Go Big or Go Bust: On Going With The Goddam Flow

With everything that’s behind and ahead of me in wanting to get this pilot in front of the right people, I’m pin balling through every phase of the emotional wringer.

And then early Saturday morning, I had a dream. It was just around daybreak when a person’s lucky to be able to get back to sleep, much less have a dream.

A 20-something, Middle Eastern-looking woman and I were talking in the hall of a building at 14th St and 8th Avenue. There was nothing fancy about the way she looked or dressed but she radiated a beautiful strength and confidence. She mentioned that she meditated two or three times a day for an hour each time and was cutting back on the people she sees. She mentioned that ‘Henry Fun’, who is dying, is one of them. It felt like I was not someone she’d be making time for.

And so I drifted off in thought, thinking about what a pity it is that I’m not a sitting meditation person, that this is obviously why she’s so strong and confident and I’M NOT. And suddenly, I remembered something I was supposed to be doing and let out a whole body cry of frustration.  

She looked at me with a look of wonder and horror, as if to say: “How old ARE you, anyway? THREE?”

In that flash, I got it, something I’ve been struggling with for decades. This is what self-will run riot looks like and I don’t have to fall victim to it anymore. I can let go. I can get into the darn river and go with the goddam flow.

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 187 (on meditation, weeding the garden, difficult men, spicy food and Global Domination by The Louise Log)

Weeding the garden for one hour in the morning is my new meditation.  Of course I prefer the no-tools method so I can feel the resistance of the roots giving way and 'win' hundreds of times before 9AM.  There's something inexpressibly satisfying about weeding this way but my obsession with it decommissioned my right arm last summer with 'tennis elbow'.

So I was motivated to be open to the advice of a professional gardener: she recommended using a hoe which is not nearly as satisfying but a lot faster.  As I whacked the weeds with a hoe the other morning, I pondered why the easier softer way (the hoe) doesn't appeal to me.  Words from forty years ago filled my head.  A fellow student at the Beaux-Arts weighed in on the subject of my disastrous love life: "Anne, tu aimes les plats épicés?"  (trans: "Anne, do you like spicy food?")

I remember being annoyed at her suggestion that my attraction to difficult men was just one manifestation of an integral part of my character.  But it's funny that this line has stuck in my craw lo these decades.  Maybe it explains my fixation on taking a popular but obscure micro-budget web series from its audience of thousands to global domination.  I haven't given up.

That's dirt splattered on my face and hands.

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 179 (How To Be More Confident and Serene with Built-in Meditation from Leo Babauta's "The Power of Less")

For decades I've known that it'd be a really good idea for me to meditate.  It would probably help with focusing.  It might even help with feeling good enough in my own skin that I'd stop looking 'out there' for everything...  answers, affirmation and that elusive *self-confidence*.  For something so potentially powerful, of course I wanted to get it right. 

And so I read books and even took a course at East West.  The most help came from talking with my friend Bernadette who had meditated daily for seventeen years while she lived in an ashram in India.  She told me that meditation is more than anything like slipping into an old t-shirt.  She also suggested that I read Meditate by Swami Muktananda, a very thin and simple book which I loved. 

And so, with this guidance and encouragement, I've actually had some success with meditating.  Occasionally.  The problem is keeping at it.  I forget how beneficial  it is and let complacency and real world pressures eventually push it to the back burner and then out the back door.  The idea of setting aside ten or fifteen or even five minutes to just, what, sit there??  This has been the hardest part.  Who has time for that?  Not me.  Not usually.  Not unless I'm out of my head frantic or otherwise in trouble do I risk just sitting there.

And then the other day, listening to The Power of Less  (in audiobook) by our old friend Leo Babauta, I heard and decided to try the suggestion to cool it with the multi-tasking.  "Don't read when you're eating.  Don't watch television or even listen to the radio when you're eating.  Just eat.  Pay attention to the act of eating."  (quote is approximate) 

My efficiency maniac within had a hard time with the first five minutes of this, but to my surprise, I've very quickly come to love 'just eating'.  The peace of it seems to expand out beyond the length of a meal.  I feel LUXURIOUS.  It even makes me feel important. And here's the most amazing thing: it's actually a form of meditation to just focus on tasting and chewing.  For someone who loves to eat, this almost feels like cheating.  And best of all, it's built into the day!  Yes I know you're supposed to Never Eat Alone.  But how about one meal a day? 

It's easy to overlook powerful simple things all around if you don't have that stillness that comes from meditating.   

Special Thanks to Victoria Trestrail for my copy of the audiobook "The Power of Less".

Go Big or Go Bust: Day 14 (on meditation and snow days)

I sort of forgot to wrap up the point of yesterday's post: if you want to stick your neck out doing something creative, you're going to feel vulnerable and you may even get hurt.  It makes sense to make the rest of life as easy as possible.

Meditation is another great tool for this, not that I didn't turn learning how into some kind of a 'Climb Everest' challenge. 

Over the past thirty years, I read a lot of books, talked to plenty of people, took at least one class and spent a lot of time trying to meditate.  Finally I gave up:  I would never get this. 

And then, my dear friend Bernadette, who had been meditating daily for decades, recommended Swami Muktananda's book Meditate.  It explained meditation very simply and clearly and encouraged me that I'd been trying so hard, I'd missed the whole point.

One winter day soon after, holding still and staring at falling snow (which happened to be falling straight down, without wind) I effortlessly 'dropped into myself'.  Instead of reaching up and out, trying so very hard, by simply internalizing the action of the snowflakes, I was meditating.   I made a little video so you could try it for yourself, no matter where you are or what the weather is.