Mindbloom

Wednesday 8June11

I had a problem solved recently. I've been trying for 2 years, if not longer to do a television fast. You know, stop watching television for say an entire week or month and get shit done. I couldn't manage to find a way to do it. The moment I walked in the house I was clicking on the TV and had it on Bravo for Law and Order. How many times do you need to see the same episodes? Then it was some other show and another. That 3 hours a night I could have been getting stuff done, like say, writing a novel.

I was mad at myself everyday for being so weak and just not keeping my promise to myself.

And then a friend sent me an invitation to Mindbloom. I was bitter at first. Why are people always sending invitations to some kind of social something? Jeez, I'm facebook, I'm on plurk. I've got 5 email addresses and I spend so much time keeping up with those things it's any wonder I leave the house. Any how I checked it out.

It's a wonderful tree of your goals each branch is a specific area of your life and you start with 3 branches and create actions for those areas and you get seeds for keeping those actions. It's beautiful, it's visual and it's fun to keep track of your goals. The best part is because it costs you seeds to add an action, you really have to think about the most important actions you want to take. And as you go along, you make reasonable goals.

Well since I've been keeping track of my goals and actions on mindbloom, I've been so busy working on what I love that I have had no need to turn on the television. And my tree is looking mighty fine. And it all feeds into my chant, I want to feel good. I think if you click the title to this blog entry it will bring you to tree.mindbloom.com

Oh and as an aside on the man front. The gorgeous guy I'd about given up on has reached out, so he's not totally written off. Phew! I do really like him and I'm mindful that we both need to be choosing each other. I need to make him feel good and he needs to make me feel good if we're ever going anywhere with this very fascinating and exhilarating beginning.

EY

Practice

Saturday 8March08 12:26pm

Some of the pieces I have added to my daily practice include which began on my writing retreat:

Rumi Wakeup - I got this from Wayne Dyer's book Inspiration, Your Ultimate Calling (one of my favorite books). He discusses that time in the early morning when you wake up (between 3am and 4am) and you don't have to get up. The thing is to actually get up. It's based on a Rumi poem that says something along the lines of, "The morning breeze has something to tell you, don't go back to sleep." I'm not always religious about it because I love sleeping but eventually I will be. I love the 4am hour for its peacefulness. I do stream of consciousness writing and record my dreams from the night before.

I do the Adi Mantra from Kundalini Yoga - Ong Na Mo Guru Dev Namo. Which means I bow to the Creator, to the Divine teacher within. From that I move into my stretches and a Kundalini Yoga set and another chant. I'm slowly starting to add 15 minutes of silence, that I want to do twice a day before I write. It's kind of hard to sit silent for 15 minutes straight but I'll get it. As Quincy Jones would say, "It's ragged but I'll get it."

I've been doing a couple of writing exercises to get the words flowing. One is from 30 Ways to Help You Write by Fran Weber Shaw, which I used to do years and years ago. You write "Now I'm Sitting Here and..." at the top of the page, then relax all the muscles in your body and listen to the sounds. Then you write nonstop for two or three pages and stop. That was how I used to do all of my writing, so needless to say, I'm getting back to beginner's mind as Natalie Goldberg so aptly calls it.

And another exercise that I got from a writing newsletter where you write down three random words like 'pimps, women, black music' and with those words write a scene for my novel. You basically come up with three words for 15 scenes of your novel and write each scene starting the first sentence with one of those words and including the other two words in the first paragraph. I guess it gets your mind away from thinking about how to start. It's crazy but it works.

I also write a series of affirmations in my steno from an article I read on manifestation in Mind Power News, an email newsletter that I receive. I'll look for the article and post it. Basically it's 4 affirmations: 1- What I am doing now (some goal that I want to realize) 2- How I support myself in realizing that goal 3- The good feelings I have for realizing that goal and 4- A Thank You to the Universe or God.

And overall, I'm enjoying the abundance I already have in my life. I have books galore and enough inspirational CD's and meditation tapes and CD's to cure all of Toronto. Ha Ha! So I'm making it a point to listen to and enjoy what I have. I belong to the Spiritual Cinema so I have all these great movies and short films. I'm building a DVD collection because my breakfast buddy buys me DVD's for birthdays and Christmas. And Music? Well anyone who knows me knows I have an insane amount of music, what with working at Sam's years ago and having that itunes addiction and importing anyone's music collection that I can. And I also belong to Simply Audio so I have a decent amount of audio books. If I didn't leave my house for a year I still wouldn't make it through all the stuff I have. And with my comfy bed? Praise God I am blessed!

I'll see if I can find the manifestation article...

EY

30 Day Challenge

Monday 7:46pm 18Dec06

I'm the challenge Queen. I love competing against myself. When I was a little girl and the slowest eater in the house I used to pretend that I was on a tv show and the audience was watching me eat my dinner. I would get myself to eat quicker because I knew the audience was cheering me on. ha ha!

At one crappy job I used to work at, I used to play games like seeing how long I could go without looking at the clock. Or timing myself at how fast I could get through one account and then try to do the next account even quicker.

I love writing challenges like timed writings and novels in a month and writing 1000 words a day. It's the kid in me that still lives in her imagination with her two best friends, Me, myself and I. So while digging around the internet for inspiration I happened upon Steve Pavlina's 30 days to Success (click the 30 Day Challenge title for the article.)

I've been thinking about what my first 30 day challenge could be. This morning as I crawled out of bed at half past 6 I happened upon my first challenge. Getting my butt up at 4am like I used to do. I've been very very bad and have been enjoying sleep more and quite frankly it's been months since I got up at 4am on a regular basis. So that's where I begin... starting tomorrow. Yes crazy girlfish will be getting up at 4am on Christmas day!

On my writing2live blog, I discussed going forward with Mastering a Skill (my writing, of course). I quoted it here in one of my morning prayers entries.. it takes 1000 hours to become competent; 5000 hours to master a skill and 25,000 ro 35,000 to become World Class. Calculating it down to a weekly quota brings it to 21 hours a week. If I want to get any where near completing my 1000 hours in a year I've got to rise with the birds. It's such a beautiful time of the day.

I'm hoping the 30 day stint will create that daily habit again and I can move forward with another 30day challenge. Any body want to send me their 30 day challenge? Let's forget about New Year's resolutions, I never make them cuz I know they don't work, and jump onto a challenge instead...

I just counted the days, 30 days will take me to 17Jan07...

EY