Clearing Space

I read once upon a time that Katherine Hepburn had only black, grey, tan and navy slacks and turtlenecks in those same colors.  She said she didn't believe that spending time trying to decide what to wear was a good use of her precious time on the earth.  I was very struck by this since clothing myself seemed so mysterious to me and I felt like such a failure at it.  I thought maybe if I simplified the whole thing, I could set the torture aside.  Over time I've simplified dressing myself a lot and discovered that a certain amount of time thinking about what to wear is actually fun and creative, so I haven't gone all the way to just neutrals.

The concept of simplifying everything and/or making it creative and fun has turned out to be a life principle for me.  Having a lot less "stuff" in general is actually a lovely way of living.  It amazes me how much space clutter takes up in my mind as well as my environment.  I'm a long way from achieving a complete lack of unnecessary stuff, but I am growing in that area all the time.

The same concepts apply to how I spend my time.  Eliminating unnecessary stuff keeps me from using precious energy on things that actually don't matter.  Clearing out activity that has no actual benefit except to follow social convention is a huge step forward. 

Extra space in my mind, in my environment, and in time makes room for creation, peace and love.  I highly recommend it as a way to empower ourselves.

Re-Educating My Thinking Patterns

So much of creating the life of my dreams has been mental.  Of course, I always thought that the way to live life was to have self-discipline and work toward goals. That way of living has it's place.  However, many of us have turned self-discipline into self attack which never advances us toward our goals.

One of the most valuable skills I've learned has to do with monitoring my thoughts.  The first thing I learned was that I was not my thoughts.  Separating myself so that I could observe my thinking was a challenge at first.  I was very much identified with my thoughts. 

The next thing I had to learn was to question my thoughts.  I had somehow come to believe that everything I thought was right.  Actually, my thoughts - and I think this is true for pretty much everyone - are generated separately from my decision-making process.  I wasn't choosing what I thought about.  Thoughts were just arising from somewhere. Just because they were generated by my brain didn't mean they were correct.

The third thing I learned that although I wasn't choosing my thoughts, I could actually change them.  I could say to myself, "Wait.  That's not true." or "Wait.  That doesn't sound right.  I'm going to check out the truth of that."

And finally I learned that my thoughts had repetitive patterns that had been running through my mind over and over and over for years and years and years.  Thoughts like, "I'm going to mess this up."  "Boy, I really messed that up."  "I'm not a good person at all.  I need to try harder."

Those repetitive thoughts of self-criticism and judgment were causing me to give up before I even started.

Then there were the worry thoughts, "It's going to be hard."  "What if he is mad at me?"  "What if the boss is going to fire me?"  Those repetitive thoughts of predicting a terrible future were keeping me on edge during the day and sleepless at night.

Since I had learned that my thoughts were not me and that they might not be true at all, I decided to examine them.  I ultimately decided that since those thoughts weren't doing me any good and were keeping me from moving forward, I would change them.  I decided to think encouraging thoughts.  I decided to think optimistic thoughts.

What a change that made in my life!

Should I Write about this or Keep it to Myself?

The question of whether to write about something or not comes up pretty much every day.  When the question pops into my head, it's because I'm pretty sure there would be huge amounts of disagreement with my observations and maybe even outright outrage.  So I'm usually pretty chicken to do the writing. 

Lately, however, I've been hosting a book study on one of Brene`Brown's books on "shame" (which almost nobody wants to admit they actually have).  She has done a lot of research on shame (which I define as the fear of being judged) and what she calls whole-heartedness (which I just define as being willing to let other people have their opinions of me without allowing their judgments to run my life.) 

No one who knows me would believe it, but a huge amount of my observations just stay inside my head because of my fear of judgment.  I talk a lot and I talk a lot about my observations, so I'm sure it must seem to others that I air my thoughts 100%.  If it wasn't for that damn book, I could have just kept on believing I had very little fear of judgment.  But I'm realizing that I'm a big chicken when it comes to sharing many things I believe and live by.

After giving this some considerable prayerful thought, I've decided to put some of my ideas in print.  Good grief, it's not as if my blogs have thousands of readers - or even tens!  So the number of people I can piss off is really limited.  I thought about starting another blog and keeping it private.  That seemed immensely cowardly and stupid.  If I'm going to put thoughts and ideas in print that could be controversial, what's the point if no one can read them?

I believe and I've been told by others that the responsibility of us "elderly" folks is to share what we've concluded from the experiences of our lives.  If everything dies with us, our knowledge and understanding of life can't be put to use by anyone else.  Since I've been a writer all my life, it seems pretty clear that not using that skill to share the ideas that might cause other people to judge me, is pretty wimpy and sad.  

So, no more censorship for me.  Let the chips fall where they may...