Radical Selfishness

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on August 10, 2010
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I love the word radical.  It feels cutting edge, freeing, and innovative.  I’ve always felt sheltered by radicals. Since they are a little farther out than I am, they give me room to explore, to widen my bounds, and still be safe.

Sometimes it’s my turn to break ground.

That’s a little scary.  Whenever I – or most anyone – pushes beyond what I think is safe, normal, tested, I feel fear.  It’s a human reflex to fear the unknown.  It’s also a human reflex to desire the unknown.  I am a paradox that way.  I think a lot of people are.

Here’s the unexplored territory I am confronting today.  I just realized that I feel better when I read science fiction.

Does that sound radical to you?

The next step in the territory is even stranger.  Thoreau – a radical of his time – said he only felt quite right when he walked four hours a day.  For him, walking was an active restorative.  It balanced his wheel of life. It returned his creativity.  It gave him pleasure.  Four hours of walking a day?  It’s not for me.  I know people who are restored by attending parties, by camping in the wilderness, by drinking coffee.  These activities feel fatiguing to me.  I might enjoy them, suitably prepped.  In this case, suitably prepped probably means having plenty of time to read before and after.

What restores me may not restore you.  What restores you may not restore your neighbor.  The best clue I’ve found so far to help each person find their own best restorative comes from Martha Beck, as usual.  She says we each have an essential self – an internal guide containing our own unique passions and distastes. Martha’s clue suggests this to me:  it’s what our essential self loves that will restore us.  And that will be different for everyone.

I’ve put extra attention and intention into restoring myself recently.  The result is that I have been feeling more creative, and more energetic.  I’ve been happier.  Work that seemed hard and overwhelming has become light and easy.  I’ve discovered new ways to accomplish what I wish – discovered that some things I felt I had to do were irrelevant, and that other activities – that I enjoyed! – brought more success.

All of this came from taking the radical action of discovering what I really wanted, what really restored me, and selfishly doing it.  Radical selfishness is exactly what I needed to rest, to work, and to contribute to the world.

May you have what truly restores you every day.

Anna

PS.  It’s hard to be radically selfish when you’re unsure what you truly want. I offer a Self-Knowledge Package which is a powerful way to connect with your essential self.  It starts with a 27 page questionnaire to uncover direct and indirect clues about your true desires.  I personally study it and send you a written report.  Then, we have six phone sessions where I deploy my radical listening skills, acting as a guide to your inner landscape, and suggesting actions to bring more of what uniquely suits you into your life.  This is a transformative, action-oriented journey that has helped clients find better work, feel better, and live from their own integrity.  Call 575-640-0979 for a no obligation 15 minute discussion of whether this is right for you.  If it feels right, we can schedule, and if it doesn’t, I’ll be glad to have spoken to you.

At $495, the package already offers a savings over my usual rate for six calls.  I’m sweetening the deal for the first three who schedule this month.  I’ll throw in a free copy of Changes of the Heart.  With thirteen different coaches offering their best strategies, you’re bound to find something priceless in it.

Rest

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on August 3, 2010
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“What would you do if you knew that every good thing in your life depended on your getting enough rest? Because it does.” - Unknown, recorded by Martha Beck in her blog at http://marthabeck.com/blog/?p=283
There we go.  As usual, Martha has seized the core of the issue.
Without rest, nothing feels good.  Without rest, creativity shuts down.  Without rest, we don’t store memories, or heal wounds, or restore our energy.  Without rest, hunger increases, bloodstream markers for stress go up, metabolic changes leading to diabetes and heart disease increase, and muscles weaken.  Without rest, we do not perform well, mentally, physically, or emotionally.
What good is left without health, enjoyment, productivity, or learning?  Even love declines without rest - who can give their best when feeling fatigued, ill, dull, irritable, or depressed?
In short, rest is more critical than money.
I am fortunate in that my body protests quickly when I don’t get enough rest.  First, I feel tired and irritable.  Then I begin to drop things.  I get clumsy after shorting myself on sleep for a while.  If I continue to push myself without enough rest, I begin to ache.  First my arms, where I so often hold up my wrists to type.  Then, everywhere.  When I hear about people who work sixteen hour days for weeks on end and then collapse, I wonder - did they not have intermediate symptoms?  Or did they not listen to them?
What would the world be like if everyone took enough rest?  Would we come up with better solutions?  Would we fight less?  Would we be happier?  It’s almost guaranteed that there would be fewer accidents and less expense for health care.
So why don’t we rest?  My guess is that we have somehow been convinced that other things are more important.  We’ve been seduced away from listening to our bodies, and giving ourselves what we need.  Maybe we just don’t know how.
Since every good thing does depend on rest, it’s worth finding ways to rest, and to rest enough.  It’s not selfish or wasteful.  It’s a simple, core-level survival need - that makes everything else possible.
May you rest amply and luxuriously.
Anna

Writing Tip

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on August 3, 2010
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If you are stuck, try a small break.  A short walk, a drink of water, perhaps sleeping on it… any of these will sometimes inspire a solution.  Let go of wrestling with the problem consciously and try letting your mind drift to something calming.

Small Steps

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on August 3, 2010
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“That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Neil Armstrong, as he placed the first footprint on the Moon.

This issue’s Small Step for Space:  Keep an eye on the upcoming spacewalks.

Right now, there’s a cooling problem on the space station.  Keep your thoughts and newsfeeds on the astronauts, and see how they solve it.  Sometimes all action is in someone else’s hands.

Book Recommendation

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Rollback by Robert Sawyer
There are aliens in this book.  They are almost beside the point.  In order to communicate with long-lived alien correspondants, a very wealthy man offers a couple cutting edge, extremely expensive treatments to return them from age 87 to age 25.  It works for one - for the other, it doesn’t.  The meat of this book is about that relationship.  How will it affect us when some can become young again? What stresses does this put on a 60 year marriage?  I loved the conversations between this couple. They speculated on the forms of alien life, and shared old jokes and memories.  This is science fiction showing one of its greatest strengths - preparing us to face the changes of the future.

Who Do You Compare To?

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on July 20, 2010
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It’s summer.  It’s hot here in Las Cruces, New Mexico.  Slowing down is just good sense when the scale passes 100 degrees Fahrenheit.  I’ve been on a small break since completing my Self and Others series.  Managed to do a little extra reading - didn’t find anything great to recommend.  Developed beading into a more serious hobby.  Played some games, hung out with my husband, caught up with some friends.
It’s good.  I’ve been feeling rested and happy, creative and productive.  I’ve given myself enough space to let some alternative ideas emerge.  It feels like a break was just the right choice.
So, into my happy, slower days falls Michele Woodward’s latest book.  It’s good.  Michele writes well, and she has useful insights, especially for her new specialty of career coaching.  And in the introduction, she reveals that she has written an essay every week for almost four years.
Well, here’s a real opportunity for me to beat myself up!  I could easily compare myself to Michele in a way to make myself feel bad.  I could invent all sorts of stories about how I’m not making the grade, and I should do what she does, and how I don’t work hard enough to deserve to succeed.  I could easily get real worked up about this!
I think I’ll skip it.  I’m on vacation - not just for the summer, but for as long as I can manage it - from making myself feel bad.
It’s possible that comparing yourself to someone has been useful to you.  Has it inspired you to do better?  Has it made you happier?  It’s far more likely that comparing yourself to others has made you miserable.  We humans have a reflex to look for the worst news we can find.  Since only one in six billion can be the best or worst at anything, we can always find someone who is better or worse than we are - if not in one area, in another.  Apply our drive to discover bad news to comparing ourselves to others, and there we go!  Instant misery.
I’m opting out.  Michele’s Michele (and a very fine Michele she is!) and I am me.  That’s good enough, for everyone.

Small Steps

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on July 20, 2010
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“That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Neil Armstrong, as he placed the first footprint on the Moon.

This issue’s Small Step for Space:  View the space shuttle.

At this point, NASA plans the final two space shuttle launches for Nov. 1, 2010, and Feb. 26th, 2011. While launch dates are always subject to change, it’s worth organizing a chance to see the machine that has capped our space technology for the last three decades, before it’s gone.

Book Recommendation

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on July 20, 2010
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I Am Not Superwoman by Michele Woodward

This is a collection of Michele’s blog posts over the last two years.  Holding them in my hands, I’m impressed with the consistent quality, wit, and usefulness of her writing.  Michele is proof that writing frequently beats trying to write perfectly. These reach a very decent level of quality.  Her essay “What’s Not Working” contains a precise method to evaluate your job.  ”Your Hidden Treasure” is a potent fable about letting others define us.  There are valuable nuggets in every one of the forty collected essays, and Michele’s voice is a great model for thinking in a way that will make you happier. Pick up a copy, and read it bit by bit or all at once. Either way, you’ll likely want to read it again when you finish.

Self and Others — Some Final Thoughts

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on June 15, 2010
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Hello, everyone!

Over the past eight weeks, I’ve introduced and discussed seven principles for balancing Self and Others. Here they are again:

1. Red - The Principle of Survival - Put on your own oxygen mask first.
2. Orange - The Principle of Self - Know your priorities.
3. Yellow - The Principle of Freedom - Ultimately, we choose.
4. Green - The Principle of Love - To give from strength feels good.
5. Blue - The Principle of Communication - True exchanges make us stronger.
6. Indigo - The Principle of Insight - Listening well is priceless.
7. Purple - The Principle of Connection - We are all connected.

(Why the colors? They serve as an organizing principle and memory aid. In addition, colors are rich with meaning. Such additional associations are too complex to go into here.)

I separated out the principles to let us look at them more easily. In practice, they work together. Our connection to one another helps us survive, and choosing to survive in a way that honors connection makes survival easier. Compare the life of someone who survives by stealing to the life of someone who cuts hair. Serving others to earn your living brings peace. Taking from others brings fear.

Listening is how we learn how to survive, how to love by giving gifts valued by the receivers, and how to make true exchanges. True exchanges honor connection, promote survival, and give us the strength to love. Knowing our freedom and our priorities gives us the power to choose to love, to survive, to listen, and to exchange for the benefit of ourselves and others.

Some of these principles come easier to each person than others. If you are having problems balancing self and others, try running through the list and see if you are violating any of the principles. Often, it is the ones that come harder to you that need the most attention.

As for me and my newsletter schedule – I am going to take a few weeks off and take my own advice. I want to attend to my survival and check my priorities. I’ll exercise my freedom, give some gifts, arrange some exchanges, listen to the world, and appreciate our connection. I’d like to do some reading and have good books to recommend when I come back.

I expect to send my next newsletter in July. You are always welcome to contact me by email or phone.

May you find harmony with these principles and with your connections.

Until I write again,

Anna

PS. New? Missed an issue? The archive for this newsletter is at creatingspace.annaparadox.com. The Self and Others series is here: http://creatingspace.annaparadox.com/?cat=7 Since the archive is a blog, the oldest entries are at the bottom. Read from bottom to top to see them in order.

Writing Tip

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on June 15, 2010
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Note that characters who violate the red, orange, or yellow principles tend to be victims, and characters who violate the blue, indigo, or purple principles tend to be villains.  Could you subtly imply a character trait by associating the character with a color?