an unusually high proportion has been the stuff I've been wanting to get done. It is so so deeply rewarding and pleasant. To just have some spaciousness of time, to burrow into my task list and check of one thing after another. Sure, there are big projects that need to get done too, but it's like having a messy desk full of odds and ends, it just makes it more difficult to concentrate on the work at hand when it's so full of these other physical objects that keep chirping at me to complete the task/project they are tied too.  Many of the tasks are physical ones, I walk along, or am in the process of putting something away, and I see one of those things that needs to be put away, is attached to a task that needs to be completed, related to it. And... here's the magical part...I actually have the time to do that task, and resolve it, rather than just toss it in a box to deal with later. This is heaven, and it doesn't take that much to get there. Just a little spaciousness of time. I suppose I should remember that as I think about how I want my life to be: I really, really enjoy having time. There is a lot I am willing to forgo, to have that luxury. It doesn't have to be all the time, I like working as well, but every now and then, having a week off to really dig in and take care of all the little stuff, feels amazing.

Also, for whatever reason, I'm at a place where it is a lot easier to let go of things. Maybe it is that spaciousness of time letting me relax and not worry that I need x or y some day. Maybe it is generally relaxing more into the feeling that I am enough, and I don't need to do or accomplish some specific and ever out-of-reach amount of 'stuff' to justify my existence. Maybe it is my increasing trust in the force and benevolent intelligence that moves in and through us that I might call God. Maybe it is just that there is a lot of stuff that has simply sat in boxes for years, and I haven't thought about it or needed it at all. Whatever the case, it feels easier than in the past, to quickly decide something is not important anymore for me, and I can let it go.

I just did the bathroom closet, and a lot of that was made simpler by the fact that a lot of things were well past their expiration date.

I think a big part of it though, is that in the past, there was a lot of feeling of identity and worthiness tied up in my stuff. I had hopes that the right stuff would fix my problems, because I sure couldn't. Now I feel differently. It's still in process, but it's moving in good ways.

OK, I'll end there for today, since I should write another one to stay current.

Dictated, and then heavily edited. Time, filtering, reflection.

 Time is God project (filtering).

So now that I am done with my Finding my right work project, which had been ongoing for, man, how long? I'm 40, at least 20 years.

Even though I'm not fully done with it, I feel like I am on the right path. With counseling and the other stuff that I haven't started yet, it feels very doable and will fit right in with the being creative and writing type stuff.

I am really in the meat of my time thing, and feeling like I'm starting to get some movement and at least awareness of it. A lot of it feels like a mental thing. I guess that's what Sai Maa was saying, but a mental thing of being okay in the moment, being present, not grabbing or clenching too much.

Letting go of these beliefs that say I don't have enough time, or I'm not doing enough, or feeling like I need to earn my place by producing value. I'm just letting those go so that I can enjoy the current moment.

Because that trying to be more efficient, it's getting clearer to me experientially how that is a hamster wheel. And also noticing that the way I'm trying to get quicker at something is not very effective. It's like trying to compact water. You can't really compact it like you can with air.

So it's not really about chewing faster; it's about taking less bites, so to speak, and accepting that limitation. What did I have to do? Less things. Though there is another part of it that is about going faster and not thinking so much before in between things.

There's just a kind of momentum of, "okay, now we're doing this," and there's an underlying movement almost like being on a treadmill. I have to keep walking to keep up, which is both a little exhilarating and a little maybe anxiety-producing? Just that background buzz of pressure.

And I guess a lot of what I'm doing is I'm trying to find the synthesis, the top point of the triangle between the A and B. Let's see. It's above it, in it; contains the good elements from both A and B in a proper application that is a higher-order way of thinking and being in the world. Nice, you saw a triangle analogy, which remember has infinite triangles of progressive refinement, one on top of another.

I'm also noticing as I try and move more quickly and create efficient systems, that my mind is not naturally orderly like that. I think it's more of an artist's mind, kind of goes all over the place. That is great for creativity, but not for being super organized, and I think maybe I need to cut myself a break.

I work in a system that doesn't require me to be different than I am, but I don't know what that system would be or would look like. I enjoy order a lot, but I tend to make systems too complex, and then it becomes disorderly and/or too ungainly to maintain its order.

As I'm saying this, I'm looking at the door to my closet, preferred with rainbow sticky notes. I like that system. It was artistic, satisfying, and also kind of simple.

I like things to be simple, I like things to be pretty, I like things to be well done. I think that might mean Simplification, maybe doing less things. But I'm really not sure.

I'm not sure what a system design for how I work looks like. But that also works for me, what that means, what that looks like.

I might be in a place where I trust myself enough that I can find out, rather than trying to fit myself into other people's systems. One thing that is a certainty is that doing that, creating that, will take time. I think accepting that is part of the groundedness and reality necessary to make it actually happen.

As a final side note: I'm using a voice-to-text dictation software for this. So if it just said something weird somewhere, that's its fault. Probably. Though I do say some weird things sometimes.

I wonder if this would make a good blog post. Also, speaking of the AI voice-to-speech dictation, I am starting to play around with AI to see if it can help me save time on things that I don't care about doing myself, and/or it can do better and faster than I can. But that also requires some creating of systems.

[later note: hm, I wrote this april 16th, but it says it never got published? but in another spot it says it did get published? I'm gonna try publishing it again, apologies if it's a duplicate.]

Nishkama Karma, Curmudgeonly old man, Prochaska's transtheoretical model of change

 OK, I finally finished a big project I was slowly working on, my renewal of creative path (ROCP). If you want to know more about it, I'll let the person who taught me about it, teach you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY-TzXf9lVI

https://open.spotify.com/show/3RXH7e7UJo51D56HEZ2ZPT

In any case, I'm now working on a new project. I am listening to/reading a book by John Norcross walking through the science and implementation of Prochaska's transtheoretical model of change, so I'm going to try applying that to this. Though I'll be using some other strategies I already know as well. This is about behavior change, related to making good use of my time. Which is a tricky and complex thing to address, because there are so many elements to it and ways of thinking about it and approaching it, so to start off with I was just trying to get a bit more of a clear handle on what I actually want, out of this goal/behavior change.

I have kind of moved a bit away from the direct "do things faster" or "get a better system so you can do more things" approach, to think more about the want behind that goal. Really, I want to be able to look back at my day and feel good about how I spent it. That's about a lot more than timeboxing and having a todo list. It's about how I choose what to work on, and also the way, I do things. Think of the old cliche about doing the dishes as a spiritual practice. Anything you do can be elevated to become something meaningful, if you do it in the right way. Spiritualizing the mundane, maybe you'd call it.

From this perspective, the specific systems for organizing and time management are less important, though they still may play a role some of the time. It's a lot more about choosing what I do mindfully, and doing it in a good way. Mindfully doesn't really capture it though, it's just a buzzword. I've got very specific examples and peak experiences from my own life that make it much more concrete and specific for me.

 It's about nishkama karma, or karma yoga, partially. It's about living in the immensity, the mystery, and as a part of the underlying reality of love and unity. Acting from that place, and letting go of attachment and over-thinking about the results, so as to focus fully on the doing. And acting from a place of love, connection, and transpersonal identification, again, so that action is coming from a good place. I do not think the ends justify the means, because the same basic action done with love vs. selfishness can have very different results and repercussions, both for oneself and the others it effects.

This is the "Filtering" project I'd been talking about previously. It's the same thing, just with me trying to specify and operationalize it for myself. It's still not simple though, which makes me think I've got a good way to go on it still. Once I can elegantly summarize it from personal experience, I'll know I've got the hang of it.

In any case, previously I was just kind of idly thinking about it, but now I'm starting to activly take steps towards implementing it.

That's where I am for today.

Progress notes still taking an hour a pop. Practicum is coming to a close in a few weeks. Internship will then start up, and I'll need to take on twice as many clients to make sure I get all my hours it, which will be a lot. Also, I'll need to study for and take the counselor certification exam. So, it's gonna be very full, even though I won't have a second class I'm doing at the same time.

Also, apparently my 40th birthday is coming up. Kinda odd to think about but not that odd, I've felt like a curmudgeonly 90 year old man since I was a kid and often think about my death, so it's not too big of a jump :D

I've got to go now, so I guess I'm ending this for now.

All the best, dear friends and family,

-I Out.

Trust, Hormones, Letting Go(d)

 Let's see. We've started IVF, which involves a lot of injections. Hopefully it will result in a new life, which goes along with the spring celebration theme. I finally had a chance to finish my renewal of creative path project, something like creating a vision or north-star ideal scene for direction.

We celebrated Passover for the last three days. Suzannah is a bit overwhelmed I think. Taking hormones is rough, it messes with how you're feeling. And there was a lot of cooking and a bunch of other stuff going on all at once. I think she's doing a good job dealing with all the stressors, but that doesn't make it easy.

I'm thinking about time in a different way. Rather than trying to push and squeeze, I'm working on releasing. Trying to release expectations and things that are causing me unnecessary pressure, as well as trying to release self-expectations and standards and completionism that takes of my time than some tasks are actually worth. As well as release some of the pressure and "should"s that I put on myself that make time feel more squished and tight. As well as the distractions I give myself that tend to shrink the felt sense of how much time I have.

It's a more gentle and kind approach to myself than I've done in the past, and it feels good, but is yet to bear much fruit. We'll see how it goes.

OK, time to write a paper and do a weekly review today. Which seem like excellent opportunities to practice this letting go of perfection and completeness and leaning into Self trust.

You know I'll keep you updated,

With love,

Isaac

Spring celebrations and rules lawyering

I just gathered up all the blog post recurring 'todos' that I haven't yet done. it looks like a lot. Not sure If I've continued to get behind, or just haven't had time to catch up from a while ago. So, a brief update, and maybe a second short blog post, to catch up. We'll see. Finally caught up with paperwork, but it's still taking me well over an hour to do the paperwork for each hour long session. That's not sustainable. I'm continuing to try and shorten the process, but so far, I've only made incremental progress. However, it's the same approach I take to any problem in my like that I decide to fix, I just keep at it, trying different approaches, or refining my current approach, until I get to a point that's good enough. However, I'm more time bound than normal, because my internship is coming up shortly, and I need to go from 5 clients a week to more like 12. And I should start adding clients sooner, rather than later, because the initial paperwork takes even longer, so it's important not to have more than one of those a day. best not to have too many in a week either, lest I get too far behind or have too much to do in the evenings, leading to me staying up late.

There's also the end of the semester coming up, and thus a bunch of papers. So... maybe not catching up that much on my blog posts. This is enough for one though, so I'll end it here and start a second. Rules lawyering for the wind! A venerable Jewish and gamer tradition. Oh, happy Passover, if your Jewish, and happy Easter, if your Christian. And I guess I already missed happy equinox, if your...what would you call that? I'm thinking 'Pagan'? But that seems like a catch-all. Nature-based?

Anyhoo, happiness to you, every day of the year.

-I Out