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Here’s this week’s page:
The full text reads: it is ok to lean on others. (I used this beautiful art as a guide.) Well here we go. More coming next week. I am creating art journaling pages each week for now. You can read more about this project here. This set uses the Fabriano Roma papers.
This morning I was driving the kids to school and I noticed that I was feeling very anxious. There were several tasks on my list for work that depended on other people and I was time-bound and had to make sure they were done. And the fact that they weren’t done yet was making me stress. These issues had just risen in the last 12 hours so it’s not like the other people were slacking. What stressed me out was that the deadline was approaching and I still had to make sure these fixes landed and they weren’t mine so I had to make sure other people did it on my timeframe. As soon as I noticed that my mind was repeating the same pattern of stress over and over again, I told myself to take a big breath. The fact is, this situation will happen again and again in my job. It’s part of what I do: gather fixes from people. And it’s not just in my job, I have this in my life. I have kids and as they grow there will be situations where I will have to depend on them getting their share done. Same for my husband, of course. When you share your life, your job with others, you sort of all depend on each other. Everyone has to do their part for things to move forward. Depending on others is part of living in a community. So since I don’t plan on moving to an isolated island anytime soon, I realized that I had to find a way to deal with this anxiety on a more permanent basis. Because: So I came back home and called up the engineer. I told him exactly when I needed it and how high a priority it was. I told him that my stress level was pretty high and I would work extra hard not to nag him so if he could please update me on progress, it would make it easier on both of us. I was honest and even expressed how I was being a bit crazy and apologized in advance. So here’s my thought for the day: life is not just about figuring out your issues and fixing them. That’s important, of course. I noticed my stress, I took a moment to acknowledge it, I breathed, I visualized letting it go and I also followed up so the person who could get it done knew the deadline. So I did all I could on my part to make me less “crazy.” But I also just was honest. I told this person, “This is driving me a bit crazy, I’m working on it but I need your help.” I was honest and vulnerable and asked for help (or at least for some understanding.) I think the first step is always understanding yourself. Paying attention to how you feel, what’s coming up, so you’re always acting from a place of awareness and not reacting. But once you know, it doesn’t mean you can always fix it. Awareness is gold. But it’s not the fix. It’s just knowledge. And sometimes it takes a long, long time to fully change. (Or you might never be able to fully change.) But the great gift of awareness is that you can ask for help. You can be honest and vulnerable. And, more often than not, others are kind enough to help. Or understand. Or give you the space you need. You get my point. If you’re willing to be vulnerable, people can surprise you in the most delightful ways. That’s what I realized today. I do want to work on this issue because stressing nonstop about everything is just a bad use of my time and energy. But I also know this is how I’ve been for a long time and it won’t go away overnight. In the meantime, I don’t have to work on it alone. I don’t have to hide it or have it beat me down. I can ask for help. As for the engineer: he was great about it. He prioritized it, gave me updates, and got it all done in plenty of time. Of course. And here’s the next spread :
here’s a closer up of the left side:
The first story is about Nathaniel riding a bike, then one about him looking through my scrapbooks, and then one about a movie we saw and finally one about how i love when they ask me to take their photo. And here’s the right side:
Here is one about David starting second grade and one about Nathaniel’s visit to his new school. Art along the bottom as usual. Another great week. Happy Savoring. The Savor Project was supposed to be a weekly project for 2012. You can read about my setup here.
The History of Love was for book club. I wasn’t sure I wanted to read it. I worried it was about World War II which is a subject I avoid at all costs. I worried it was sad. I worried and worried. But I read it anyway. And I am so glad I did. So so so glad. This magnificent book was an absolute treasure. Maybe the best book I read all year. I really, really loved the way it was written. I loved the story. I loved the characters. I loved how it all came together in the end. And even though it has a lot of sad parts, I didn’t find it to be sad. I just really loved it.
Last night, I started my local course on The Science of Mindfulness. This is taught by the same teacher who taught The Science of Willpower class last year. She has a great book and is an excellent lecturer. I really enjoy her classes and I knew this would be no exception. As she talked about what the class would cover, one of the things she mentioned is how our brains are constantly changing. I think most of us believe that youth is the time to learn all new things. By the time we reach middle ages, it’s too late to pick up a new instrument, a new “talent.” We’re pretty much done. It turns out not to be true. I’ve never believed this to be true so I am glad to find out that there’s research proving the human brain can be changed at all ages. She specifically mentioned a study where a group of adults were taught to juggle. These people had never juggled before. They had brain scans before the study began, then they were taught juggling for a while and had another brain scan done. The research found that certain areas of their brain changed during the study. The part of the brain responsible for tracking visual things (makes sense, right?) got denser. So the brain realized they were doing this and started becoming more efficient and capable. So lesson 1: you can learn at every age and your brain is constantly adapting and optimizing in your favor. And, even more interestingly, these same people were then told to stop juggling for six months. At the end of six months, they had another brain scan and it showed that the same areas got less dense. Weaker. So lesson 2: if you don’t keep practicing, the brain adapts to that, too and thinks you don’t need that optimization anymore and so deteriorates. Isn’t that fascinating? Your brain is a lot more adaptable than you think. I love this because it shows that we have a lot more control than we assume. If we want to get better at something, we have to do it, and then keep doing it. We say this to kids, but it’s also true for us. And it’s true for physical/mental activities as well as emotional ones. So we think we can get better at math or music with practice. But we don’t think the same way about depression, pain, anxiety, happiness, etc. Those work the same way, too. You practice, you get better, your brain helps you out. So you are in control. You can make it happen. I am not saying there aren’t limits and that we can do anything, anytime, etc. But the fact that our brains have plasticity all the way from birth to death is a very empowering thought for me. As we always say: what you water, blooms. Choose wisely. Here are the sketches from last week: Sunday:
Monday:
Tuesday:
Wednesday:
Thursday:
Friday:
that’s it for this week. Daily Sketching is a weekly project for 2012. You can see a detailed post on my sketching journey here. This is a layout I made for Maya Road for CHA.
And the journaling says: details:
Here is the next spread from our book:
More valentines this week. A paper origami Yoda. Some pyramid drawings David made. David’s Book of Good Memories is a bi-weekly project for 2012 with my seven-year-old son David. You can read more about it here.
Very very few photos this week. Some weeks are just like that. Here are some snapshots from our week: Nathaniel loves watching David play on the computer.
David’s math homework.
More puppets from school. This owl was extra-cool.
my little boy.
i know this is super-blurry, but i love it nonetheless.
and another puppet from school!!
nathaniel wasn’t in the mood to pose this week.
we did some “we love…” yelling
and some more!! he was into that.
he kept making funny faces.
the more I asked him to smile, the more he got excited and funny.
so of course I couldn’t stop myself from laughing.
even tickle time was extra crazy this week. but alas there was a lot of laughter and that makes me feel blessed.
and here we go. i hope your week was lovely, too. Weekly Diary is a project for 2012. You can read more about it here.
The title says: forgive yourself and treat yourself with loving kindess. Journey into Collage is a project for 2012. You can read more about it here.
In 2002, I quit my six-figure job on Wall Street to do something I deeply felt like I needed to do. I wanted to be making the world a better place. I wanted to help. I wanted to change lives. I wanted to do something good. So I did. I changed everything, turned our lives upside down to make this big change. I felt right every step of the way. I felt pulled toward this new goal. It was hard and challenging but I knew in my bones that this was the right thing to do. It was me walking in the direction in which I was meant to go. It felt right. But it wasn’t. Once I started doing it, everything seemed to go wrong. I fell into an ever-growing spiral of despair and frustration. I think it was harder for me because I felt so strongly that the cause was essential. It was important and I didn’t want to mess it up. I owed it to the people I was trying to serve to do a good job. They deserved my best. And my best just didn’t measure up. Not to the ideal in my head of how good I had to be. It didn’t matter if I was better than others. It didn’t matter if I did a little good. I wasn’t doing the good I felt they deserved. I wasn’t measuring up to my goal. I judged myself constantly. And it broke me apart. I felt so ashamed of myself. Of my inability to create the change I so deeply craved for these people. I felt so incapable. So incompetent. While the degree is different, I felt the same way today. That combination of “I so desperately want to do good here” and the “this person deserves better than I am.” I ached to help. I ached to be better than I actually am capable of being. And that ache is painful for me. It sends me to the darkness and I don’t know how to find my way back. It is a reminder that I am not good enough to measure up to the person I want to be in my head, in my heart, in my soul. It hurts. So I did the only thing I can do. I apologized. I was honest and I cleared the space the best I could. Now I need to tend to the wounds I created for myself. The ones from that dream ten years ago are still there. While my head knows it was right to walk away, my soul aches for the person I wasn’t. But I want to know that I can forgive myself. I want to understand that sometimes when you want something so badly, it makes it harder because your measuring stick is misaligned. You’re holding yourself to a standard that cannot be met. You are setting yourself up to be crushed. And I don’t want that. I want to be strong enough to get up and try again. Or strong enough to walk away without looking back. I want to disassociate my self-worth from the outcome. I am here with the gifts I have to give to the world. My job is to offer those gifts and give freely. The rest is not up to me. Here are some more pages I did:
The full text reads: celebrate every single day you get to have. And here’s the next page:
The full text reads: make a point to take time for yourself. you deserve it. Well here we go. More coming next week. I am creating multiple art journaling pages a week for now. You can read more about this project here. This set uses the Fabriano Roma papers. |
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