An inspiring new year

I hope that all my readers have enjoyed a happy holiday season full of friends, family, peace, joy and love and lots of treats! I’ve had a nice Christmas with my family, will soon be spending some time with friends, and look forward to sharing New Year’s with my sister, her husband, and their friends.

I wrote out my goals for the new year in September, but I still enjoy the opportunity for a “fresh start” in the change of the calendar year.  As my readers know, I have some issues with high-achieving goal setting that usually accompanies the new year, and illustrated my philosophy on the issue in last year’s new year’s post,  (a less resolute new year) where I was determined not to set any new years goals.  I think that goal setting and happiness-seeking is a fine line to walk. In one way, goal-setting can be liberating and powerful, and can help you determine what you really want out of life.  In the fall, when I set my intentions to simply have more fun and broaden my objectives from survival and service to joy, happiness, exploration, fun and friends, I think I subtly caused a shift in myself and my own sense of liberation, which actually allowed me to have more fun and look forward to the future.  But my goals are still flexible. Because  at t the same time that we set goals or outline desired achievements, it’s important to realize several truths:

1. We don’t always know what is best for us or even what will make us happy. We think we do, but we really often don’t.

2. We don’t have total control over what happens to us.  We have some, but not total control.  It’s not an all-or-nothing deal. As humans we like to think that we are all-powerful agents, captains of our own fates. And yes, our actions have consequences, both positive and negative.  To believe that we are impotent is to be, in a sense, lazy, shy, or painfully insecure, and that’s not exactly a healthy approach to life either. But the reality is that life happens – sickness, death, and loss occurs, and so do new opportunities, new relationships, new desires and new lessons.  If you don’t accept that life is all of these, and that we need to be flexible to adapt to the changes in life, we wind up stuck, spinning our wheels and failing to more forward because of our refusal to accept that some goals may not be possible, or even desirable, anymore.

For me, what is more important than goal-setting is inspiration. I adore having people in my life who inspire me. Friends’ choices, travels and adventures serve as inspiration to me in different ways.  Seeing other people make choices that fulfill them, and their own personal desires, as opposed to fulfilling conventional norms, makes me more confident to pursue what makes me happy.  Seeing friends’ exciting travel adventures makes me want to travel more, but also to just explore what is close to me at home.  To have mini-adventures, take outdoor walks, take pictures, to just go outside and move and be free.

Sometimes the inspiration is subtle, and difficult to describe.  Sometimes it’s a photograph, a recipe, a line from a book, a piece of music, a piece of art, that just makes me want to remember to explore my own humanness, and to create.

Since I don’t have a television, and don’t have a large dvd collection either, I tend to watch my favourite downloaded shows over and over again. This year I probably watched (or listened to) the movie Rent about 7 times. It’s a great seasonal movie. I love the reflection on the importance of being present, of loving freely, and the reminder that all we have is this very moment.

In the scene “La Vie Boheme,” the character Mark announces that, “the opposite of war isn’t peace – it’s creation!”

“To days of inspiration, playing hooky, making something out of nothing
The need to express, to communicate,
To going against the grain, going insane, going mad”

So for the year ahead, I have some goals, but I also have the overall desire to be inspired, to feel that desire to explore life, experience life as an adventure, and learn more and more about what it’s like to be human.  It doesn’t have to be glamorous – listening to someone carefully and aiming to understand their experiences, feeling the cold against my skin on a cold day, painting and getting in touch with my own artistic side, making delicious meals with a few humble ingredients – all of these things, for me, contribute to feeling alive, to feeling that beautiful, energized sense that I have limited time on earth, and I wish to know it, to know it well, deeply and intimately.

So, more pragmatically, here are my intentions for the new year:

1. Volunteer with children.  Either as  Big Sister, or through another program with children.  Kids bring happiness into our lives, and I’ve realized that I want more time with them.  This would be a good way of fulfilling my own desire to have kids in my life, while hopefully making a positive difference in the life of a little girl (or girls).

2. Become more athletic. Yes, it’s a broad goal. But I want to climb more, hike more, do a little more yoga, run a little and generally be a bit more active. Perhaps this is a bit too vague, but this intention might evolve into something more specific in the coming weeks or months.

2. Continue with my ‘fun goals‘ – I’m already on my way to achieving many of these goals. Flights to Hawaii are booked. In a few weeks I will be seeing my 3rd live performance by a “new-to-me” band. My climbing has been somewhat sporadic but I’ve improved nonetheless and will have all my equipment in the next month or so.  I have plans to run a scavenger hunt in the spring, I have travel plans with a friend to visit NYC in July, and a date is set for an “un-conference” on community-building, which I will be coordinating with a couple of friends of mine.  But more importantly, I’m having more fun, spending time with great friends of all different sorts, and am overall feeling more invested in my own happiness and in the joys of life, which is really the main point.

Happy New Year everyone, and please share, what are your goals, intentions, or desires for the New Year?

A message of thanks

In my last post, I blogged about feelings of perfectionism and my ambivalence towards the Christmas season.  Since writing that post, I have reflected more on my consistent sense of gratitude that has kept me grounded through an otherwise flustering, busy time. Consumerism threatens to overpower us each winter, but ah, what a joy it is to retreat inward, quietly, and reflect on non-commercial gifts.

Over the last year and a half, gratitude has been a particularly fundamental building block of my personal pursuit of happiness.  Since losing my parter, common themes on this blog have been gratitude for my apartment, my family, my Butternut, and for the earth – the sky, the trees, the air.  But as I reflect on the last year, what I am particularly grateful for today are the people around me.  Most of them are newcomers to my life.  And they are incredibly important to me, because for a long time, my loyal readers will know, I have been searching out of isolation for a sense of community.  ”Community”… I have used the word so frequently on the blog but haven’t often defined it.  But I have considered what this really means, and I think for me, when I use the word “community”, what I am really hoping to describe is a sense of belonging, a sense of being cared for, the ability to rely on and depend on other people, interdependence and cooperation.  Feelings of shared values, shared joys, shared passions, and the sense of working towards shared goals.  It’s about mutual support, coming not just from one direction, but from multiple directions and sources.

Although I am still seeking to become more deeply connected with my city and community, I dare say that I now finally feel a strong sense of connection and interdependence with many other people in my life.  And it is indeed thanks to the many people who have shared something of themselves with me, and shown me kindness and respect and have placed their trust in me.

Because I can’t name names on this blog, I would like to instead open up my gratitude to saying “thank you” to anyone who has done any of the following things for me in the last year:

Made me laugh; Taken care of Butternut; Helped me move; Trusted in me; Asked me for help; Made me soup; Made me soap; Asked me how I am and genuinely wanted to know the answer; Shown up at my apartment when I haven’t answered your calls to make sure that I’m okay; Encouraged me to take care of myself or love myself; Reassured me; Shared your story with me; Thanked me for the work I do; Believed in me; Taken a chance on me; Surprised me with a gift; Listened to me, and listened without judgement or motive; Made a (solicited or non-solicited) donation to the agency where I work; Checked in on me when I was sick; Pushed me to go further on the climbing wall; Forgiven me when I’ve made a mistake; Told me I am beautiful; Accepted me and appreciated my differences; Shared your home or your family with me; Cooked me a meal; Brought me a Tim Horton’s coffee in the morning; Made me think; Inspired me with your passion for the planet, for science, for community-building or with your efforts to make this world a better place to live in. Did I mention, made me laugh?

The difference to my quality of life that all of these people have made is immeasurable.  So, to my colleagues, my friends, my family, my readers, my yoga instructors, and to the participants and volunteers at work, and all the people who make up my “community,”  thank you.

‘Tis the season for perfectionism

Normally when the Christmas season comes along, I get feeling inspired and crafty. But this year I’m feeling a little… tired. I feel kind of defeated before I’ve even started. I think it’s because I’ve had such a busy and intense November that the prospect of gearing up to be some kind of frugal version of Martha Stewart just makes me want to take a big nap. I’ve also started shopping, and being in the malls is stressful; the expense, the pressure to get it all right, the crowds…  It’s just not a good feeling.

I think part of my problem is that I put a lot of pressure on myself to have everything just right. And I know I’m not the only one. Surely many other people must feel this way around this time of the year.

What I want to do more of is just focus on gratitude and the blessings of the season.  I’m really grateful for the people in my life who have supported me and loved me.  Is there a way to show that gratitude without getting sucked in to the idea that the holidays have to be “perfect?” This year I’ve been touched by so many wonderful people – new and old friends, family, colleagues, and clients at work.  This is really what I want to bask in, and celebrate.

To get back in the spirit of things, I’m trying to think of things that make me feel good about Christmas and less stressed out. What I’d love to do is spend more time outdoors, going for hikes, taking pictures, being in nature.

I would love to hear from you – what helps you feel joyful this time of year, and how to you manage to keep perfectionist feelings at bay?

Opening to pain, aliveness

Tonight I read a friend’s blog post where he considered how falling in love, and losing love, can be part of a true life’s adventure. At the risk of misquoting him, I would say that falling in love, and experiencing loss, is about committing to life, and I commented on his post, adding that, “loss is an escapable part of being human; it is also part of the wildness and beauty of life lived with depth, commitment and grace.” It made me think about that idea, of committing to life. Committing to live deeply and openly.  I re-read my own post on loss, which was really about rethinking abundance, written after my trip to Newfoundland – still one of my favourite posts. It hints at coming to terms with the fact that being human means experiencing pain, loneliness, disappointment.  Since that time I have become acquainted with other kinds of loss, trauma, and pain. I’ve gotten to know it better, not just through my own experiences but the experiences of others.  As I’ve written about before, I am grateful and humbled by those willing to open up to me with their pain.

The last year or two of this blog has been set on a mindful theme.  But lately I have blogged less on mindfulness – actually, less in general. It’s because my mind and my energy has been directed at so many new adventures and activities that I have drifted away from mindfulness and become back in the habit of thinking, planning, worrying and problem-solving. Last night I went to a yoga class and slowly remembered – life is in the details, too.  Richness is found in the moments of openness.  And it can be found in pain.  I thought about how open I felt, how attuned to life, after the break-up, when I slowly built my life back after falling apart.  I felt drowned in sadness, and nothing felt stable or sensible.  But there it was, life, opening slowly, just being.  There was an awareness of my own aliveness.

Remember in Saver Queen facts when I said I watched as a man breathed his last breaths?  It’s odd, but during that time in my life, in my early 20s, when I first got to see death, it was as beautiful as it was painful.  I was awake and open and alive, full of attention to the suffering of others. Being awake to another person’s pain doesn’t have to shut us down. It can open us. It can engage us in a universal experience, relate us to other human beings, and bring us present to our own humanness – our own vulnerability.  Our life and happiness is precarious, which makes it tender.

Pain, loss, how desperate it feels. But, how rich. Being open to our pain, and opening to the pain of others, is all part of the commitment we give to life.