While Supplies last! XYZ. Filled with Determination (Undertale reference).

 It's not my lunch break today! It's the morning, right after my meditations, and right before I go for a jog (waiting on Suzannah to finish up some of her morning routine so we can go together :-).

It's also Wednesday. This happens when I'm not on a regular routine. Probably good to shake things up every now and then, but also makes it clear why I have routines. 

Let's see... ah, #1:

For a Limited Time Only! While Supplies Last! Act Now!

I'm in Fairfield Iowa. If you know me well enough to have my email or phone number, and you'd like to say hello in person, we can try and make that happen. Drop me a line and we can go for a walk or have some tea outside or something. I'm leaving early Saturday morning, so Friday is the last day to catch me.

OK, on to other things. I've circled back around to the importance of intensity and focus. If you put everything you've got into one burning desire/goal, it gives you your best chance of achieving it. Spread yourself out, and you will do alright at a bunch of things. But the people who have achieved great things have done so mostly when they've focused their whole lives around those things. I'm of the philosophy that it's more important to be good than great (meaning moral rather than well-known) but even so, if you have something you believe to be most important, it makes sense to focus a lot of your energy on it and make sure you're identifying and taking the action steps towards its achievement. For me that is enlightenment, and that requires a certain kind of intensity. Love is the central factor, and so a cold, teeth-gritted kind of intensity won't do. It is an intensity of love, surrender, courage, focus, self-honesty, flexibility, dynamic action. Of intuition and faith.

That quote continues to echo in my head, almost hauntingly: 

  'why do so few people seem to achieve enlightenment, though many say it is their goal?'

  'lack of intensity.'

Currently though, I feel like I am returning to the passionate intensity of my youth, in many ways. Only I am now adding the wisdom of persistence, of self-compassion, of growth mindset. When I was a kid, that intensity and passion was fragile. When I found I could not live up to the goals I set for myself, I thought that meant I was weak and unfit for the path, that I would never be able to achieve it because of that weakness, and I was sad. Now I know a better way to handle challenges, set-backs, and times when I don't live up to what I set out for myself: I grin, say, "bring it on!" and jump back into the fray, knowing that in this arena, I've got infinite lives, infinite tries, and eventually, the problem will have to yield to my unstoppable persistence. 

And that would be enough, but I also know I can analyze my defeat and plan for the future next time, learning from my mistakes and failures and thus turning them into rocket fuel for my eventual success. 

And that would be enough, but I've also learned that it's not just ok to have self compassion and self love, (not narcissism; more like the kindness and respect you'd show to a dear friend) but that those qualities will help, not hinder my progress, while making the path there so much fuller and more pleasant.

In other news: The giant blister is finally starting to heal, after much careful tending of it. Apparently, though it's better to leave the blister alone if it's less than a dime side, if it gets much bigger, it is a good idea to drain it, carefully. I didn't realize that and it got to the size of like a silver dollar/golf ball. I think it was like a black hole, where the bigger it got, the bigger it wanted to get. In any case, it's finally flattening out all the way and hopefully healing, as are the last of the weird bug bites, one of which was the progenitor of the blister.

So far it's been nice being in Fairfield, seeing a few of my closest friends and family, and taking it easy. The time is flying by though. Trying to remember all the people to try and contact so we can go for a walk and chat is what I've been doing. Though I don't have a lot of time or energy, so it's just a few people. Maybe I can have a general "I'll be at X place on Y day at Z time, say hi if if you want to" announcement, to catch anybody who's interested. But if I'm going to get that together, it's probably going to happen on Friday, because Thursday is too soon. Maybe look for that announcement tomorrow, and assume it will be around lunch time, at some park, under some shade, at a picnic table for an hour.

I feel like my brain is in a kind of vacation fog, caused by eating too much and waking up too late and generally being totally off any organized schedule.

Gotta wrap this up and move on to the next thing now. Take care and big love.

-I

P.S. "Undertale" is an amazing game that I loved, and you probably will too if you grew up on 8 or 16 bit RPG games.

IKEA, 10 minutes in heaven, Boils, Gifts.

 Lunch time. Monday. Ten minutes in heaven. Go!

I’m extremely excited, because this is my last week before vacation! Woo! I’ll get two whole weeks off, and we’ve got a whole bunch of really fun things planned, starting with a road trip back to Fairfield, where I’ll get to play with my friends.

This last week is totally focused on the performance the students are doing on Friday, which will be a nice little send off, not just for them, but for me. Though they’ll have an extra week after I leave, which will be very little work getting done, I assume, much more play focused.

Yesterday, me and Suzannah went to IKEA, something she did as a birthday present to me. She has been overwhelming in her generosity for this birthday, making all sorts of special foods, arranging little gatherings with friends and family, making me sweet cards and getting me sweet gifts (games we can play together). And more, and more. I’m used to birthdays being pretty underwhelming, and most of my birthdays, until more recently, have generally been kind of down times for me, where I reflect on my life and feel bad about where I am. So it was kind of hard to parse the overflow of gifts in various forms that I was getting from her.

She is a very good wife, a very good best friend, a very good person.

And so this birthday, as we lay in bed chatting and cuddling, I could only reflect that all the main things I had been sad about in previous birthdays, had changed. What I was wishing forlornly to have, I now have.

There’s always further to go, and my next horizon is work that feels really good, but that was never my primary goal. It was first and foremost somebody to love, and be loved in return. And then later on, Enlightenment, which intellectually usurped first place, but probably stayed in second place, emotionally.

Our 10 minutes in heaven are almost over. I continue to feel the emotional stamina and hope and determination carrying over from the weekend healing class, though the initial buzz has long since worn off.

I have a giant boil on my leg from one of the weird, hard-ish, super itchy mystery bits I got all over me a few days ago (and kept getting, for a few days.) one of them got too much friction from my sock, and went from bite to huge boil. Apparently you’re not supposed to drain them if you can help it, the skin keeps infection out, while the skin underneath is healing, protected by the layer of skin and fluid. Our bodies are pretty cool and smart about self-healing.

I’ll see some of you when I’m in Fairfield next week, drop me an email if you’re interested in having tea some time.

Love, be well,

-Isaac

Doe, a deer. Mentating soon. Drumroll. Birth.

 I may be changing blogging platforms soon. Apparently the free service/widget that automatically sends emails to those who subscribe to this blog, is going to stop working in July. So perhaps it’s finally time to switch to wordpress and have a working comments system. Though maybe comments doesn’t work for other reasons...

In any case, changes coming on the horizon. Oh, by the way, welcome to another episode of Monday lunch with Isaac. 10 more minutes or so to go.

News, happenings. Lots of that coming up. My birthday is this Friday. I assume if Suzannah wasn’t organizing something I would barely be celebrating it. But in general Suzannah is good about getting me to have more fun and enjoy life more, so that’s par for the course.

Two weeks to go before I get my two weeks of summer break! I’ve got one more week somewhere in July, but that will be a plane trip to parents and then a few days of work to prepare myself for the school year starting up again.

After my two weeks of vacation, I’ll be back to teach in the summer session, and my Mentor has said she’ll be teaching with me, training me.

I feel like this last year has been payment of a sort, for the opportunity to be trained by her. I certainly would have preferred to start this coming year, with her, but I didn’t want to leave her hanging, and thought that perhaps if I waited, she might fill the spot and I’d miss the opportunity. It feels kind of high stakes. I’ve put a lot of faith in her and my hopes that she would help me get the training and skills I felt were lacking from my formal education. I’ve invested a year of my life into it. I don’t know what to expect, but I’m going to find out in about a month. Cue drumroll.

Also, did I mention the crazy doe and her fawn and the whole fascinating story that came from our interactions with them? I’ve got some pictures too. I should probably share that, because it’s fascinating, but that will require uploading pictures and video’s, and that’s more time than I generally have available to me. So, I may just have to describe it some week. You can remind me to tell the story, if you see me.

OK, lunch break is over, so this post is too. See ya next week, when I think I’ll be 35.

-I

Meta-emotions, transparency, acceptance.

I think I've totally missed my normal blogging time. Probably because I'm off my normal routine. Two kids in my class tested positive so we went online for a week. Also we had parent teacher conferences this week. I guess I'm just now beginning to catch my breath from that.

Apparently my birthday is coming up soon too? I think I'm turning 35? I think I decided I was an old person once I turned 30, so nothing new there. Though as I've said before, I kind of felt like a grouchy 90 year old man since I was fairly little, so no difference there. If anything, I've gotten younger as the years have gone by, in that sense. 

Thinking about time, as usual. I think one element of expanding my sense of time, looking for the spaciousness I want, is awareness. Awareness of what I'm doing, what I'm choosing to do. And being aware either as I do it, or in the breaks in focus between doing one thing and another.

I'm also taking more responsibility for my time, and how I spend it. Sometimes that's depressing, when I feel like I've squandered it. But that's just another self-defeating habit of thought. Something that can be worked on. 

Currently I'm being reminded that emotions, such as that depression/guilt, are ok, and should be gently accepted, vs. repressed or labeled as bad or as something wrong. That non-judgmental acceptance is key to being able to efficiently process them and move on. Being transparent, being real, authentic. Doesn't mean ruminating on things, but also doesn't mean doing a spiritual by-pass. (trying to always be happy, pretend the 'negative' emotions don't exist.) It's hard to describe. Acceptance, but not passivity or meta-emotions of worry or despair. (meta-emotion means being sad that your sad, or angry that you're sad, or something like that.)

OK, on to other things. Talk to you in a few days, hopefully.

-I

The Learning Mindset. Careful Wording. Helpful and Unhelpful Stories.

Time for another edition of “Monday Lunch with Isaac.” Pardon any formatting weirdness, the internet isn’t working so I’m writing this in “Notes.” Also the person next to me is playing music, which is distracting, so we’ll just see how it goes, eh?

Perhaps that’s the main thing I’ve pinpointed; how much of how I feel is based on feeling like I’m doing a bad job, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

One of the gifts of the weekend class/experience that I talked about last time, is it’s helped me get more accurate in my perceptions and stories. It’s not that I’m “tired” or “exhausted” at the end of the day. A day of work need not make someone exhausted. And much of what I do does not exhaust me. BUT, there are a few specific kinds of things, that end up leading to the feelings I’d previously unconsciously labeled as tired and exhausted and burnt out. I’m trying to get more precise though, since if I just say “I’m exhausted” I end up believing it, and it’s not a story or explanation that leads to many possible solutions, aside from “quite your job and become a forest hermit.” Which has it’s own downsides, particularly lack of hot showers and too many bugs that want to eat me.

So I’ve been trying to locate and clarify what the things are that make me feel bad at the end of the day (or in the middle of it) and what the feeling is, exactly, that I’ve been feeling at the end of most days. Previously, at least.

So now I roll back around to the point I mentioned earlier. One of the things that really gets me down is feeling like I’m bad at something. Now the funny thing is, with certain things, I’m a champion at not caring about the outcome. And these are some of the things I love the most. Improv dance, writing/drawing with my favorite creative writing teacher. It is a consistent phenomena, that when I start worrying about “doing it well,” I have less fun and do it worse. I’m a new teacher, so there are lots of things I’m not doing well. To feel bad about those things means I’m feeling bad a lot of the time.

There is a certain kind of thing that happens frequently as I’m teaching. Say, for example, a kid is having a rough day, they’re crying, they’re not listening to teachers, and/or being disrespectful, not working, distracting others, generally making the class feel worse. And I don’t know what to do about it. I’m just sitting there, or standing, or kneeling, trying stuff, and none of it’s working very well, and I don’t have any great ideas for improving it. But I’m also quite aware that for any of my skilled role models in the field of teaching, they’d have the problem solved or under control in a few minutes to a few seconds.

That’s one of the main moments that gets me. It feels bad, I feel bad. But looking at it objectively, there’s no reason to feel bad about it: I’m doing my best, and it would be silly to expect a new teacher to be doing significantly better than I’m doing. I’m somewhere around average, and I’m working hard. That’s the head-game that I want to be playing. That’s the more productive approach, or story to tell. Previously I hadn’t had enough... I don’t know what to call it. Head space? Cognitive flexibility and self awareness? To see that and feel confident in my ability to change it. Now I do. Not instantly, I think, but step by step.

This is just one example of the things I’m locating. There are more, but I’m still getting clear on what they are. However, as you can see, getting clear on what the problem is takes me a good ways towards solving it.

The other interesting thing I was looking at was how I was feeling, at the end of the day. Fatigue is a loaded and generalized word. Sometimes I still have energy. Sometimes I have a minor headache. Often I have a peculiar feeling. It’s kind of like the feeling of working out hard, and then your arms feel kind of jello-y afterwards. You can’t lift as heavy objects until you’ve rested a bit. My mental acuity is a bit dulled. But it doesn’t actually keep me from doing things. Just means it’s not going to be my best work, mentally speaking. Often it’s still sufficient.

Anyhoo, that’s where my mind is at nowadays, and it’s exciting and full of possibilities and determination. Doesn’t remove the physiological feelings, but does make them much easier to deal with, without all the baggage of “...and that means” tacked on to the end of them. Reality, not story.

And the same thing applies to all the other areas of life that I want to improve. I’m currently feeling much more hopeful and self-confident in my ability to eventually learn and change these things, though I’m not expecting a fast easy fix. But I am expecting that if I stick with it, it will happen. And I’m getting more comfortable with the process and the state of being ‘not good’ at something (yet.) That’s probably even the wrong way to phrase it. Better might be, I’m getting more comfortable with the student, or learner, mindset. That of “I’m experimenting, trying things, and figuring things out.”

The High from the weekend has worn off I think, but that mindset and mental flexibility has not.

OK, I’m out for the week. Take care dear friends and family.

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!