Escalators quicksand and overwhelm

Feeling overwhelmed. I need a bunch more clients, which means a bunch more paperwork, and I don't know how I'm going to manage to get it all done. Next week is ok but probably still to much, the week after that is crazy, way too much, and then I have a week of vacation, which I'm worried will turn into a week of catching up on paperwork instead of actually having a vacation. And I don't know if it's ever going to have a breather, until I (hopefully, still am not getting enough hours) graduate. Feeling the stress.

Even my weekly review, to try and get a handle on things, took like 3x as long as normal, and I can't figure out why. Do I have that much more stuff going on? Am I somehow way more distractible than normal? It's like when things start to go off the rails, my flailing to get them back on the rails makes them go even further off. My classic issue of trying to organize myself so I can get more done, but the organization ends up taking up more of my time than it gives back, so it makes things even worse. Now all the other stuff I wanted to get done didn't get done, and it's 10pm. I wanted to catch-up over the weekend and instead just barely didn't get further behind. 

Things are bad, so I try and make them better, and it makes them even worse. That my friend, is very disheartening.

There's got to be some way to simplify things so I am actually keeping the worthwhile stuff, while discarding or streamlining the majority, so I have more time for the important, but when I try to do that, I fail, and somehow end up with even more stuff. As I said, quite disheartening. Feels like I'm trying to walk up some stairs but I'm on an escalator going down. Except the harder and faster I try and go, the faster the escalator goes the other direction. Maybe it's like quicksand? The more I struggle the more I get sucked down?

In any case, these are all first world problems, as they say. Ultimately, nobody's going to die or even be seriously hurt if I don't get all the things done. It will all work out one way or the other, and the worst that's likely to happen is just being stressed out for several months. Not enjoyable, but doable. I did it for years while being a teacher. Maybe I'll even figure things out and get good enough at the paperwork that it's not so ridiculously time-consuming.

Shots! Administrative Paperwork! More Peaches!

The blackberries are really coming in now! Also, massive massive numbers of peaches. It's finally reaching the end, but it must have been like 50 pounds of them. Picking and processing them during harvest time seems like a full time job.

I think I already mentioned, that I passed the test? Yes, looks like I did. And, I'm getting ready to start my group sessions, which is happening, Yay for that. And, my clinical director put the word out that there was a free intern taking patients, so I've started to get more clients very quickly. So: woohoo! Looks like all my worries are over. Except for paperwork. And the actual process of counselor development. Which is way more fun and interesting and seemingly important than paperwork. And with all the new intakes, it's going to be A LOT of paperwork. I'm sure I will eventually get fast at it, but until then, it's really a lot of time. Working on it. Also trying to work on the actual counseling, but sadly that gets second place because the paperwork HAS to get done and the development does not. Seems backwards. And I often can't resist study to improve myself and learn more about the mechanics and science and theory, when it seems useful in helping my clients improve.

Also: injections. One of my cousins who has a young child was at a bat-mitzvah with me and the dj played a song that one of the teens demanded that was probably inappropriate and part of the song was chanting "shots shots shots shots" and my cousin turned to his little daughter and said something like "he must really like going to the doctor to get shots, huh?" So now that's our theme song when we have to do the hormone injections. Adds a little lightness to something she's really not looking forward to.

Blackberries, Peaches, Star Trek

The blackberry bushes are exploding. The peach tree is giving us boxes and buckets and bowls of peaches. 50 pounds? 60? A lot. Just picking them all is a lot of work especially in the summer heat, but then they have to be processed (they can't all get eaten). It's a lot of work. Just to be clear, I'm not doing much of this work, this is Suzannah, who has a passion for peaches currently and gardening always. What a wonderful thing to be passionate about. But I'm at max capacity already, with work and school and learning how to do my job well. I'll help keep our house plants alive and the need-to-do chores done. I think I've said this before in grad school, it sounds like the star trek thing where their engines have been shot at: energy systems at critical levels, transferring all remaining energy to basic life support systems. I've already gone down in classes as much as I reasonably can. It's time to just push through now. It's only for a little bit, so I can do it, and most of the time, it's not quite this intense. It's just when several sometimes-things overlap.

It's very sweet having the nephews over though, so I say worth it.

OK, that's all for these two weeks, I out

Passing, Pouring, Progesterone-ing

 I have completed my NCMHCE, the counselor licensing exam for Iowa, and... I passed! by a bunch! Woo! Now, we've got family (Suzannah's sister's family) visiting and staying with us for a week, and I need to finish writing the curriculum for the group I'm going to lead to get my group hours. Also a bazjillion other things, so it seems and feels like. I still love the work I'm doing, but it feels like a "when it rains it pours" situation, with lots of paperwork, some of which is kind of backlogged from me focusing on studying for my test, plus the additional inputs required from visiting family, plus Suzannah starting her next round of IVF and all the additional medical stuff to keep in mind. It's a lot.

It kind of seems like me getting behind on my blogs is a good thermometer for how busy I am. I am looking forward to the possibility of being able to slow down for a bit, after I graduate. At that point, I can kind of set my own pace, to a larger degree. Until then, (December) it's a race to the end. Now that my test is done, and it looks like I'm going to get my group hours, the one remaining hurdle that still needs jumping is getting all my direct client hours. I don't have enough clients currently, and though I'm open to getting more, there just aren't many new clients for me currently. I'll figure it out, but it's not yet figured. I'm working on it well in advance though, so that gives me a lot of time to course correct.

OK, gonna end here for this post. Maybe another short one to stay current after this.

The magic of Deliberate/Purposeful practice

 Another! (I am slowly but surely catching up to my blog backlog. How about that. Nice.)

This post is about something I am very passionate about: deliberate practice, as applied to helping professions. Normally, deliberate practice is about the science of mastery, and is applied to fields like professional music or sports (both physical and mental, such as chess.) But the founder of the idea Anders Ericsson, asserts that it is relevant to any kind of mastery that anyone develops, thought it gets a bit more fuzzy (and thus is called "purposeful practice") when it is in less clearly defined and developed fields, where 'success' isn't as exactly measured, and there aren't coaches and systems of training that have been refined over years. In general though, it seems to apply pretty universally, though, interesting and important note, even taking account of deliberate practice, there are still a lot of other factors that seem to influence mastery. 

To my understanding, deliberate practice or its relative purposeful practice (I'm just going to abbreviate that to DP for short, so I don't have to keep typing it out), maybe accounts for 30% of the variance in skill levels of people (that's a gross oversimplification.) That may seem small, but the key to remember, is no other single variable they've been able to identify accounts for close to that much of the variability. It's just a general mush of "other stuff" which is not at all helpful, in gaining mastery. 

In any case, the punchline is this: most of the things we do, to try and make people better at their jobs: doctors, teachers, therapists, is useless. It doesn't actually make them better. But DP does. My first big aha about this, was going through my education masters, being boggled by the lack of scientifically rigorous and proven preparation, for us teachers. We could be making teachers so much better, if we followed what the science said about training for skill mastery. I was sad, because there was literally nothing available to me, to do that, even though I wanted to. It seemed like a gross oversight, and I wanted to do something about it, though I was woefully unqualified to head such an operation. Nowadays, DP has gotten a little more popular and talked about in the literature, though it getting operationalized practically speaking still seems to be in its infancy.

However, the field of psychotherapy, perhaps because it is more closely linked with academia, has a little bit more research minded people behind it, and thus there is actually a small but strong movement of people who are trying to operationalize the science of DP as applied to psychotherapy. This is super exciting to me, especially since the research also clearly shows that just about everything else has close to zero effect on improving therapist outcomes. There seems to be quick growth at and around the begining, where there is a lot of learning, and then stagnation for the rest of their career. This is not isolated to counselors, it's true of many professions where they don't get immediate feedback on the results of their work, like primary care providers, and usually, teachers.

So I am super excited to learn about, and start implementing, DP into my own practice, and maybe someday, help support something that gives that opportunity to teachers as well.

Good enough grades, Group work, and Getting hours

 So I've been diligently practicing for my NCMHCE test, and seem to be getting on average a bit over 70%, which should mean a pass. That is fantastic news, and I'm looking forward to that weight being off my shoulders. The next looming deadline is really just getting all my hours in. If I don't, it's not the end of the world, but it is a whole other semester I'll have to take of school, which would be a big waste of time, since I'd likely only be short by a few hours. But at my current rate, I'm not gonna make it. Though I am ramping up to have more clients per week, so that will hopefully be enough. But I need about 12 per week, which is 4 per day, to make that work currently I'm at closer to 8. Or I might go up to 4 days a week so I can do 3 per day, if 4 ends up feeling too intense. (Seeing 4 clients a day is totally fine. also doing 4 hours of paperwork, not so much.)

Not to mention, I need 10 group hours, which is the hardest thing to get so far, because there are no already-in-action groups going on. I've created and advertised for two groups already, at considerable cost to my time, designing the group, designing the posters and facebook posts. Nobody signed up. Not a one. So I'm looking into other avenues. Seeing if someone else in town is already running a group, and would be willing to let me co-facilitate, or begging my friends to attend something I make for them so I can get my hours in. 

We will see. Hopefully one of the avenues I'm pursuing will bear some fruit.

Wish me luck,

-Isaac

Wishes, Wonder, Work

 I'll do one more short one. Some celebratory news. I think it was just last week, as I was feeling deep gratitude for being able to do this work, that I noticed I felt a bit more confident in myself as a therapist. Part of one of the things that I do differently from most therapists is track the client's progress, as measured by themselves. Through that objective measure, and the people I'm working with's self report, it genuinely seems like what I'm doing is making a positive difference in people's lives. I think it took me this long, to see enough different people, and for long enough, to confirm for myself that it wasn't just a fluke. This is a wonderful feeling, and makes it a bit easier to convince myself I don't need to spend quite so long planning and taking notes, because I can see and feel what I'm doing that's working, and it's not about writing copious notes. (though I do believe thinking deeply about my clients and coming up with possible next steps and trouble-shooting are some of the the things that really help.)

It's also really satisfying, getting feedback about what's working, and what's not, and then working to change things, and seeing positive results from the changes. It feels like what I'd always wanted from my teacher training, but never been able to get.

That's something worth inventing: a system for training teachers that includes a simple, well validated way to quickly measure how students are doing after a lesson, both academically, and socially/emotionally. Did they learn it, did they enjoy it? How could it be improved? And same for classroom atmosphere/culture. My friend deliberate practice and Anders Ericsson. I wonder if that would work to improve teachers skills? I would have loved it. Though I also would have loved a clearer synthesis of what factors actually make the biggest difference in student outcomes. Though I don't care only about academic outcomes, I would want to know if school is helping them become better human beings as well. Otherwise what's the point?

OK, I'll end there for today. Hope you're enjoying the lush summer greenery out there. The fireflys are out in force these nights, and it's magic to behold.

Wishing you well, wherever you are,

Isaac

Testing, 1 2 3...

 Let's see, currently my nose is being attacked by a fungus gnat, which have invaded our house due to repotting a bunch of houseplants with potting soil, which apparently is made of 90% gnat eggs. They appear to have a strong desire to die via flying into my nostrils.

I've signed up for my NCMHCE test date, which will happen online, July 12th. It's an interesting procedure, where I will have to show my room to the test proctor by moving my webcam/computer around and showing that my room is secure, free of any possibility of other people hearing me or sending me information (the windows have to be blocked, door closed at all times) or secretly storing information (no tissues, only transparent water bottles, no headphones, need to keep my head on camera at all times, focused on the screen.) It seems kind of intense. and I'm sitting for about 2 hours at a time, with one 15 minute break to pee in between (not allowed to get up to pee otherwise).

It's pretty intense attempt at security. I feel like if someone wants to go to all the trouble of outwitting it, they might as well just spend the time studying for the test. Which is what I'm doing. Having the timeline/deadline will hopefully help me focus, and hopefully the fact that I'm getting over 70% on the practice case studies means I'll do at least that well on the actual exam, which should be plenty good enough to pass. I'll be happy to have it out of the way, if only so I can get back to focusing on learning more relevant things to my practice. The test itself isn't terrible though, I'm actually learning some things (or being reminded of things) as I study for it, since I get feedback on my answers, so I can learn from my mistakes. I wish the more practical knowledge I want to learn was as well structured.

Also, I'm currently at about... 7 clients per week, and after doing some math, it looks like I will need to go up to more like 12 a week, so I'm about to get a bunch more busy. Especially since adding new clients takes like 3 times as long with the paperwork. Welp, here we go! It's definitely feeling like the final stretch. I've already registered for my final semester, and it's coming right up.

Summer chorus, Garden, Fructification

 OK, I'll do one more, to share what's going on outside: the garden and yard are really bumping. Suzannah is creating beauty in the garden, the clover is covering the lawn with pretty white flowers, and in the morning when I sit at my spot, I hear all sorts of birds chirping, including the morning doves with there distinctive owl-sounding hoots. At night we've got crowds of fireflies, filling the world with their magic, and the chorus of frogs (I think spring peepers?) and crickets. The Fruit tree's Suzannah has planted are exploding, growing so quickly, and her blackberry patch is also exploding out. It's cooled down a bit after some really hot days, and walking in the evening has been wonderful, with not too many bugs (unless we stop under street lights), a nice breeze, and some bright stars and planets in the sky. Especially in the morning, watching the rising sunlight filter through the leaves, it feels like heaven. I'm so grateful for the habit I've created of taking a few moments in the morning, to enjoy the richness and beauty around me that nature provides. It is a simple and free pleasure, but one of the most meaningful and enriching, in my life.

Including some pictures of the garden. It will be fun to see how the perennials grow, over the years.

May your own season be full of growth and beauty.

-I out

The fruit tree that's grown like 3x as big as last year in the foreground and blackberries in the background

Using nice things, Achaan Chaa, Getting better with time

 There are a few nice things that I have, that I've been avoiding using, because they are nice and I didn't want to get them dirty or break them. But recently I've been thinking, what's the purpose of having them, and not enjoying them by using them? If they break, they break, or get damaged or worn, but at least I will have enjoyed them. A bag I got during our honeymoon in Japan. A hand blown drinking glass from a friend for a wedding present. A nice big cordless fan. I'm using them now, and it makes me happy, thinking about the love put into them (for the first two) or just makes me nice and cool while trying to keep the AC not working so hard. My friend shared an interesting quote with me, that makes me think about this, that she's been really strongly resonating with, and I agree is poetic and deep:

“You see this goblet?” asks Achaan Chaa, the Thai meditation master. “For me this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on the shelf and the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’ When I understand that the glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.”

I've also been working, for a while now, on making good use of my time, and I feel like I am actually getting better at that, which is exciting and satisfying. One of the simplest things is just looking at my list of things to do, when I've got some free time, and working on them, rather than just getting distracted, doing whatever's in front of me, or watching something.

Finally, I continue to be so grateful for the opportunity to work as a therapist. I love my work and it feels like an honor and a privilege to get to be in that position, as my job. It uses my curiosity, compassion, patience, creativity, and passion for growth in a way that is a really good fit. I'm pretty neutral on the paperwork, and when it starts to take a long time, that's a bit of a negative, but I will do it if it means I get to do the actual therapy stuff, as my job. I hope I never take for granted the honor it is, to help people on their healing path, and never grow complacent.

I'll end this one here for now, maybe I'll do another one this weekend.

All the best,

-I

Best Birthday Ever

 OK... I suppose I should talk a bit about the awesome treasure hunt adventure. I'd like to give it more time, but I'm busy busy these days so my posts have to remain short. I'll share a picture of all the materials I was given, that I've taped to the wall to continue to savor it.

It started out in the morning with an envelope I saw outside our front door, as I was about to go for a run. Inside was a mysterious letter, with what looked like a wax seal, telling a story about magical powers passed down on the families 40th birthday. I immediatly knew this was the work of Suzannah, but spared her the pain of trying to hide it, and just thanked her profusely for the absolutly delightful, amazing and wonderful suprize, and told her how psyched I was about this. The letter had specific time frames, so I had time to finish my morning routien (very thoughtful) before I went to the local gaming shop and wispered the secret phrase to the store owner, who then gave me a bag full of packages that said "side quest" which involved a modern polaroid camera and a journal with prompts on each page, which I needed to take pictures of to complete (still working through that one, as it was 40 entries long). I then went back to double check the game shop owner hadn't forgotten anything, because I was supposed to get a map from them. After a bit of confusion, they realized/found the map, and I was on my way to various locations, to match up the magic symbol envelopes with "a person representing that decade of my life" to solve the puzzles included, together. Doing this was as much fun as you might imagine, as I got to meet friends and solve puzzles together, putting together an over-arching message. You'll see in the picture, if the resolution is good enough.

In any case, to keep from talking about it for too long, there were lots of fun little occurances, synchronicities, and mishaps along the way, while getting to go on this adventure with some of my best friends, and solve the mystery to unlock secret powers.

So, far and away the most amazing birthday I've ever had, (even if it wasn't technically on my birthday.) I've always secretly wanted to have someone put together a treasure-hunt/adventure thing like this, for me, but didn't want to ask, as it is way too much work to ask of anyone. Suzannah had been working on it for months, in secret. I have no words to express my gratitude and thanks and awe at what she put together for me, and for all the people involved in it. (shoutout as well to Lila Quests with Chris Grace and Haley Spitzfaden for helping Suzannah create it. That kind of thing is their job and they are great at it <3 )

This birthday was very full of gratitude, for how far I have come in life, for how many of my wishes and dreams have come true, or are coming true, and for what absolutely spectacular people I have in my life, as best friends, family, and my amazing wonderful partner. I feel deeply deeply blessed, and just hope I can pay forward some of that blessing to make other people's lives better as well, in my work and volunteer activities and personal life.

With love and lots of gratitude, 

Isaac

Alphabet soup, Amazing adventures, Gratitude

What have I got... My birthday was great, but there was a lot going on, so I don't think I posted anything last weekend. This will be short as well.

Suzannah did an AMAZING treasure-hunt adventure for me, far and away the best birthday party anyone's ever done for me, so much gratitude, I want to share all about it, but that will definitly be another post. Lots of delicious food. Lots of good times with friends. A nice soliomancy on my birthday morning sunrise. Lots of specifics to share, but not right now.

Then I got sick, and had to cancel travel plans, which is very sad, as they were to go see another friend for their 50th birthday celebrations. Also getting sick is no fun.

Suzannah is working like crazy doing gardening and yard work. It's something she enjoys but I think also feels a need to complete, to the point of working herself to physical exhaustion. I'm sleeping a lot to try and get better quickly. my sickness potions and minerals seem to be helping keep the symptoms pretty low. zinc lozenges and povidone iodine nasal spray for the win.

Getting a few more clients, working (mildly) faster at SOAP notes, put up posters for my group counseling thing I created, but haven't gotten responses from anyone yet. Not exactly sure what I'll do if I don't get anyone for that. Maybe I should put up some posters in more locations.

I really feel like I am in the meat of things now, learning how to do the counseling thing. Also, practicing for the NCMHCE licensing test, something I need to do before I can start practicing as a licensed counselor after graduating. Starting to get better scores on the practice tests I'm doing, which is great news. Hopefully I can take that in the next couple of months.

OK, I think that's all for now. 

Love to you, friends and family,

-I Out

Happy Birthday

 OK, this week is my birthday. And my birthday parties. I always used to get sad when my birthday came around, because it was a time of reflection, and when I reflected on my life, it made me depressed. I was generally unhappy. I didn't have a relationship or job that I wanted, my behavior was off from what I wanted it to be, I felt far away from any spiritual goals I had. 

These recent one's though, I feel pretty grateful about. It has been very slow going, hard to believe I'm about to turn 40, but I finally have a career I'm super happy with. And for the last... hard to believe it's been 7 years now, wow. For the last 7 years, I've had a relationship I'm super happy with. Some of that is luck. But some of that is hard work and persistence and the humility to face what I was doing that wasn't working and learn from it. I think I feel a healthy pride about where I have gotten myself to.

But I think it's so important to recognize all the many, many amazing teachers and mentors and friends and family, who have supported me, lifted me up, inspired and educated me, and guided me with wisdom to where I am now. I don't feel like a fake, helping other people at this point. I am always continuing to grow, but where I am now feels pretty good, and I feel like I earned that, and from there, I have a lot to offer others. It's time to pay it forward, to other people, for all the people that have helped me climb out of my own hole.

And at the same time, I had a recent conversation with a dear friend, and it reminded me of the preciousness of life, and of each day. I carry with me an awareness of death. Tomorrow is not guaranteed to us. Nor is the tomorrow of any of our dearest friends or loved ones. If I lost the person most central to my life tomorrow, I would be devastated, plunged into grief and sadness, and my life would far, far less full of joy, love, and happiness. Overnight, my life could go from what feels like heaven, to a deep pool of sadness, that felt like half my body had just been amputated.

And yet...

Even in that, there is this sadly beautiful love of life.

I know who I am, I know at least the faintest beginning of the trail of my vision and purpose. I know how to grow, and to go on, one step in front of the other, and I have faith in the vast loving intelligence I feel moving underneath and through everything, guiding me with infinite benevolence, even when it feels hard and painful.

And I have faith that I can navigate my way through things. I know which direction to move in, to make my heart sing, and which will chew me up. Sometimes I have to do things that are unpleasant, and I can do that as needed, but I can also recognize when I'm doing that unnecessarily, and stop. (maybe it takes me a little bit to realize that's going on. But that time has gotten shorter.)

I guess I'm just saying, I feel like, even if everything gets taken away, I still feel like I'll be ok. I won't be great, I'll suffer, but I'll make it through. And that feels like safety.

In the meantime, while things are great, it just reminds me to savor and appreciate it properly. And to lean into the things that bring me joy, make my heart sing, and express my unique interests, curiosities, passions. To lean into being me, more and more fully.

As I said, it does not feel like I have arrived at the end of something, but it does feel like of like a bloodhound that has just picked up the scent trail of what it's trying to track. This, after... hmm... maybe 25-ish years of looking? Though it wasn't a binary on-off thing. I guess I'd been catching whiffs of it for a while now, but it finally feels clear enough that there is an actual trail to follow, rather than just being somewhere in the general vicinity of the right place.

I don't know, the analogy isn't great. Finding Suzannah was its own version of this, in a different area of my life, and that was pretty clear 7 years ago. multiple trails, all weaving together into a single rope?

Anyhoo, things are good and full and I continually thank the Creator of my life for all that I have been given, including the rough patches, because they have lead me to where I am now.

So thank you for the greatests gift, that of life itself, and the potential contained in a human life, starting to be experienced as it begins to blossom.

Eustress, Biodomes, The Good Life

Let's try and do a short post. It's already Monday, and tomorrow I plunge back into seeing clients and doing case notes. I've also started to study for the NCMHCE exam, which I'll have to pass to get licensed and be able to continue practicing, after I graduate. I don't think I'm doing too bad, I took some practice tests, but I'm slow, and my performance was all over the place. So: time to study and do practice tests. Ah well. I did it before to get licensed as a teacher, I can do some test prep again. Not the most difficult thing, but time consuming.

My birthday continues to approach. I've got a bunch of ideas for my birthday party, but I am coming to realize I won't have much time to actually prepare for it, so I need to pare back on my preparations and plans. Story of my life, these days.

I'm coming to the realization that for me, 'the good life' = having time to focus deeply on projects and do them well, plus enough stretch to make me put in good effort.

By streatch, I mean the concept that you want your goals to be doable, but a stretch. If they are unrealistic, that can be discouraging, but also if they are too easy, it leads to not putting in as much effort, and then you don't feel as good about what you did. There is a psychological term 'eustress' which means good stress. That is this concept. Having some challenge in life is a good thing, it spurs growth. Like lifting heavy weights. If you only lift weights that are easy for you, you won't get any stronger. And you might not even maintain your fitness. We are creatures of adaptation, and if we don't have difficulty to adapt to, we get weak.

I always think about the biodome trees: trees that were grown under a big biodome, they never had wind that tried to blow them over, so eventually they would grow to tall and just topple over, because their root system was too shallow. No wind to fight against, getting their roots to grow deep.

But you want to find the right balance. Too much, and you injure yourself, or burn out.

OK, back to work (but I guess not for too long, so I can go to bed early. There's that balance again.

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