Blissful Busyness

Busy, I’m so busy, my head is spinning, yaa, yaa, yaa, I’m so busy! (Insert soundtrack from old Tommy Roe song.) Oh yes, it is a busy time! The Summer Sizzle time, when to do what you want to, and to have the fun you want to have, you must line all your little ducks up and get everything in place.

Is it possible to experience bliss when your head is spinning from details, organizing, and planning? Well, certainly. It’s possible to experience bliss anytime, you just have to choose it!!

Seriously, how can we stay grounded when we are running in many directions, with lots to do, and many other things we want to do? I suggest these 5 elements:

1) Get organized! If you are going to go camping a lot this Summer, get all your gear together in one place. Put stuff in totes so it’s easy to load and unload from the car. Buy special camping kitchen-ware etc., so it can always stay with the camping gear and there is less you have to put together each time you head out for a trip. This allows for spontaneous trips too.

2) Coordinate calendars with other family members, and make sure you mark off time for all those fun things you want to do. If you don’t make the time, the time will pass by.

3)Prioritize. What is most important for you to complete this week? What needs to happen for you to go away without worry and stress? What’s the one, or 3, things you really want to do this Summer? Make a list with 3 columns, with the headings Have To, Want To, and Hope To. In each of those columns prioritize again.

4) Remember to take down time for yourself. Get still. Be quiet. Spend 6 hours laying in a hammock. This personal rejuvenation time is important in maintaining groundedness and calm.

5) Have fun! Even if Uncle George gets sauced at the family picnic and throws Grandma in the pool, as long as everyone stays unharmed, just laugh and enjoy what will soon be precious memories. Laughter heals just about anything. Summer is so short. Play whenever you can.

My busyness has been preparing for the “Living Your Business Bliss” Womyn’s Business Conference coming up this Friday. I am the keynote speaker, and am offering some workshop sessions. It’s the first time I have had the honor of being a keynote speaker, and I am super excited! And nervous. So, it’s time for me to go play a little and burn some of that off!

~~Play Big~~Laugh Hard~~Live Your Bliss~~!!

Blissful Chaos

Life is

tumbling,

rolling,

changing,

swirling,

upheaving,

a dancing microcosm

of expanding universal

reality

So much to worry about.

So much to stress about.

So much to feel anxious about.

And,

So much beauty, so much possibility, so much love.

Can you sustain your bliss in the midst of it all?

Can you find beauty among the chaos?

Can you dance in the rain and manifest the rainbow?

Bliss is a state of mind. It does not come to us through situations, people, or things. We harvest bliss within ourselves. This is our work. To realize heaven is right here on Earth, right now.

Despite.

In Honor of All Womyn

March observes International Women’s Day, a time of honoring how womyn before us have paved the way in creating a life where we as womyn are respected for our divine contribution to the world around us. Started as a way to honor the movement for women’s rights and to assist in achieving universal suffrage for women, the celebration has now evolved, in my mind, to also include the honoring of our sacred feminine, that unique and divine quality that only womyn share.

It often passes without much fanfare in the mainstream media, at least here in the US, and few womyn that I know actually choose to find a way to celebrate it, or note it’s passing. In other countries it is a National Holiday, and men are encouraged to lavish the womyn in their lives, and womyn are encouraged to have womyn only celebrations. And, unfortunately, in still other countries, womyn are beaten for celebrating this day. Over the years I have done various things to bring awareness to this important event in the small community I live in, including an open mic night, a women’s movie night, sharing circles, ritual and ceremony. This year I am participating in an event that other local womyn are putting together.

A dear friend of mine, Damaris Margaret, many years ago started the All Woman’s Review-a diverse and eclectic gathering of amazing local womyn appearing on stage and sharing personal stories, poetry, song, dance and comedy. After a many year hiatus, when Damaris sadly moved out of town, Bisbee’s Obscure Productions is now reviving the Review this year. It’s going to be a fabulous, fun, entertaining and great night, and I am going to be reading 2 pieces. One is an original, and the other is a very powerful piece that has moved me deeply. I choose to be involved in this production to honor myself, to honor all the amazing and wonderful womyn in Bisbee, to honor Damaris, and to honor the divine holy feminine power.

This is my original piece I will be sharing… I will share the other piece next week (don’t want to  ruin it for those going to the event! ).

i am a womyn..

just trying to make my way

floating thru the minefields

of rape, abortion, abandonment

abuse and addiction

trying to make my way

on the path of

re-discovering my lost spirit

of yesteryear

reclaiming the lost child

that grew to fast, to hard

a painful time

of confusing intangible love

riding the waves

of adolescent-maiden storms

shipwrecked and sharkfood

i was a womyn just trying to find my way

back then

looking for love

in all the wrong places

seeking that valid connection

without knowing what

i was looking for

only that i had not found it

yet

now, i am a womyn

making my way

transforming the mine fields

into flowers

bringing beauty in gently

thru healing

marking each day

as a miracle

i am a womyn making my way

along this wonderous

path of life

with other womyn

by my side

wounded, beautiful, recovering

healing, strong womyn

standing powerful in all

we have been

all we are

and all we will be

becoming bigger and bolder

with each new day

discovering our authentic selves

our hidden spirits

our loving hearts

holding each other’s hands

holding each other up

with these womyn

i am a womyn

getting stronger

releasing the pain

embracing the beauty

making right choices

being healthy

i am a womyn

creating my way.

~margie scott~

6/16/05

This piece was inspired by my Mentor Retreat Coach Helene VanManen, when she wrote a piece of the same name, which honors the lineage of fine womyn she comes from. Why not create your own? Take some time to sit with who you are, then write a piece to share with the world. Post it here, and I will celebrate you!

I look forward to seeing local Bisbee folks this weekend at The Central School Project for The All Woman’s Review. For everyone else, I invite you to take a moment and honor the great womyn in your life, and if you are a womyn, to spend some time celebrating your incredible greatness.

How to Find Bliss While Tackling the To-Do List, Part 2

Once you begin to integrate the flow of getting things done by connecting to the mood you are in, using the appropriate skill set that is alignment with that, and allowing yourself to weave among the various tasks on your list, you will find that projects become less daunting, and more things will be getting done.

The fun piece is that you only have to stay with your projects if they feel good! If you begin to feel distracted, tired, annoyed, angry, or overwhelmed this is a clear sign that it’s time to move onto something else that needs your attention. Do whatever you are in the mood for, rather than forcing yourself to complete, or continue to do, something that no longer feels good.

As soon as you feel stuck, stop! You will notice all your justifications and excuses about why you “need” to stay where you are-this has to get done, I’m already behind, etc, etc-start to come up. However, what I have learned is that the longer you try to keep doing something when you no longer have the energy for it, the less you actually get accomplished. By jumping to another skill set, you free your energy, allow the skill set you have been working with to rest, and, this is the most important part, you stop trying to swim upstream!!

Here are some benefits of making the switch:

• less overwhelm
• avoid burnout
• more energy
• accomplish more
• experience more joy
• creativity excels
• everything eventually gets attended to
• less stress

The more I play around with this method in tackling my To-Do list, the more fun I am having! I’ve started to experiment with the various skill sets, to see how I can apply them in different ways. For instance, in the past if I was working on developing a project vision, I might sit down with a pen and pad and write it out. Recently I tried painting and collaging instead to think it out, and got wonderful results. Combining dancing with housework is a real blast, making a ho-hum chore a hysterical occasion-especially if someone finds you dancing with your broom!

Give it a try. Step outside the boxes. The whole idea is to make the things we need, or want to do, fun and enjoyable. There is absolutely no reason all that exists on the never ending To-Do list has to be a drag!! (Read that line again if you have to.)

Let’s have fun. Let’s play. Let us honor the flow and rhythms of our bodies, minds and spirits while building up our muscles in all the skill sets.  Scatter yourself all around, planting seeds into everything you do, or like the hummingbird drinking nectar from all the various flowers. Watch how the joy returns to your process, tasks become more fun, and you become less stressed.

Now that sounds like a project worth engaging in, yes?

(Read Part 1 here)

How to Find Bliss While Tackling the To-Do List

(Part 1 of a 2 part series)

Here is my basic premise: There are always things to get done. We orient our lives around a perpetual to-do list. Everything from paying the bills, feeding the kids, building our business, mowing the lawn, getting exercise, socializing, defining our purpose, attending our relationships, and everything in between. Our To-Do lists can provide structure and order, or they can provide us with a never ending sense of guilt about what we are not doing and accomplishing. We create lists to stay on track, to not forget, to stay connected to our vision, and to define priorities.

But what happens when our lists become a mile long and we really aren’t getting anything on them done?What is the message here? Why are we able to do some things, and not others? Are the items on it really that important? Are they not in alignment with our values so we ignore them , hoping they will go away? Is there no juice, passion, or motivation in the tasks? Are they there out of some sense of obligation, should, or have to?? Or is there some other element at play here?

A bit ago I did some of my own personal exploration around my pattern of doing things and attention to my own To-Do list. Working with the above basic premise, my inquiry led me to a methodology that I have adopted and is working really well for me. As you read I ask you to consider these ideas for yourself, to give them a try, and then to get back to me with some feedback. How did it work for you? What am I missing? What did you notice about yourself as you integrated these ideas and changed your relationship with your To-Do  list? My hope is to develop this into a workable program that will support individuals and groups move into a more enjoyable experience with the tasks of their lives, to find a way to make it a fun game worth playing, and from that place to get dynamic results where everything gets done with lots of time left over for the really important things in their lives.

The secondary premise, after there is always things to get done, is that all of these things require various degrees of our cognitive, creative, intellectual, physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual, skills and attention. For instance, mowing the lawn requires our physical ability, but not so much of our creative or mental skill. Building our business might engage our creative and emotional skills, as well as our intellect, with each element being required in various degrees depending on the task at hand. When we recognize this and allow ourselves to do the tasks that best feed the skill center we seem to be in at the moment, I am discovering, we can get more done, and our sense of passion and joy increases as well.

Here are the problems-being scattered, getting distracted easily, lack of focus, lack of completion, being stuck or bogged down, no energy, brain fog-any of these sounding familiar? Actually, these are not problems! They are signs that you are not utilizing the appropriate skill set!! It’s an opportunity to check in with yourself and see what you need. Working on a creative project and feeling stuck? Maybe it is time to stop, get up and go get your exercise for the day. Allow the creative energy to be moved, so that it can come forth. Guaranteed, when you go back to your project, you will have new ideas and the creativity will be flowing again.And, you will have gotten your exercise.

Because there are so many things to do, if we stop trying to force ourselves to get one thing done when it’s not working, and instead let it go and attend to something else that is more in alignment with what our body, soul, and spirit is calling for in that moment, eventually, we will get everything done. We work in a more cyclic, creative flow, rather than a dogmatic, linear way. Sounds way more fun and bliss inducing to me.

Stay tuned for more ideas on my new Getting Things Done methodology, including tips on how to integrate these ideas, and the benefits of making the switch. In the meantime, try this idea on for size, and tell me what you think.

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