And here’s the spread for week twenty-nine:
here’s a closer up of the left side:
The first story here is about watching the Avengers and the other one is about how much I love my boys.
And here’s the right side:
The first one here is about a new project David and I are doing and the second one is about the playground we went to and the closed slide that made me nervous.
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.
I don’t really have a lot to say tonight because it’s already almost nine pm here and it’s close to my bed time. But it was a good day today. I’ve been working on getting Chrome 21 out the door for quite a few weeks now and today we finally pushed it. I don’t talk about work here but in the last few weeks I’ve seen once again what amazing people I work with and what a wonderful and inspiring company I work at. I think it’s easy to lose sight of these things in the hustle and bustle of everyday.
My kids were wonderful and played quietly so I could do what I needed to do to prepare everything. So I promised them that if they are patient, I will get them a nice surprise. I had to go to work this afternoon for a meeting and to thank some of the team members who’ve been working late nights and early mornings to get everything ready. After I came home, we all went out and each boy got to have a new lego set.
Bad days are easy to remember. Good days fade out of memory. So I wanted to note this wonderful day. A day when things came together. Tomorrow will bring its challenges. It might be better. It might be much worse.
But, for now, I just want to pause and acknowledge this good day.
Here are the sketches from last week:
Sunday:
Monday:
Tuesday:
Wednesday:
Thursday:
Friday:
Saturday:
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.
Ever since I decided this would be The Summer of Calm I’ve been putting up reminders everywhere. Trying to remember that calm is my goal and that I am at my best when I am calm and not reacting. I have them all over my computer so each time I type an email or respond to someone on instant message, I can see the reminder.
To honor my desire to be calm, I’ve been working quite hard. There are my own issues, of course, but the hardest part of staying calm is when interacting with other people. When people make offhand, mean remarks, I have to step back and tell myself that this is about them and not me. When the kids get really noisy or interrupt me in the middle of what’s clearly a stressful or busy moment, I have to take a breath, and remember that I chose to stay at home and I love being around them. I have to remember that they are young and don’t have good impulse-control just yet. I have to remember that they are angels 95% of the time. I have to remember all of this very quickly so that I don’t react.
And the biggest part is that I am learning not to be attached to things. At each moment of potential conflict, I am trying to pause for a moment and search inside myself. Listen to my true feelings. Do I really care about this issue or am I just trying to be right? Am I trying to win for the sake of winning? For the sake of looking good? Being important. I know there are cases where I find myself reacting cause it looks like it might be the right thing to do. Not because I am actually attached to either outcome. Sometimes I might even fight back for the sake of being contradictory. When the other person becomes aggressive and assertive, I try to outdo them. I can fight with the best of them. I’m no coward.
But the point is, it’s so stupid. If I don’t really, truly care, then I am not really attached to either outcome. I don’t want to fight battles for the sake of fighting them. Needlessly create a chasm between me and the other person. And, more terribly, spin myself into a frenzy of stress. If the end result isn’t important to me, I should just let it go.
But it’s hard.
Sometimes it’s really, really hard. Even being able to step back in that split second and realize that I don’t have a dog in this fight is hard. We’re so conditioned to respond to stimuli. I was listening to another Tara Bracht podcast this morning (I listen to them every morning now; they are excellent.) and she was saying how what meditation does is add to this delay. To the reaction time. So you can have extra seconds (or maybe only milliseconds) to become aware and think so you don’t react but you act. Those milliseconds are so precious. And if meditating will give them to me, I am on board. Just tell me where to sign up.
Because here’s what I know: when I can take the few extra (milli)seconds to realize that I don’t actually have a stake in the outcome, that I don’t really mind either outcome, then I can stop the fight before it starts. I can remember my list and I can let it go. Because once I remember that it doesn’t matter, it’s easy to let go.
It’s that precious pause that’s the hard part.
This is a layout I made for Maya Road for CHA.
And the journaling says:
My word this year is savor. I can’t think of a better way to savor what I have then to remember these two things: laugh and breathe. They remind me to slow down and appreciate what I have and take pause to really look at it. Each time I forget, I take a look at the bracelets and remember my goal. To be aware of how lucky I am and to remember to practice gratitude And savor every bit of it.
details:
Here is the next spread from our book:
And this is a picture David made a while back (he was inspired by my art journal page).
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.
This week was also light on photos, I’ve been working a lot and not snapping as much but alas such is life. Here are some snapshots from our week:
Nathaniel is literally the joy of my week. He’s so happy and funny and fun.
David’s been doing 20 pages a day on top of his Harry Potter books. He’s reading like crazy. I am so proud.
The boys put on some blankets this week and Nathaniel was Batman and David was Robin.
David did Nathaniel’s cape.
there was much running.
and chasing.
and laughter.
david’s also doing Khan Academy every day. He’s doing subtraction with borrowing at the moment.
the boys built a city on their table this week. They broke it into sections and each took two. Heliports, garages, museums and all.
I just love the boys so much.
and I am deeply grateful for the laughter.
and the true joy they bring into my life.
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.
Next page:
This is the second assignment for Your Living Canvas. This one is about balance and it has six F’s: faith, finance, fitness, family, friends, and fun. The idea is to write out all the ways in which you want to change your life so you can balance all of these well. I wrote my list and then broke it down to these six sections. In each of them I wrote goals and specific actions I want to take. The overall theme was that I want to reconnect to all of these areas of my life hence the title.
The quote says: It is time to connect again.
Journey into Collage is a project for 2012. You can read more about it here.
Today was a good day. As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve been feeling better and there’s always that jolt of energy that comes with feeling better. You slide into a better version of yourself and feel calmer, more confident, more capable. Which, of course, turns the vicious negative cycle into the continuous positive one.
There’s been some activity at work and I’ve been finding myself responding without panic but productively and quickly and effectively. I love feeling effective. I realized a few months ago that, at my core, this is one of the ways I measure my self-worth. If I am effective, I am useful. If I am useful, I am worthy. I know it’s whacked and I am working on disconnecting the threads and reminding myself that I am worthy just the way I am but in the meantime, I’ve been paying attention to these cycles and messages in my life. I figure while I work on things, which will take a while to resolve, I can at least become more aware so that I notice when I am in a cycle that I know won’t end well.
Anyhow, so I’ve been doing better. And today, someone I work with said “you’re doing an awesome job.” And, honestly, it was all I needed to hear. I was so grateful for the words. Not because I need the attention or recognition. And I was already doing well so I didn’t even need them to get out of a bad mood. I just needed them to affirm that I was on the right path and those little words gave me the energy to keep going. They were like a jolt of gratitude.
These seemingly small words always make a big difference. I’ve had a few people email me or leave comments with very kind words. Words on how they connected with what I wrote or how it makes a difference in their lives or suggestions for areas where I’ve asked for help. These few sentences often make my day. To me, they are affirmation that I matter. That there’s a purpose for my existence in the world. Maybe it seems weird to others that I should need/want this, but I’ve learned that, for me, these are like energy for my soul. They are what keep me joyful and connected. They give me a sense of belonging.
And I want to make sure I do my part in passing that feeling on to others, too. I often send IMs to engineers I work with letting them know that I think they’re amazing, thanking them for their hard work, etc. When someone makes my life easier, better, calmer I want them to know it. I want to pass on a bit of the gratitude I feel for their existence.
I think receiving and giving these affirmations strengthens our roots and connections to others. To the world and humanity as a whole. It reminds us that we’re all here and we each matter. Each of us makes this place better because we’re in it.
And all this from “you’re doing an awesome job.”
If such few words can have so much power, why wouldn’t we utter them more often?
Here are some more pages I did:
The full text reads: be brave. you are stronger than you think.
inspired by this piece of art.
And here’s the next page:
The full text reads: believe in the possibility of your dreams. it is how they bloom.
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.
One of my biggest goals for 2012 is to increase my awareness. I believe in the value of mindfulness and paying attention to what comes up. I had this goal last year, too, and besides the gratitude part, I don’t think I did enough to progress on my goal. This year, one of the things I did was to sign up for a class called Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction. I originally signed up for the class at a local hospital but then, at the last minute, a new session opened up at work, so I got lucky enough to get in.
This class was also highly recommended by my TMJ doctor so I was excited to begin. It started last Thursday and I’ve only been to one session so far. We also had an all-day silent meditation as part of the class this past Sunday. (as I mentioned briefly here.)
I haven’t read any of the materials yet but I have begun the homework which is doing 20-40 minute body-scans (links to PDF) every day. I’ve also been listening to Tara Brach’s Radical Acceptance each morning as I sketch. I don’t know if it’s coincidental or not but I’ve been feeling a lot better emotionally and psychologically.
The first class also introduced the idea of non-judging awareness and awareness of judging (links to PDF). And this idea is exactly what I was looking for out of a class like this.
I love the idea of bringing awareness to your judging. The idea of stepping back and looking at your judgement from a third-person point of view and then being able to stop yourself so you don’t judge but you’re just aware. It’s amazing how often things come up to the surface and we attack them with judgement immediately. Being ashamed of sadness, or being angry or frustrated. There’s so much judgment involved that it’s hard to see the truths beneath it. The ability to separate yourself from judgement gives you the ability see yourself truly and to dig deeper and wider and understand what’s at the core of your feelings/thoughts so you can truly understand them. You’re not slapping them away or burying them in the sand.
This piece of the article really summed it up for me:
If you stay with it, this process of self-inquiry can give you practical solutions to situations in your life. It can also shift your inner state quite radically. Real discernment, I’ve always found, starts with the willingness to ask questions. If you keep asking those questions, you will often get to the place where there are no answers at all, the place where you are just…present. Judgments dissolve in that place. Then you don’t have to strive for discernment; discernment is as natural as the breath.
Removing the striving is such a huge deal. Not trying to be but just being. Just looking at what is and not putting judgement on it. Even just being aware of how much I judge has been eye-opening for me. It allows me to pay attention. To notice what went unnoticed before.
I know these ideas are hard to integrate. Like most things of value, they require consistent practice. They require persistence and not giving up. But, if the last few days are any indication, they come bearing immense gifts for my soul.
And, for that reason alone, they are worth pursuing.
Let’s see what the next few weeks bring; I know there are quite a few more gems on the path.
And here’s the spread for week twenty-eight:
here’s a closer up of the left side:
The first story here is about our hiking adventure and then one about dyeing my grays and then one on going to Coyote Point Park.
And here’s the right side:
The first one here is about visiting CuriOdyssey with the kids and then one about 4th of July and playing with sparklers and watching fireworks.
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.
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projects for twenty twenty-five
projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
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