This past week's action proved to be tricky. I actually tried to set up a massage and a hair appointment and couldn't get in to do either at the (very limited) times that I had available (and when I could also imagine relaxing afterward enough to not erase the effects). So, instead, I will be chopping my hair off next week, and getting a massage who knows when. I was, however, able to have a much-needed date with girlfriends (even though there was a baby there.. it wasn't mine...) and also had an appointment with my chiro for some energy healing. (I leave soooooo centered... love it.) So, that was week 4. I can't say that I used my mantra enough. But having a new one every week is really turning out to be a lot. It was better when I repeated the mantra for a couple weeks and just had different actions.
I'm curious to know what you did for yourself this week!
Oh, and in a follow-up to week 3, I just wanted to share that the lucky recipient of the flowers I sent emailed to thank me and said "I don't know if one of your positive intentions for 2010 was to make the day of an unsuspecting social worker, but THANK YOU!!!" Aw. That felt good. And I like that for an action... note to self.
As for the upcoming week..
Tonight I was in the shower at the Y and someone was singing "You've Made Me So Very Happy" and I had a total flashback to my mom's Blood, Sweat and Tears album playing in the background as a kid. (Yah, do you have that song stuck in your head yet?) Anyway, what ever happened to the way I used to play music all the time? I miss that so much. Just another little piece of myself I've managed to lose. The last time I really used my Ipod regularly was when I was pregnant and when I was in labor (all 29.5 unmedicated hours of it...) Is my favorite music circa autumn 2007 a trigger? A reminder of the trauma? Hm. I have definitely nearly been avoiding it, "my music" that is. But I guess that my decreased time spent listening to music probably started when my love affair with NPR took root a decade ago. It really is a "practice" - listening to music regularly. So rambling. Sorry.
Anyway, the point is that I need more music in my life - music that I love - and somehow that is going to relate to living with positive intention. Maybe I can use music to be in the present moment, also known as my new favorite phrase, "the ever-changing now." This will be experimental. Let's see.. I'll play music that I really love that makes me feel connected to me (despite what my drummer/music aficionado husband may say about my selections). I'll try to notice musicality in the world around me. When I notice music unexpectedly, I'll tune into the present moment if I've let my mind take over. And something about dancing makes me feel like I'll be able to really tap into that concept of the ever-changing now.
-Side Note - Any mindfulness-oriented people out there? Anyone read A New Earth?
Let me know your favorite soundtracks from the week if you're following along!
Week 5
Mantra: More Music.
Action: Play music every chance you get.
ps - I thought of this earlier today, before I realized the Grammy's were on tonight. Ugh.
Comment Feature is Fixed!
For those of you who have tried to leave comments, and couldn't, I think I fixed the problem, so comment away! Thank you! xoxoxo
Week 4 | Go Within | 2 Self-care Appointments
OK. This was a tough week because G has been sleeping like crap, and I have been really tired, and spending way too much time with the whole bedtime situation. Somehow, I still pulled off my lofty goal. I realize that I usually do pretty nice things, so I tried to step it up and do kind things that are bigger than my average kindness. Highlights from the week included
By the way, if you are doing this project along with me, if/when you donate to the Preeclampsia Foundation, please select "Honor Donations" and type in "A Year of Positive Intention." Thank you!
Week 4
Mantra: Go Within
Action: 2 Self-care Appointments (such as setting aside some time to journal or make art, or something more indulgent like getting a massage!)
- Making dinner for a friend in crisis.
- Watching a friend's kid for 3 hours.
- Not trying to get out of a speeding ticket on the Edens. OK. That happened, but I'm kidding about this being on the kindness list.
- Taking a gift card to Sandy, someone who helped me when I locked my keys in my car, a total stranger, and she even went to work late bcs of helping me.
- Going out late at night to get a special melty chocolate-y dessert for Bri.
- Having flowers sent to a friend/colleague who helped me when I was starting my practice a year and a half ago.
By the way, if you are doing this project along with me, if/when you donate to the Preeclampsia Foundation, please select "Honor Donations" and type in "A Year of Positive Intention." Thank you!
Week 4
Mantra: Go Within
Action: 2 Self-care Appointments (such as setting aside some time to journal or make art, or something more indulgent like getting a massage!)
week 3 | it's the small things | do one kind thing a day
I cannot stop thinking about Haiti. I feel heartbroken, helpless. I feel tiny. Like this blog project is nothing compared to what I need to be doing to help humanity. The tragedy and the desperation in Haiti are overwhelming and it will all swallow me whole if I let it.
I am thinking about what I tell my clients when things get too big. Feel your feet on the floor. Take some deep breaths. Notice the small things in life. Enjoy something tiny that makes you feel safe, happy, connected and loved. You can only be/do so much, and doing one small, simple, loving thing is a great act. I am trying to tell myself this now. Instead of being paralyzed by the situation in Haiti, do something small. Make a donation to an organization that is there on the ground. Hold Gavin just a little tighter and tell him one extra time how much I love him. Do one kind thing for another person on this Earth.
That's it. I knew that if I typed long enough I'd come up with an action. I'm going to finally, properly thank Sandy. Sandy helped me when I locked my keys in my car a couple months ago. After assuring me that she wasn't going to be late for work if she stopped to help me, she called her boss to say that she'd be late, then drove me to pick up a friend of hers, a mechanic, who we brought back to my car to get the keys out. Just like that. Without a thought about her own needs in that moment, she did a small, kind, loving thing for a total stranger. Sandy told me how she lost a baby about a year ago, a loss I cannot imagine. There's the universe again, reminding me to focus on my gratitude for having my son, and my life. And even with the unspeakable sadness that must sit within you constantly after a loss like that, this woman was kind enough to put a stranger first. You can't tell me it's not a beautiful world, even with the tragedy and the overwhelming sadness. So, this week, I think my intention will be to act kindly in small ways. If I am able to do one small, kind thing every day this week, I cannot be swallowed whole. I can be part of the goodness that is.
As for week 2, life got in the way a little this past week, but I still pulled it off. Good thing I said "call" and not "talk to" three old friends. And I will be putting the letters in the mail Tuesday due to the holiday tomorrow. Hm. Maybe I owe the Precclampsia Foundation $5 this week. Yes. That seems fair. Anyone else out there making weekly intentions? Leave a comment! Let me know you're here!
One thing this project drives home is just how fast a week flies by in my life if I let it. I'm hoping with my daily intentions that I can be more conscious and aware this week.
Week 3
Mantra: It's the small things.
Action: Do one small, kind thing every day.
I am thinking about what I tell my clients when things get too big. Feel your feet on the floor. Take some deep breaths. Notice the small things in life. Enjoy something tiny that makes you feel safe, happy, connected and loved. You can only be/do so much, and doing one small, simple, loving thing is a great act. I am trying to tell myself this now. Instead of being paralyzed by the situation in Haiti, do something small. Make a donation to an organization that is there on the ground. Hold Gavin just a little tighter and tell him one extra time how much I love him. Do one kind thing for another person on this Earth.
That's it. I knew that if I typed long enough I'd come up with an action. I'm going to finally, properly thank Sandy. Sandy helped me when I locked my keys in my car a couple months ago. After assuring me that she wasn't going to be late for work if she stopped to help me, she called her boss to say that she'd be late, then drove me to pick up a friend of hers, a mechanic, who we brought back to my car to get the keys out. Just like that. Without a thought about her own needs in that moment, she did a small, kind, loving thing for a total stranger. Sandy told me how she lost a baby about a year ago, a loss I cannot imagine. There's the universe again, reminding me to focus on my gratitude for having my son, and my life. And even with the unspeakable sadness that must sit within you constantly after a loss like that, this woman was kind enough to put a stranger first. You can't tell me it's not a beautiful world, even with the tragedy and the overwhelming sadness. So, this week, I think my intention will be to act kindly in small ways. If I am able to do one small, kind thing every day this week, I cannot be swallowed whole. I can be part of the goodness that is.
As for week 2, life got in the way a little this past week, but I still pulled it off. Good thing I said "call" and not "talk to" three old friends. And I will be putting the letters in the mail Tuesday due to the holiday tomorrow. Hm. Maybe I owe the Precclampsia Foundation $5 this week. Yes. That seems fair. Anyone else out there making weekly intentions? Leave a comment! Let me know you're here!
One thing this project drives home is just how fast a week flies by in my life if I let it. I'm hoping with my daily intentions that I can be more conscious and aware this week.
Week 3
Mantra: It's the small things.
Action: Do one small, kind thing every day.
Week 2 | Be Connected | Reach Out
I went to a kickboxing class at the Y tonight, a class that I used to take several times a week, prior to having G, and including the whole time I was pregnant. I haven't been to class in at least a year and a half, and I totally miss it like crazy! You've got to love the Y spirit. There were several women there that welcomed me with big hugs, including my instructor, who's become a friend. (Seriously? Hugs at the gym? Love it.) After my reunion with old Y friends, I saw another, newer friend who I worked with at Heartland Alliance last spring. We're planning to carpool to this class together on Sundays. Beautiful. Getting back in shape, feeling more like "me" and connecting with friends, new and old, all in one place! That's a great start to week 2.
As for Week 1, I loooved using the mantra "be connected" so much so that I'm repeating it again this week. For those of you who are new to using mantras in your every day life, a good way to integrate them is to repeat them to yourself whenever you feel stressed out, or when you have two seconds to yourself, like in the shower. I also like to write them down on paper and doodle around them to give them some creative life. Action-wise, I gave blood on Friday. It wasn't a huge deal because I'd been wanting to for a really long time, and I used to do it a lot. I plan to go every 60 days from now on. I expected it to be a more emotional experience, but I didn't cry, and only experienced feeling a really warm connection to the other donors who were there when I was. Maybe I couldn't get emotionally absorbed in the experience since my medical assistant was 7+ months pregnant. (I'm still working on my difficult and sometimes distorted feelings about pregnancy and birth...) Thanks to those of you who gave blood last week, and to those of you who tried but weren't able to. If you couldn't donate because of anemia, might I recommend Floradix, which I've been taking since my HELLP experience, and it's awesome! My HGB was 13.1 when I gave blood. I don't think it's ever been that high!
If you are on this journey with me, I thank you from the deep down bottom of my heart. Please leave comments on this blog! And don't forget that if you are doing this with me, and you didn't complete the action for week 1, please consider an honor donation of $10 to the Preeclampsia Foundation.
Week 2
Mantra: Be connected.
Action: Reach out. (3-3-3 plan for the week - my hope is to call three old friends, meet up with 3 new friends and send three letters in the mail - the actual mail! Lofty goal, but I've gotta think big to feel like me... and to end up making donations to the PF!)
As for Week 1, I loooved using the mantra "be connected" so much so that I'm repeating it again this week. For those of you who are new to using mantras in your every day life, a good way to integrate them is to repeat them to yourself whenever you feel stressed out, or when you have two seconds to yourself, like in the shower. I also like to write them down on paper and doodle around them to give them some creative life. Action-wise, I gave blood on Friday. It wasn't a huge deal because I'd been wanting to for a really long time, and I used to do it a lot. I plan to go every 60 days from now on. I expected it to be a more emotional experience, but I didn't cry, and only experienced feeling a really warm connection to the other donors who were there when I was. Maybe I couldn't get emotionally absorbed in the experience since my medical assistant was 7+ months pregnant. (I'm still working on my difficult and sometimes distorted feelings about pregnancy and birth...) Thanks to those of you who gave blood last week, and to those of you who tried but weren't able to. If you couldn't donate because of anemia, might I recommend Floradix, which I've been taking since my HELLP experience, and it's awesome! My HGB was 13.1 when I gave blood. I don't think it's ever been that high!
If you are on this journey with me, I thank you from the deep down bottom of my heart. Please leave comments on this blog! And don't forget that if you are doing this with me, and you didn't complete the action for week 1, please consider an honor donation of $10 to the Preeclampsia Foundation.
Week 2
Mantra: Be connected.
Action: Reach out. (3-3-3 plan for the week - my hope is to call three old friends, meet up with 3 new friends and send three letters in the mail - the actual mail! Lofty goal, but I've gotta think big to feel like me... and to end up making donations to the PF!)
week 1 | connection to humanity | give blood
But something changed for me after my near-death experience two years ago, and I found myself feeling really disconnected and eventually depressed. Two years later, I am thankfully not depressed anymore, but I am still missing the deep sense of connection that I used to have. This has always been something that has played an important role in my life... in who I am when I wake up in the morning. I need it back. So, the first theme I'm choosing is to connect to humanity.
I'm planning to have a mantra and an action for each week. So here goes the action. If you've ever had a blood transfusion, you might understand how strange it feels to know that someone else's blood is coursing through your veins. It's really, really weird. But once you get over the strangeness of that idea, you realize that someone else, or three someone elses, just saved your life. It's a beautiful, very human thing. And I don't think you can be more connected to someone than to have your blood pumping through their veins, so this week's action is to give blood. To find out where to do it, go here or here. (For Chicago residents, I have always had a great experience giving blood at the 2nd link, Lifesource.) If you have O+ blood, you are a universal donor, meaning that anyone can use your blood, so, please keep going every 2 months.
Let me know how the first week goes, and I'll report in next week when I introduce the next intention.
Mantra: Be connected. (Isn't that a WTTW slogan? Unintentional.)
Action: Give blood.
The Rest of My Life
I almost died a couple years ago.
It has taken me a long time to say that outright. I'm finally feeling ready to heal from that traumatic experience, and this project is how I'm going to begin. Please join me on my journey to live each day with positive intention! And pass on this invitation to read this blog, and to join me in taking on a new positive intention every week for the year of 2010.
I was supposed to start this project on December 8, the 2 year anniversary of my near-death experience, and a time of year that is still emotionally taxing for me. But on December 5, just as we were midway through our easygoing Saturday family-still-in-bed kind of morning, we got a phone call from Brian's mom that changed everything. Brian's dad died in the night. Completely unexpected. We rushed onto a plane headed for Oklahoma City, and began this surreal and continuous trek through grief. We have been devastated and sad ever since, slightly out of touch with this thing called "reality," and still fighting through the shock of our loss.
So, this has become more of a new year project. At first, I thought to myself, "I can't do this project now. I can't be so selfish in a time like this to focus on my own life, and my own healing." But then I realized that Dick's death is really just another reason to take this project on. And not in the way of that over-used cliche, "He would have wanted it this way." But in that way where someone you care deeply about dies... and you remember what life is all about. Love. Living in the present. Gratitude for all that is good. These are all things you visit with from time-to-time, but things that are hard to be conscious about most of the time in our "crazy-busy" lives.
I want to really live life. I want to feel and share the love that is all around me. I want to be in the present moment. I want to notice and appreciate the gratitude that fills my heart when I actually stop and notice everything that is good around and within me. These things are what I call living with positive intention. And I am hoping to live with positive intention this year in a new, more conscious, more focused way. My hope is to have an idea every week that will guide me toward being able to really live my life with positive intention. I also hope that you will be a part of this quest, and that you will share your ideas and your experiences trying to do the same thing, either using my ideas or your own.
Here's a little background about how this idea came about.
Two years ago I was pregnant with my son and developed HELLP syndrome , a rare and severe variant of preeclampsia. My midwife caught the elusive symptoms just in time, but the crash C-section that saved my and my son's lives led to the life-threatening loss of more than half of my blood. Long story short, we made it. I know we are the lucky ones, and I am trying my best to avoid the waves of survivor guilt that sometimes crash through me. It is overwhelming to hear tragic stories of women dying days after giving birth, or babies born at 21 weeks gestation who live for several short days and then die. The losses are so deep and unimaginable. But then there are the survivor stories, and inspiration reigns.
One story of loss in particular has stuck with me. And, more importantly, I was very inspired by something that grew out of that loss.
In 2005, Shelly was pregnant for the first time. She developed HELLP Syndrome and died a week after her emergency delivery. Her daughter, Hailey, survived, and is doing well. Shelly's parents have become champions in the field of Preeclampsia and HELLP Syndrome awareness. Here is Shelly's story.
One of the many positive things that grew out of this tragedy was a wonderful idea that Shelly's friends came up with, a blog in which they pledge a new goal every week, in an effort to capture Shelly's fun-loving and positive spirit. With their permission, I am building on that idea for my own blog/project.
I will probably post a message once a week that includes one positive intention and one related action. I invite you to have an interactive role in this project by posting comments on the blog or emailing me directly with your ideas, feedback and/or progress.
Here's another idea that I'm borrowing from the blog mentioned above - to keep me motivated, and also to raise money for a cause near and dear to my heart, I will donate $10 to the Preeclampsia Foundation every week that I don't follow through on my intentions. I hope you'll do the same.
Here's to positivity!
It has taken me a long time to say that outright. I'm finally feeling ready to heal from that traumatic experience, and this project is how I'm going to begin. Please join me on my journey to live each day with positive intention! And pass on this invitation to read this blog, and to join me in taking on a new positive intention every week for the year of 2010.
I was supposed to start this project on December 8, the 2 year anniversary of my near-death experience, and a time of year that is still emotionally taxing for me. But on December 5, just as we were midway through our easygoing Saturday family-still-in-bed kind of morning, we got a phone call from Brian's mom that changed everything. Brian's dad died in the night. Completely unexpected. We rushed onto a plane headed for Oklahoma City, and began this surreal and continuous trek through grief. We have been devastated and sad ever since, slightly out of touch with this thing called "reality," and still fighting through the shock of our loss.
So, this has become more of a new year project. At first, I thought to myself, "I can't do this project now. I can't be so selfish in a time like this to focus on my own life, and my own healing." But then I realized that Dick's death is really just another reason to take this project on. And not in the way of that over-used cliche, "He would have wanted it this way." But in that way where someone you care deeply about dies... and you remember what life is all about. Love. Living in the present. Gratitude for all that is good. These are all things you visit with from time-to-time, but things that are hard to be conscious about most of the time in our "crazy-busy" lives.
I want to really live life. I want to feel and share the love that is all around me. I want to be in the present moment. I want to notice and appreciate the gratitude that fills my heart when I actually stop and notice everything that is good around and within me. These things are what I call living with positive intention. And I am hoping to live with positive intention this year in a new, more conscious, more focused way. My hope is to have an idea every week that will guide me toward being able to really live my life with positive intention. I also hope that you will be a part of this quest, and that you will share your ideas and your experiences trying to do the same thing, either using my ideas or your own.
Here's a little background about how this idea came about.
Two years ago I was pregnant with my son and developed HELLP syndrome , a rare and severe variant of preeclampsia. My midwife caught the elusive symptoms just in time, but the crash C-section that saved my and my son's lives led to the life-threatening loss of more than half of my blood. Long story short, we made it. I know we are the lucky ones, and I am trying my best to avoid the waves of survivor guilt that sometimes crash through me. It is overwhelming to hear tragic stories of women dying days after giving birth, or babies born at 21 weeks gestation who live for several short days and then die. The losses are so deep and unimaginable. But then there are the survivor stories, and inspiration reigns.
One story of loss in particular has stuck with me. And, more importantly, I was very inspired by something that grew out of that loss.
In 2005, Shelly was pregnant for the first time. She developed HELLP Syndrome and died a week after her emergency delivery. Her daughter, Hailey, survived, and is doing well. Shelly's parents have become champions in the field of Preeclampsia and HELLP Syndrome awareness. Here is Shelly's story.
One of the many positive things that grew out of this tragedy was a wonderful idea that Shelly's friends came up with, a blog in which they pledge a new goal every week, in an effort to capture Shelly's fun-loving and positive spirit. With their permission, I am building on that idea for my own blog/project.
I will probably post a message once a week that includes one positive intention and one related action. I invite you to have an interactive role in this project by posting comments on the blog or emailing me directly with your ideas, feedback and/or progress.
Here's another idea that I'm borrowing from the blog mentioned above - to keep me motivated, and also to raise money for a cause near and dear to my heart, I will donate $10 to the Preeclampsia Foundation every week that I don't follow through on my intentions. I hope you'll do the same.
Here's to positivity!
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