A Simple Acorn (Blog #541)

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Last night I had a friend visit from out-of-town, and we spent the evening catching up and partying. Specifically, at dinner, I drank a frozen margarita bigger than my head. It was delicious. I enjoyed every drop. That being said, I woke up in the middle of the night with a headache, so perhaps I overdid it. I don’t know. I’m still learning about moderation.

This morning–because of the margarita–I woke up later than usual, so my no-caffeine-past-noon rule got pushed back a couple hours. Otherwise, I’ve put myself back on track today. I ate three sensible meals. I drank a lot of water. I went for a run (in the rain). I stretched.

Yesterday I blogged that I’m not exercising for the current benefits, but rather for the future benefits. In other words, I don’t need immediate results, nor do I expect the changes produced by my workouts to be like my oatmeal (instant). Granted, I’m sure there are immediate physical benefits to exercising like reduced stressed and increased blood circulation, but my point was that you don’t get a flat stomach as a reward for one jog around the neighborhood. One of my friends pointed out, however, that there ARE immediate EMOTIONAL benefits to working out. I agree. Not only do I feel more “alive” when I exercise, but I also have an increased sense of accomplishment and self-esteem as I go throughout the day.

I spent this afternoon reading a chapter or two in four different books–one about the history of alchemy, one about the sun and moon, one about why we sleep (I’ve mentioned this one before), and one about money (something that terrifies me, so I’ve decided to learn more about it). Part of me thinks I “should” just pick one book and read it all the way through, but that’s simply not how I roll. (The book about money said that anytime you use the word “should,” you could replace it with the word “want” and see if the statement is still true for you. “I WANT to pick one book and read it all the way through.” No, that’s not true for me. I’d rather read several concurrently.)

Lately I’ve been thinking about the idea of “the slight edge,” a theory (and book by Jeff Olson) that proposes (among other things) that if you were to read just ten pages in a book every day, you would reliably read three-hundred pages of new material every month. Go figure, math. Anyway, this concept can obviously be applied to other endeavors besides reading. You could eat a little better every morning. You could walk a bit further every evening. The slight edge–it’s just another way of explaining what I’ve been saying over and over again for the last week–small actions, done consistently, add up.

There’s an idea in spiritual and psychological circles that says one of the goals of healing is to take the emotional charge out of your memories. In other words, if something that happened five or fifteen or twenty-five years ago still makes you angry, upset, or distraught, that’s a clue that part of you is “stuck” there, since events that are fully processed and integrated tend to have a “neutral” quality about them. Anyway, the book I’m reading about money says the same thing–money in and of itself should be a neutral experience for you–it shouldn’t be emotionally charged with worry, shame, embarrassment, or disgust.

Doesn’t that sound nice?

One of the exercises the book proposes is to write down your top ten negative thoughts about money–you know–those “biggies” that automatically pop into your brain whenever a bill shows up in your mailbox or whenever you reach for your wallet and find it thinner than you’d like it to be. For example, one negative thought might be, “There’s never enough.” So just before blogging, I did this, then I did the next part of the exercise, which was to write an OPPOSITE thought or affirmation about money. I’ll spare you all twenty statements that I came up with, but here are four of them (two pairs of negatives and their opposites)–

Negative thought: It won’t work.
Positive thought: It will work. The universe always find a way. I always find a way.

Negative thought: I’ll always be poor.
Positive thought: I’ll always be prosperous. I couldn’t keep money away even if I wanted to.

So get this shit. Not two minutes after I finished this exercise and wrote, “I couldn’t keep money away even if I wanted to,” a friend of mine texted me about a job opportunity, some temporary work that’s available for ten days starting next week. And whereas I’m hard-headed (I thought, It won’t work), I’m not THAT hard-headed, so I checked into it, and as of now, it’s gonna happen. (I’ll write more about it as things materialize.) Granted, it’s not my dream job or my dream pay, but it is A JOB and it is GOOD PAY. Plus, it sounds fun. Like, I WANT to do it. And as my dad said, “You never know what will happen. You could meet someone. This could turn into something else.”

The universe always find a way.

One of favorite mythological images is that of the baby Jesus in the manger. Taken as a symbol and not just a matter of history, this picture of the Son of God being born in a stable teaches us to not judge a person’s (or a situation’s) potential by the package they’re delivered in. (Don’t judge a book, or a savior, by it’s cover.) Caroline Myss points out that the divine works in paradoxes. What seems big is small. What seems small is big. In other words, despise not small actions. Despise not small beginnings. The largest oak tree begins as a simple acorn.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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For all of the things life takes away, it gives so much more in return. Whether we realize it or not, there’s always grace available.

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small beginnings (blog #36)

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Last night I slept for a grand total of two hours. When the alarm went off at 7:45 this morning, I stumbled into the kitchen and stood in a daze with the freezer door open for five minutes while I stared at one frozen waffle and wished it were two frozen waffles. (Unfortunately, the waffle never multiplied, so don’t ask me to feed the five thousand.)

I spent the day attending Leadercast at the Van Buren Performing Art Center. Leadercast is an annual, national event where several prominent leaders from various fields come together to discuss leadership. This year’s theme was “purpose,” and the event took place in Atlanta, but was broadcast to cities around the world, including Van Buren. Two of the speakers today were local, and one of them was my friend Marla, and she had an extra ticket, and that’s why I dragged my ass out of bed so early.

When I got to the event, the third speech was already in progress, so I sneaked in the back and thought, Apparently some leaders get out of bed REALLY early. The guy speaking was Jim McKelvey, the creator of the credit card processing software called Square. Well, anytime I attend events like these, I always take notes because my inner straight-A student simply will not quit, even when he’s sleep deprived. So the first thing I wrote in my “lowing my expectations has succeeded beyond my wildest dreams” notebook was “An artist is someone who makes something that nobody needs,” but what I thought was “An artist is someone in his mid-thirties who lives with his parents and stays up until five-thirty in the morning blogging about it,” which just made my ego soar. I’m an artist.

After Jim’s speech, there was a break and I found Marla. We walked upstairs where several sponsors were giving away free pens, magnets, squeezy balls to help reduce stress, and coffee. Ya’ll, I’ve never been so glad to see a cup of coffee in all my life. It tasted like a miracle, better than two frozen waffles ever could have. But the most notable part of the entire break was that there was a jazz combo playing, right there in the middle of the room (in Van Buren, Arkansas). I looked at Marla and said, “Who has a jazz combo at nine-thirty in the morning?” Talk about something that nobody needs. Still, I couldn’t help do a little Bob Fosse number as we walked down the stairs, the whole time thinking, I should get up before noon more often.

After the break, there were more speakers, and then we had lunch. And then there were even more speakers. One guy, a psychologist named Dr. Henry Cloud, told the story of a woman with an eating disorder who used to come to group therapy “dressed to the nines.” And it became this point of discussion, like, why do you have to look so perfect? But she said she just had to.

So one day he’s in a suit and tie, about to leave the group and go straight to give a big presentation, and he looks at this lady and takes his cup of coffee and pours it down the front of his dress shirt and says, “You don’t have to be perfect.”

As he told the story today, he did it again. He just poured his coffee down the front of his white dress shirt, made a couple jokes about not having a six-pack (but having a keg), and kept going with his speech. So I got out my notebook and wrote, “You don’t have to be perfect,” and I centered it perfectly in the middle of the page, and then I went back and added a smart-looking exclamation point. (And that, my friends, is called irony.)

The last speaker in Atlanta was Tyler Perry, the creator of the character Madea. Back to the theme of purpose, Tyler said that he found his purpose on the other side of his pain. Tyler also said that when he was first getting started, he wrote a play that took six years to really get off the ground, that he lived in his car for part of that time. “Scripture reminds us to never despise small beginnings.”

After Tyler, Marla spoke. She talked about how much she loved this area, how her roots were planted deep, and how she wanted local leaders to know what a difference they make, that people notice. Her speech was so beautiful that it almost made me not want to move.

Almost. (But maybe that means that when I do move, I’ll move with more appreciation for my roots.)

This evening I took a nap for a few hours. When I woke up and told my brain that I needed to write, my brain took one look at me and said, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding.”

So here we are. It’s two-thirty in the morning, and I wish I could tell you where I’m going with all this. Usually I try to pick one event or emotion and stick to it, figure it out, find a lesson in it. But on days like today, it’s harder to do that. I heard so many wonderful, inspiring things today. Hell, I heard a jazz combo at nine-thirty this morning. All day I kept thinking about the blog and about writing, about being an artist and how I struggle with perfection. I thought about how therapy and even this blog have helped me to work through my pain and how it feels like I’m getting closer to my purpose. I thought about small beginnings, how I often despise them, wishing for something better rather than appreciating them for what they are—actual beginnings.

And how beautiful it is to begin!

And how beautiful it is to begin, however imperfectly.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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There’s no such thing as a small action. There’s no such thing as small progress.

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