2:47
So here I am again. Intending. Worried, as always, that I’m going to choose the wrong thing. Wondering why the “something Jewish” intention is taking so very very long to manifest itself — and I was just about to type a joke about having baked challah for the first time ever, but even as a joke that’s not sufficient.
Pay attention and have fun are so durable and good. I like reviewing the years to see how they have come about. They are capacious intentions easy to see backwards.
Here are a couple of other intentions and a few challenges.
Be present. Original? No no no no no. I think there’s a clothing line called be present, even. But in yoga this morning, this is what came up. It seems to be the unifying idea beneath my daily sent of intentions (compassion, courage, honesty, integrity, kindness, joy & gratitude — I say that litany every morning). Pay attention is what I do with my mind. Being present is what I do with my breath, my heart, all the rest of me. Pay attention is mostly what I do towards the external world. Being present is what I do with my own self. Rather than paying attention during those conference calls, be present with the feeling of boredom and the need for stimulation, and wonder what that’s about. Be present gets me closer to be curious, and that’s a good place to be.
Keep my heart open. I mean that in a muscular/skeletal sense. In my last indoor cycling class (pause here — I love how much we can learn from our bodies and how we use them), that was my goal — to keep my chest lifted and heart open, because it feels better to ride that way. I’ll let the metaphors run rampant; no way to keep them out of a phrase like this. But the body is the structure for the metaphor here. Literally keeping my heart-area open reminds me to keep my spiritual & emotional heart open. Keeping my heart open (emotionally) is not efficient. I like to close it so I can go do other things that feel safer.
So, being present right this second and thinking about my open heart brings some sadness. Daniel hasn’t seemed very present to me for the last few days, and we’re opening and closing to each other like those paper finger toys children make — never both open at the same time. And that hurts my feelings, a lot. I might be better at weathering Daniel’s more florid moods, but I find that I’m more vulnerable to the small, daily, unintentional slights and lapses in attention. And, okay. That’s something to learn and deal with, because the hardening in response has some costs. I’m curious (!) about whether those costs are ones I want to incur.
Challenges:
Because why not?
Replace alcohol with other things in January. Ouch. I don’t like how hard this is going to be. I do love drinking, I just do. I marvel at how good and clear I feel when I don’t drink, and then I go right to the next glass of wine. (More likely, next beer, but “next beer” doesn’t have the same elegant rhythm as “next glass of wine.” I tried “next bottle of beer” but that had a levity I didn’t want & I didn’t love the alliteration. “Next cocktail” was too grand. Again, the truth getting in the way of the truth.) Cooking Light magazine has a very gentle 3-day detox program, that only asks one to abstain for 3 days. Maybe I’ll do that 3 day thing once, and then again, and again, and see if I can do it 10 times in a row.
I do like that I’m thinking of it as a replacement, rather than a deprivation. I wonder if that will make it easier. The replacement could be a cup of tea, or a deep breath, or a tree pose, or a podcast, or a poem.
Replace added sugar with other things in January. This will be easier, but I somehow think that means I’m less likely to do it. My added sugar intake is pretty low already, so I suspect I won’t feel a motivating difference in health. And, on the other side of equation, I love my daily squares of dark chocolate even more than my daily alcoholic drink. And that lovely challah I just made won’t be fresh forever, and it has 3 tablespoons of added sugar. It might make sense to trim added sugar — cut out the agave syrup on my morning yogurt, pause on the kombucha consumption– rather than cutting it out altogether, especially while I’m replacing alcohol. I might have talked myself out of this challenge after a single agave-less breakfast. Or perhaps this will happen during another 30 day, or 3 day, or 5 day period.
Replace shopping with outfit making in January (if not longer). I’m coming down off a binge buying period, and feel the need to love what I have, rather than grabbing the next thing. Somehow this is related to my favorites of pay attention (to what’s in the closet) and have fun (picking out different things).
Given everything that is happening in 2017, these challenges seem very selfish and small. Shouldn’t I challenge myself to give more, do more, be better? Probably. But I know myself and I need to stay away from the self-improvement and perfection drug. Pausing on drinking feels necessary because the regularity of my drinking — not necessarily how much I drink every day, but the fact that I do drink every day, or almost every day — troubles me. The sugar challenge just seems hard and I like hard, but that’s probably not going to be motivating enough. And the shopping thing is a form of penitence because I am not ever far removed from my issues about shopping and deserving and are nice clothes allowed and how nice and how much, and won’t I wish I had that money later, and I can’t retire on dresses.
And now it’s lunchtime, and I might have chocolate because I want it.
Another Door 