Standing on Something Special

Determined to be Queen shares...

Recently I read a line in my favorite daily devotional book and my eyes stopped and my brain revved and whirred in the pause. It went something like this:

"We are standing on a hill of diamonds, and we are looking for the gold mine beyond the next ridge."

We say "diamonds are forever" and "worth your weight in gold" so it's no wonder that when I first read the line, I just didn't get it.

I thought it was a win-win kind of thing. There you are, standing on all that long-lasting stuff, like building your house upon the rock, setting your sights on the gold—of accomplishment, of experience, and yeah, sure, of value.

Nope. Unh-uh.

What Anne Wilson Shaef, author of Women Who Do Too Much, says is that we don't see the forest for the trees. In other words, we go striving for what we already have, yet fail to recognize. So in this particular case, she suggests that, all things being equal—like diamonds and gold—we tend to go searching for the mere hopes of finding the richness we, in fact, already possess to excess. It's easy to see that a hill of diamonds is a ready resource of measurable proportions, whereas rooting around for a gold mine which would then require extraction efforts, in the face of the guaranteed fortune in front of us, would be a titanic waste of time, energy, and life itself.

It reminded me of what I said the other day, in my other blog, about not being consciously aware of the magnitude of the gift of the human body, mind, and spirit. It's a hill of diamonds we stand on quite frequently, looking off into the distance to find those perfect accessories to go with it. Face it, we all do it. We ask ourselves, "What good is it to be trapped in this body if I can't have/do/be that?"

Ok, now I'm not saying that we can't take our human organism out for a drive and see what she can do. No, what I'm seeing as the distinction is that yearning that we beat ourselves up with. The literal, "What good is it?" The idea that what we have right now isn't good enough and what's the point anyway? It's the difference between following the joy and the passion in your heart and being driven by wild desire (or being driven wild by desire) for something that seems unreachable--but that's either because we expect perfection or we want instant gratification, or both!

I'll use myself as an example.

I love to dance. Now, at 37 years of age, I take dancing lessons. (You hear the judgment already, right?) And boy is it ever easy to sit back and watch people who have been dancing for five, ten, or even twenty years or more and think, "Well heck, I kinda suck! Will I ever learn this stuff so I can dance as effortlessly as they seem to?" (Or forget watching...try dancing with an experienced partner and having these thoughts come racing in when you inevitably flub it up!)

But if all I focus on is the end result and I allow myself to be discouraged because I don't have it right at this instant, then I miss out on the joy of dancing now. The fact is, I dance like someone who has been taking lessons for less than a year. And that's the truth...it's just a matter of fact. I have to allow for the journey. Right?

Repeat after me: "Life is the journey, not the destination." (Have we all heard this enough times now that it's about as "out of the box" as that worn out tag line itself?)

And I have to say that I dance much better when I don't think about doing it perfectly but rather let myself feel the dance...to be the dancer, dancing. (And I won't even get started on how my golf swing improves when I just do it!)

But it's so easy to forget the diamonds under the soles of our shoes (I nod to Paul Simon) as we trudge behind the pillar of clouds in the distance that always remain in the distance. The secret to loving the heck out of our lives is to live them right now. To find the perfection in each moment. To just "be" our way along the path.

That's what we're really looking for anyway. The hill of diamonds is there for us whenever we live right from where we are at any given moment. It's not out there in a land far, far away. It's here. And now.

Still not sure what that means? It's taken me a good ten years or so to really understand this idea for myself. Now I'm in the practicing phase. Are you practicing?

On that note, I would like to share a quotation with you from one of my favorite inspirational authors, Mr. Mike Dooley:

Live your dreams now, to any degree that you can. With every purchase. Every decision. Every hello and goodbye. Every assignment. Every conversation. Every meal. Every morning, afternoon and evening. And never, ever, ever look back.

Really.

Go on.

Do it now, and have FUN!!! :))


© Nicole J. Williams, 2007, all rights reserved.

Something Wonderful Happens... When I Say YES to Myself

Testing...1-2-3...


Did you hear me?

Really. Something wonderful happens!

Like what you ask? You want specifics? Well, let's see...

About a month ago, you may remember, I told myself, "YES, you may now take classes that are just for your own personal enjoyment."

The next day I quit smoking.

Just like that.

Wow, right?

I also went from being a stay-at-home-do-nothing-all-day-pick-up-my-kids-cart-them-around-then-do-more-nothing kind of a woman to a...

are you ready for this?

...get up, get ready, drop kids at school, go to class, eat homemade lunches, pick up the kids, run errands with them, cook dinner, go out to dance class etc., go to bed by midnight, get up and start all over again kind of woman. I even get up and do stuff on both of the weekend days now too!

I take three different dance classes, two art classes, a Saturday morning golf class, and a phys-ed class with cardio and machine weight workouts. This former smoker can now run a whole mile (on the treadmill) without breathing hard, and, ok, so I'm still pretty wimpy on the weight machines, but I am more toned already and I've only gotten to use them four times so far!

Can you say, "Halleluiah"?

Amen Brothers and Sisters!

So yeah...really...something PLUM WONDERFUL happens when I say YES to myself! :)

But the key here is that these are things that I have wanted to do, but have avoided doing. Please don't think I'm saying that YOU have to start working out or pursuing your creativity for wonderful things to happen. (Although, I have to say, those are pretty great things to try if they are on your "list"!!!)

You can do anything that starts with allowing yourself to do some of the things you've thought about but then said, "Pish-posh, that's silly. I ________________ !"(Insert appropriate phrase here: am too old, am too busy, am too serious, am too just-about-anything really; or the "nots"—am not talented enough, am not tall enough, am not smart enough.)

That's the secret—no more naysaying yourself! The desires of your heart whisper in your mind and you immediately tell them flat out, "What are you? Nuts or something?" And so you plod along until someone says with a sparkle in her eye, "When's the last time you felt joy? BLISS? Perfectly wild and utter abandon?" And you think, "Gee, I don't know."

It's not "idealistic" and it's not "Pollyanna" to plan for joy in your life. It's the difference between existing and truly LIVING! And if you haven't watched Pollyanna in a while, I highly recommend it! You'll remember that it's so so so much easier to smile and give of yourself than it is to frown and hide. And you'll remember how sorry you felt for all the "crabby" folks in the movie, and how you were sure you'd never be like them. (Ok, perhaps I'm projecting. But still...it's a great movie!)

And so that's it. Joy enters when fear (or denial, or judgment) walks out. So many times we don't realize that we're afraid to live. We're holding our breath. Biding our time. Waiting in the wings. Hanging by a thread. Balancing on a wire.

So breathe.
Go now.
NOW!
Let go.
Jump!

The most wonderful thing you could ever do for yourself is to give yourself permission to live the life that whispers to you. That still, quiet voice knows what you want and what will make you feel joy...what will make you feel alive...what will create a life of bliss.

Now if you just read that last part and you heard, "Yeah, right. She sounds like an airy fairy. Doesn't she know life isn't a bowl of cherries? Sometimes it's the pits!!!" Well then, my friend, you need to do something wonderful for yourself. Say YES to your guiding voice and say NO! to that censor that keeps you from "mov[ing] in the direction of your dreams."

Say YES to yourself!

Hold your prism up to the light.

Let it shine!

© Nicole J. Williams, 2007, all rights reserved.

There's Always Something to Choose (From)

Determined to be Queen shares...

Well faithful readers, I'm back! And from the title, you should deduce that I've been making choices that don't have anything to do with blogging—or do they? :)

This has been the summer of choices, my friends, and some of those choices have thrown me for a loop...or two. But the nugget of truth that I've been searching for the words to express since it dawned on me is this: there is always a choice. Always.

Now I already knew this, but, as with most startling revelations, I hadn’t known it as viscerally, as deeply, as soulfully as I knew it every day of my three week visit back home on good ol’ Cape Cod. And even after those weeks of watching moments unfold with wonder, I still forgot when I got home.

Becoming the Queen of my domain is hard work!

I’ve been making all kinds of conscious choices for months now and for the very reason that I acknowledge that I have so many choices, I often feel completely overwhelmed! So finding the still, quiet place inside my heart and mind where I can discern which choice to make has been my life’s work here lately. It is very quiet and often lonely work, and it isn’t always something I want to write about.

I’ve learned that I write to think things through and that my ideas about what a “writer” is and does are finally catching up with how and why I write. I have discovered that when I tell just one of my friends, in an email, how I feel, I don’t feel the need to blog. But at the same time, I’ve discovered that perhaps I want to write a new kind of blog. And it may look exactly the same on the outside, but on the inside, I’ll be writing it from a different place and for different reasons.

And it might just have to be another blog altogether. In fact, I started writing an entry at the beginning of the month called “Low Pressure Area” and I was going to post it on my old personal blog, but even that just felt like this, and explanation of why I hadn’t been blogging. Well, the reason is simple. I’ve been putting my life back together like a puzzle and I still don’t know where all the pieces will fit together or IF THEY WILL, and I just haven’t wanted to talk about it until I knew more.

That’s all. Simple. I’ve been giving myself back to me and it’s been good!!!

So hopefully, like I said, I’ll be writing about this new trajectory of puzzling my life back together because I think I’m ready to talk about that for a while. And it may not be that profound, but I think it will be just fine. I hope you agree.

So here we go! My kids go back to school next week and SO DO I!!! I’m finally doing what I’ve said I have wanted to do for the last ten years. I will be exploring my own interests and creativity. Just for its own sake. To play. To experience some of that joy that Julia Cameron has been telling me about these past twelve weeks in her book, The Artist’s Way.

But more about that later!

PS: I did end up finishing and posting "Low Pressure Area" and if you're interested, you can find it here. I put it on that blog because there are more details of a personal nature! Shhhhh!

© Nicole J. Williams, 2007, all rights reserved.

Start with Something You Like!

Determined to be Queen shares...

For any of you who are keeping track, it’s been 36 days since I last posted a blog—posted being the operative word. I’ve been thinking about blog ideas, writing snippets in my head, coming up with new titles, but I just haven’t been able to tear away from the living part of my life long enough to get to the writing part.

You see, after “Something Miraculous,” the miracles just kept coming. Cascades of them, overlapping and flowing like molten lava into the dark crevices of my life. It was like a pounding surf…caught in an everlasting moment of tide on the rise.

And actually, it started with another one of those “meditations for women who do too much,” or at least a rising consciousness of one I read early on that quoted Judith K. Knowlton as saying:

“When I keep putting something off, it may not be procrastination, but a decision I’ve already made and not yet admitted to myself.”

For me, this was the equivalent of the angels descending from on high, singing “Glory, halleluiah!”

So what do you do when it seems as though you have secretly decided not to do any of the drudgery items on your to-do list?

Well, first you celebrate that you have better things to do than occupy yourself with drudgery! Hooray and huzzah! Then, you recognize that the only reason you appear to be depressed is that you aren’t choosing to do those things you most WANT to do with your life, and then, you give yourself permission to do only those things that you really want to do. And, why not? Aren’t we always hearing about how life is too short? And don’t we always get a gleam of pride in our eyes when we hear of someone who died suddenly, but doing what s/he loved most in the world? (Steve Irwin comes to mind.)

Life is too short for drudgery, especially when you know better! For heaven’s sake—do what you LOVE! It is the mantra of our times, after all, why not go with the flow for a while? Let’s face it. The people who have lives that we watch wistfully from afar are those people who fill their time with activity that brings them joy! It’s not money, or power, or even fame that most of us long for. It’s JOY! And it’s only one choice away.

Once you give yourself permission to choose joy, your life becomes infinitely simple—a pleasant paradox, to be sure! When you start with something you like, you create a momentum, or a flow of positive energy, that either sweeps through the parts you don’t like and makes them palatable as mere details in the plan for joy, or completely eliminates the necessity of addressing them at all.

An example? Let me think. Ok, here’s one. I need to hang curtains in several rooms in my house because of various curtain rod/sheet rock malfunctions. Part of the problem was that I didn’t like either the curtains or the rods. So when I gave myself permission to buy new curtains for the bedroom—a room that had no curtain rod issues—it led me to find new curtains that look lovely in the kitchen. Now I can’t wait to hang that kitchen curtain rod to complete the look and make the whole room much more pleasing to my sense of color and style.

Actually, the story is a little more complicated than that. There was a larger domino effect that started with a completely unrelated choice. I had decided to do something just for me that would also get me out of the “house of a thousand waiting projects.” I went and had my legs waxed, of all things. And that was at a salon in a part of town I don’t normally frequent—but only because I thought it was closer. So after the wax, which was only so-so I might add, I went driving around to see what I could see. What I saw was a store that I thought might have some inexpensive curtains. Instead, I found fabulous decorative rods for half price. Leaving that store’s parking lot, I saw another store I’d never heard of and went to check it out. I found curtains galore…for my room, my daughter’s room, and, unexpectedly, the kitchen!

In this process that included trying several different varieties of curtains and multiple trips back to the linen store, I discovered that I love curtains! And, of course, now I want to hang them up! (Now, if I can just translate this idea into the creative arts…all that writing and painting I want to do!)

The point of this story though, has nothing to do with window treatments, although it does have everything to do with creativity, inspiration, and beauty. The miracle happened when I let go of the long laundry list of “chores” and let myself dabble in the desires of my heart. Rather than sitting home, beating myself up with a litany of “shoulds” and “have-to’s,” I gave myself permission to follow the lead of my dreams. I don’t want to hang up curtains because I should. I want to surround myself with beauty—with everything from curtains to people who inspire my joy.

Life is too short for ugly curtains and drudgery. And staying home to make myself do something like paint the woodwork just doesn’t work. I balk at the randomness of that particular drudgery. Let there be a reason that makes me say, “The thing I want most to do at this moment is to paint the baseboards.” When I feel that, I’ll probably get it done in a couple of days. Until then, I have better things to do with my life.

So. If you are feeling overwhelmed with a big project, I recommend that you start with what you like and use that momentum to vault you into the arena of things that seem like too much work on their own. Once the dreaded part, painting the trim for example, feels like a finishing touch, it’s easy and satisfying—but as long as it feels like a project unto itself, you, like me, may end up doing nothing at all and beating yourself up for “procrastinating.”

Let your procrastination be a warning sign to you. First, start with something you like, but, if at all possible, do what you LOVE—because joy makes all things possible!

© Nicole J. Williams, 2007, all rights reserved.