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Intentional choices – a new approach for 2019

Just beyond yourself. It’s where you need to be.
Half a step into forgetting and the rest restored by what you meet.

~ From the poem ‘Just beyond yourself’
in David Whyte’s collection of poetry, The bell and the blackbird

Intentional choices to keep me moving toward what just beyond myself — Intentional choices to move smoothly with unbroken continuity, and go just beyond myself.

2019 began with an intention to be in FLOW – my word for this year. I want to move from where I am to just beyond myself, as the quote above says. One way is to give attention to my intentions, something I’ve written about previously. But to make this work, I have to take it a step further by making intentional choices.

Ralph Marston, author of the blog, The daily motivator says, “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”. He says that the choices you make should be driven by what will make a difference in your life.

Last year, I kept loading my plate with to-dos, projects, stuff, that had me flitting from one thing to another keeping me busy chasing my tail but not moving me forward. This year, my new approach came after reflecting on how I want my days to be and what will make a difference in my life. Professional writing goals, self-care – which includes making time for drawing, and exercise are the most important things that I feel will make a difference for now.

Even though I’ve set goals each year, I’ve never been successful at staying the distance. This year I decided to set goals for the quarter. Three months seem more manageable, close enough to keep me on my toes and to keep me moving smoothly. Following the rhythm of the seasons feels good as well. Ok, I’m not quite in alignment but being in flow means easy movement, so flexibility comes into play here.

Intentional choices for my attention. The view of the Shoalhaven River ... and beyond. Where I want to be. — View of the Shoalhaven River …and beyond myself. It’s where I want to be.

My goals are simple, and really, I hesitate to share them. Sharing means accountability and I haven’t been accountable since I stopped being an employee a long time ago. But a little accountability goes a long way, I’ve decided. There are just three goals and I’m under no illusion about the work involved. But it’s one choice at a time, one step after another.

So here are my goals for the quarter:

Change my website – I want a professional persona which incorporates my freelance work, my travel articles and also a journal to chronicle my path to the passionate life I seek. I’ve vacillated between setting up a new professional website, and weaving all the threads of my life together and positioning it in one place. The jury is still out on this but there is work to do, content to be written and other small decisions to be made about business cards, logo, service offerings and clients.I’d love to hear your thoughts on this if you’ve come to that fork in the road — how to integrate the personal and the professional aspects of your life and how you decided to present this publicly.
Write and publish blog posts according to a schedule. I’ve set up the schedule, and listed the numerous ideas I want to write about, so you will be receiving more regular letters from me. I won’t overwhelm your inbox, but they will appear more often than in the recent past.
I want to see a published article (print or online, it doesn’t matter) in a magazine with my byline. This means overcoming a number of obstacles: perfectionism — accepting that something is good enough; procrastination; and my fear of rejection. Recently, I read the book Feel the fear and do it anyway by Susan Jeffers who says I should change my vocabulary from:

I can’t… to …I won’t
I should… to …I could
I hope… to …I know
If only… to …Next time

And instead of asking, ‘What will I do?” when I meet the next challenge, saying, “I can handle it.”

Tentatively, I’m going with ‘I can handle it’ for now. With my goals in mind, I list just three things I want to accomplish each day. Intentional choices each day to help me move beyond myself. Small steps to achieve big things! Some days, I complete the three tasks I set myself, other days there are demands that take me away from my work. But there’s no dwelling on that and feeling guilty. My choice is to move gently and not feel anxious even though I want to make continuous progress.

I’m also using my diary in the way it’s meant to be used. David Allen in his book, Getting things done says that a diary should only be used to note the things you want to accomplish on specific days, and appointments and activities at specific times, instead of using it as a notebook for jotting down random things. Something I’m guilty of. This seems to be working as I’m using it every day now, and it sits open on my desk in plain view, with my three things to accomplish and the the other to-dos for the day. It’s not forgotten in a drawer or under a pile of books.

So, there you have it. My professional goals for the quarter. I feel the anxious fluttering of butterflies in my stomach now, so I’m going to take a short break and give my attention to another intentional choice I made: to bring meditation into my life as part of my self-care…

Meditation - an eight week programme to help me make intentional choices — Another of my intentional choices – to follow an eight week meditation programme from this book

…I’m back after a three-minute meditation which has settled me. I bought this book as a present for my son but I’ve kept it for a while so that I could work through the eight-week course of becoming more mindfully aware.

Mark Williams and Danny Penman’s book is a practical guide to meditation, set out in weekly activities and practices which only take a few minutes. Making this intentional choice is, as Ralph Marston says, another way to make a difference in my life.

I’m at week six now. It’s another way to bring FLOW into my life — to enable the gentle process of moving continuously to unfold easily, calmly, and smoothly. I’m meditating daily and although my mind is easily distracted, I think it’s been enormously beneficial. I certainly feel calmer, less stressed about the things I can’t control, and not so anxious about all the ‘Next actions’ on my Trello boards.

Drawing as a way to keep in in the present — Drawing practice each day to keep me mindful and in flow with my daily intentions

As part of my self-care I made the intentional choice to make time for drawing which helps with my creativity and focuses my attention in the present. I’m still at the beginning of my learning but my practice has been erratic.

For starters, I decided that for the month of February I would draw snippets from my life every day. The time I spend drawing is like an active meditation. There’s just me, my pencil on the paper, and my subject — a kind of meditation. A small drawing, I’ve discovered, doesn’t take long. The drawings aren’t fabulous — I can see a lack of perspective in some and problems with proportion, but I’ve banished the demon of perfection .

Seeing the ocean is self-care. It helps me to keep in flow with my intentional choices — An Italian seascape. The ocean is a place that soothes me. A place to practice self-care

Other intentional choices, like my journal writing, which is part of my daily routine anyway, and regular exercise, apart from walking my dog, are what matter to me as well. I joined an exercise class at my local swimming pool and attend three times per week. I can’t say I love the pool (I prefer the beach) but I do enjoy being active and feeling fit). I can feel the difference in my body and it’s another way to be present. And the endorphins produced linger for quite a while afterward. So it’s a win win situation!

I know there will be days when my attention will be drawn elsewhere, such as searching for the dream house (an ongoing affair which is an overarching objective for this year and one which is going to make a huge difference to my life!). However, routine is a steadying influence for now.

My intentional choices are keeping me on the path to building that passionate life, taking me beyond myself, which is where I want to be. The rest of David’s quote — ‘Half a step into forgetting and the rest restored by what you’ll meet.’— is a good place to aim for. This means be gentle to myself, visit the beach often, walk in nature and spend time with my loves.

Have you made some intentional choices in your life that have helped you achieve life or career goals? I’d love to hear your story in the comments.

The joy and sadness of goodbyes and hellos

What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.

~ T.S. Eliot

beginnings and Endings — The Shoalhaven River. No beginning or ending in sight

The past year has been filled with goodbyes and hellos. We said goodbye to our home in Adelaide, goodbye to work in the traditional sense, to familiar routines, traditions, and favourite places. And hello to sharing a house with my mum (crazy different!), hello to a new town, to new neighbours and to a new way of living.

Hellos are usually associated with beginnings, and coming together, excitement and of course, greetings; goodbyes signify endings and partings, they have connotations of sadness and moving away. After four months I still have days where sadness is my overwhelming emotion, and finding joy is an effort. And as I write this, I’m overcome with a bittersweet mixture of sadness and joy that an end of a visit arouses.

Today we waved goodbye to our son Daniel who’s been visiting for a week. It’s been a long time between visits — he’s a music producer and lecturer who has a busy life in Melbourne — and this past week the house seemed to be filled with his stories, his distinctive laugh and his gentle presence. His departure has been a kind of shock — the house is full of empty spaces and there’s a silence where he used to be.

It was a similar thing when our daughter, Jess visited a few weeks ago. She too filled up the empty spaces in the house that we didn’t notice before, her laughter and conversation an antidote to our homesickness.

Life is filled with hellos and goodbyes. What we do between them is what matters most.

Their arrivals fill the the atmosphere with novelty and excitement. After a couple of days there’s a settling, where we slip into our natural ways of being together, and then there are the inevitable goodbyes. The hardest part of the visit. And this time was tough. Perhaps because everything has changed.

It’s hit home that our kids have grown up. Adults with their own lives. We have become minor players in their games of life. I feel sad — for the passing of time and for (rightfully) being relegated a spot on the periphery, to being observers rather than the most important people in their lives. Of course we’ll always be their parents, but it’s goodbye to the responsibilities of mothering and fathering and hello to (hopefully) being friends and trusted advisers.

Beaches on the south coast of NSW — Hello to beautiful beaches in our new environment

Life is full of hellos and goodbyes, beginnings and endings. Perhaps the lesson here is to enjoy and savour every moment between those beginnings and endings, those hellos and goodbyes — whether it’s at work or play, spending time with your loved ones, or just going about the ordinary business of your day.

I leave you with this quote from Fred Rogers which eloquently states my wish for all of us in our hellos and goodbyes:

Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else. I’ve felt that many times. My hope for all of us is that ‘the miles we go before we sleep’ will be filled with all the feelings that come from deep caring – delight, sadness, joy, wisdom – and that in all the endings of our life, we will able to see the new beginnings.

What’s happened and what’s next – reflecting on 2017

I love the outsets, despite the fear and uncertainty that attach to all beginnings . . . I have already begun a thousand lives this way.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke Letters to a young poet

Merry Christmas — From my family to yours, a wish for a peaceful, joyous Christmas

I’m at my desk looking out at the Cambewarra Mountain which is shrouded in cloud cover. The ground outside is wet from the intermittent rain overnight, and the birds have begun their morning song. It’s a good morning to reflect on the year 2017 – what’s happened and what’s next.

The past year has been intense — filled with colour and emotion, activity and tumult. A year of big decisions and big effort. So much has happened. It’s my biggest year since I immigrated to Australia thirty nine years ago. It’s up there with childbirth, going to university as a mature student and seeing my youngest off to study and travel overseas solo for the first time.

The first part of my year was marked by decisions and activity. I answered the declutter guru, Marie Kondo’s call to pare down and discard stuff that didn’t give me joy. For my personal story — deciding what mattered, what was important to keep in the story and what to let go of, was a struggle which required much circling around with ink on paper. But our biggest decision was to sell our house and business. Move to where we could see the sunrise over the ocean instead of the sunset. A decision to change how we work and make a plan for a new way of life that was more wholehearted. Packing up our life set a rollercoaster of emotions in train — anxiety, doubt, disillusion and finally, relief.

We have been in New South Wales for three months now. Sharing a home with my mum while we look for the dream house in its perfect location somewhere along this beautiful south coast, has been a learning curve. Returning to live with a parent — disrupting their habits, encroaching on their space and finding their kitchen equipment lacking (by my standards) — is tricky, especially when you’re used to living differently, with more space and less stuff. It requires compromise and tact, and resilience when you’re feeling vulnerable after a traumatic year. It was a fraught beginning but over time, the three of us (and the princess dog) have found a way to share the space and rub along together reasonably well, and I’m grateful.

With most of our belongings in storage, we are learning to live with fewer clothes and books. Items that we previously thought were essential we are able to live without. And even though I miss some of my beautiful things and especially my kitchen and all its accoutrements for creative cooking, I still manage to produce meals that pass my critical muster. The trauma of relocation has faded, replaced by a nostalgia for familiar places and experiences — the beautiful parks for our walks, my local library, the convenience of living in a city, seeing foreign films . . .

But there is much that is beautiful to occupy us in our new surroundings. We have a new rhythm in our daily life. Hikes in the bush and along the river with its clear water, walks on beaches with the whitest sand, paddles in a lagoon, and shopping in interesting villages, are part of our regular routine. And yes, we miss some of the conveniences of city living, but we now have vineyards and paddocks with cows grazing as our passing scenery on our neighbourhood walks. But it’s not just about leisurely pursuits.

Eggplants growing — Eggplants forming in our vegetable patch

We’ve worked hard to restore the neglected garden which has enough space to grow flowers as well as vegetables. Tomatoes are growing, eggplants forming, cucumbers ripening and there is fresh lettuce to be picked for our lunch. Dahlias are bursting forth with their showy blooms in time for Christmas and the roses have just finished their first flush of flowering.

My creativity is also flourishing. My writing, which was erratic for a long time is now an established practice every day. I’m learning to draw as you know, and although I don’t practice as often as I should, I really love this expression of my creativity. Amore is relaxed and flexing his own creative muscles — experimenting with designs and contemplating his future of work.

Promise of a bountiful harvest — The promise of a bountiful harvest

And as we near the end of 2017, we are on a hiatus — not waiting, but pausing. Life is tranquil, and although we’ve had moments of doubt and flashes of regret, we have our hearts and minds focused on what’s next.

One of the things at the top of our what’s next list is finding a place to live. Not just a house, an environmentally sustainable dream house in the perfect location. We’ve been thinking, talking, making plans and pasting ideas into our inspiration book for more than a year. We have a tall order, and so far in our explorations the ideal package is illusive.

Not so illusive is a plan to travel to Italy. It’s been more than a year since our last visit and we hope to have an extended working holiday in the beautiful country. We are in the planning stages of dates, flights, arrangements for the princess dog, and investigations into Italian internet service. We have been offered an apartment for our stay in Genoa for which we are grateful. It’s a highlight in our 2018 calendar to look forward to and work toward.

I have other work to complete. A list of to-dos regarding my website has been neglected as is my my goal for publication of my first travel article in a magazine. Procrastination and resistance have reared their ugly heads and even though there are completed articles waiting to see the light, I haven’t hit the submit button yet. What holds us back sometimes? Fear of rejection? Perfectionism? I suffer from both these afflictions and they can be difficult to overcome. But I know the solution — break the task down into manageable chunks, put one foot in front of the other, one word and then the next, and work on it consistently, EVERY DAY!

The Cambewarra Mountain looking spectacular in the sunshine

The sky has cleared and the mountain is now in full view. The sun is out and the cicadas have resumed their cacophony from the grove of trees opposite. It’s been good to reflect on 2017 —what’s happened and what’s next in 2018. I’m happy to leave the rollercoaster of emotions behind. I’m also grateful for the roof over my head, achievements small and large, and the simple joys in my life. I can see that our 2018 calendar is marked with some exciting things and I look forward to a creative year.

I hope that when you reflect on the past year that you recollect many joys and achievements in 2017 (it’s so easy to remember the bad things, sometimes we need to pause and refocus our attention on the good things that happen to us).

From my family to yours, a wish for a peaceful and joyous festive season and may 2018 bring you all the best things.

The space between: journal reflections

Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.

~ Guillaume Apollinaire

Golden Rose — Last chance to enjoy my Gold Bunny Rose, one of the first to flower in my garden

For the first time in my new temporary home I find some time to be here. It’s been a tough relocation — filled with complications, challenges, and situations that have set my teeth on edge. My first thought on opening this page was to write about the process of our relocation, but I found this post which was written about two weeks before we left our home in Adelaide. It was titled The space between what’s done and what’s yet to begin, and it reflects my thoughts at the time and brought to mind some lovely moments of just being.

I’m sharing it without editing as a journal reflection on that liminal space and as a small tribute to the final days in our old hometown. . .

Otters at the Adelaide Zoo — Saying farewell to the otters at the Adelaide Zoo.

. . .In two weeks, we will leave this place called home. We are packing up, closing down and getting reading to move on. And in this liminal space — between what’s done and what’s yet to begin, I’ve been busy with the practicalities and technicalities of integrating my work life and my passionate life story.

The busyness of finding solutions for integrating all of this into a neat new package —website, social media, a new sense of identity — has been consuming. So much so that I was forgetting to just be. The things that matter, the most important things, were taking a back seat.

What matters right now is to enjoy our final days here. In the midst of preparing to leave, there are still walks in nature, reading, and of course writing. Not the About me page or the list of services I’m offering or whether I should pin this blog post to a Pinterest board, but finding pleasure in the work of writing my story and being present right now in my life.

The Lane Vineyard — Vines ready for pruning at the Lane Vineyard, Hahndorf. Lunch in the Adelaide Hills with my best girl and amore mio

I understand that the practical aspects of how I will present myself to the world is important, but at the moment, it seems like it’s too much, too difficult to think about. So I’m taking a pause — crazy though it sounds with the movers turning up in thirteen days.

Serenity in the Himeji Japanese Garden — Tranquility in the Himeji Japanese Garden. A favourite place which always holds the space between

David Kundtz, in his book Quiet Mind stresses that stopping — whether for a moment or a month — can be the difference between simply surviving and thriving. To me, it’s like taking a deep breath, in order to remember who I am and what I want. I wrote a blog post about taking a moment to be still a while ago, but with all the activity (mind and body) happening at the moment, I lost sight of the benefits of what David calls ‘still points’. He says:

More than anything, one should have a feeling of freedom, a feeling of having no pressing needs (even though there are often pressing needs), and as complete a state of relaxation as is possible right now.

So the agenda for the next two weeks has been cleared of the technical, practical stuff that I know will be there, waiting for when the time is right and I’m stopping for a moment to regain my equilibrium. I’m going to focus on what matters right now.

West Beach, Adelaide — Beach walks in old haunts with Lily the princess dog

Some of that is to bid farewell to familiar haunts — walks in my favourite gardens and the beach, and as well as packing my precious belongings, finding time for writing and reading, as well as practicing my drawing and photography. Finding joy in being present in this space between.

The space between, — The space between what’s done and what’s yet to begin. Adelaide Botanic Garden wetlands looking serene

With the trauma of moving, I have only now come to appreciate the moments taken and enjoyed in that brief time before our departure. I hope that you too can find some stillness in your life to just be. Sometimes, doing nothing is the best thing to do.

Thanks Adelaide for some of the best moments of my life!

Home is . . .

Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.

~ Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

The word ‘home’ is an emotive one for me as we prepare to leave this house. Yes, the SOLD sticker is on the board – a definitive sign that this house we have called home for the past 20 years, won’t be our home for much longer. Furniture, special objects, my books, are packed, ready for the journey to a new place. And because these things that made our house a home are gone, our children grown and flown the nest too, it’s a little disorienting.

Gathering momentum

**Jacaranda trees transforming my street in November**

The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.

~ John Pierpont Morgan

I can’t believe it’s almost five months since I’ve been in this space. The hiatus wasn’t forced, it’s more about procrastination and the belief that I was too busy to write. But those are just excuses.

A lot has happened in the interim. . .

Intentional choices – a new approach for 2019

So here are my goals for the quarter:

The joy and sadness of goodbyes and hellos

What’s happened and what’s next – reflecting on 2017

The space between: journal reflections

Home is . . .

Gathering momentum

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So here are my goals for the quarter:

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