Tag — podcasts
The DO LESS Revolution: Observe Closely
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Hi y’all. So how did that Have-Done List work out for you last week? I’ve heard from a few of you and the general response seems to be:
“Holy Sh*t! Look at all that stuff I just did!”
In the movie Sneakers there’s a scene where Robert Redford’s character is repeatedly saying the team’s code word over and over again in front of the bad guys. Finally, his partner, played by River Phoenix, breaks through the acoustic ceiling panel where he’s been lying in wait and lands on the bad guys. Redford says something like, “It’s about time.” Phoenix replies, “That was hard what I just did…that thing, that was hard!”
That’s kind of how I feel when I look at my Have-Done list. I feel a little bit marveled, and a little bit put out that no one is noticing how tricky it was. So this week, I just want to say, I notice. I see you, doing all that stuff and you are freakin’ amazing! (Let’s try to rest in the sparkly and marvelous moment, shall we?)
A Word About Gremlins
Now, before we move on to step two, let me lay out a little word of encouragement for some of you. [Read more →]
The Do Less Revolution – The Have-Done List.
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My memories from the days of raising infants are a bit on the fuzzy side. I didn’t really hit my stride until the toddler era. But there is one memory that stands out loud and clear:
Paul comes home from work and asks me how my day was. I start crying and say: “I just didn’t get anything done.” Then he asks me what I did that day, blow by blow. I begin a long list. “Well, I made breakfast for Eden. Then I grabbed a quick shower. Then I had to nurse Cate. Then I managed to get to the grocery store for milk. Then I fed the kids again and when I finally got them all down for a nap I opened my thesis file and re-read the last few paragraphs I had writte, but then Eden woke up. Then I cleaned out the dryer trap, but the baby started crying before I could load the washer. Then…then…then…”
The end result of this scene, replayed many many times is that I realized how much I really had done in a day.
Fast forward ten years later and that “I didn’t get anything done” routine? Yep. Still doing it. Only now my angst isn’t brought on by babies, but by a lack of work-time due to chronic pain. Up until recently I would sit on my sofa with my head wrapped in ice and make lists of all the things I needed to do when I “got better.” My to-do list literally filled 1-2 notebook pages every day. I would have a good day, or even a good couple of hours, and I’d work like mad to get that list done. But I’d barely get anything crossed off before I was in pain again, when I would return to the ice and the sofa and write a whole new To-Do List with even more items.
Then life coach Jena Strong gave me a solution: The Have-Done List.
In my experience, it’s hard to give yourself permission to Do Less unless you realize how MUCH you are already doing. The Have-Done List helps with that. Here’s what mine looked like for this morning:
Wake up. Morning cuddle with the kids. Talk Eden out of panicking over volleyball tournament today. Kiss Pooh Bear for Cate so “he doesn’t feel left out”. Make breakfast (scrambled, eggs toast). Make lunches (bagel sandwiches, fruit, mix up some trail mix). Talk about after-work plans with Paul, kiss him goodbye. Make sure Cate remembers to say her little goodbye phrase to him, which is a ritual for her every morning. Make another round of toast for the kids. Turn on the kettle, forget to make tea. Check Facebook. Email teen mentoree back. Hear the one hour snooze on my alarm clock go off; holler out that it’s time for socks and shoes. Throw on sweats. Walk kids to school. Negotiate argument over who is faster, Eden on her bike or Cate on her scooter. Say hello to the neighbor family, wracking my pre-caffeine brain to use all five sentences of known Danish. Make quick arrangements on the corner with a classmate for an after school play date. Kiss children goodbye. Walk the lakes home while listening to This American Life. Battle Gremlins who tell me that even though I am exercising every day, it is not enough. Come home. Give the dogs the leftover scrambled eggs. Delight in happy puppy. Clean up the breakfast flotsam and jetsam. Check email. …
Okay, that was two hours – TWO HOURS – of my day. Every weekday I’ve made two meals –TWO MEALS — in the first hour I was awake. I mean, come on! Plus, check out the brain-activity level and emotional energy that went into those action-packed hours. Child psychology 101, a little bit of priestess work, Gremlin wrangling, and teen angst before the caffeine. Damn. That’s pretty much a full day’s work, in my humble opinion.
I’m guessing your day isn’t much different from mine. We need to start giving ourselves credit for that, yes? We need to stop lying to ourselves about how much we do, and how much more we “should” get done.
Try it. Right now. Grab a piece of paper and start. Write down everything you do – and don’t forget the brain and emotional projects as well.
Now, hold up a minute dearies, that thing you are doing right there — where you are trying to think of some perfect notebook, or a super-creative system for keeping your list straight — stop doing that right now. Any writing surface will do. You can even write some of it in your journal, and some of in on the receipts in your pocket, and some of it on the notepad by the phone. That’s fine, really it is. You can always pull ‘em all together later and feel super bad ass about your nice big stack. And the beauty thing about this is, even if you don’t do it consistently, even if you skip large portions of your day – it will still be massively impressive.
This is step one: Notice how much you are doing. Don’t analyze it. Don’t make any changes. Just notice. Notice your very productive, very busy life. There’s time for step two another day.
Now, I would love to set up a Flickr group and have y’all send in photos of your Have-Done list, because I think it would be fun. But it’s one more thing for you to do, and it’s one more thing for me to do. It’s not that essential so we’ll skip that bit. But I do hope you’ll drop a comment below sometime this week and let us know how it’s going. That will help me customize the DO LESS Revolution for you, my lovelies, and it will contribute to the giant pool wisdom that we all need so much.
Have fun watching your amazing, productive, colorful life unfold on the page before you! See you next week here at the DO LESS revolution.
The Do Less Revolution is an on-going, start-any-time project of Magpie Girl. Click here to join or find all the Do Less posts here. Recieve an update on new Do Less items by following us on Twitter. Thanks for being here!
Do Less with Magpie Girl
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Hello loves! Listen, I’m worried about you.
I read your Twitters and Facebook status updates, and occasionally peek at your blogs. And you know what? Y’all are way WAY too busy! I see a lot of posts about too many meetings, insurmountable to-do lists, and rushing about on weekends. I’m beginning to suspect that some of you have caffeine running in your veins.
Now you know I love you right? So this is not a critique. I mean, we are all just trying to work it out with the smallest amount of fear and trembling possible. You’re doing your best. But if you feel like your adrenaline is constantly pumping because you can never get enough done then maybe, just maybe it’s time for an little Magpie Girl intervention.
So let me say this about that, there is no way you can shuffle your current schedule around to make things fit. You cannot fit two gallons of water in a pint glass. You’re just going to have to Do Less. I know it feels like you can’tdo less. I know it feels like you HAVE to to everything on your list and more. But I can virtually promise you that this is not the case. I think we can help each other through this.
Are you practically salavating right now? Are you simultaneously wildly hopeful and scared shitless? I thought so. Then this Do Less thing is for you.
So here’s the deal, beginning this month I am going to write a series of posts on how to Do Less. I’ll start right now, with this guest post on What the Danes Taught Me About Finding Balance over at Starshyne Productions. Just breathe into that one for a minute, and while it may not have all the answers for you, if it is speaking to your heart trust that you’re on the right track.
Then tune in on May 15th for the plan of action. Some of it will involve this book, which you can order or dowload on Audible.com. If the thought of having ANOTHER unread book on your bedside table causes your chest to sieze up, don’t worry, if you don’t have to read/listen to it — you can still play along. There will be lists (I LOVE lists) and then smaller lists and then you will emerge this concentrated powerhouse of focus with a Zen like ablity to float. Okay–maybe not that great, but you’ll feel better.
What do you say? Wanna play? Great! See you on the 15th.
P.s. Are you already playing along with Soultribes? Guess what, this will help. It’s hard to make space for soulsiblings when you are spininng around like the Tazmanian Devil. So ask your gut if you should play here too, and trust her answer. Love, R.
Minutes from the Secretary: On truth, audience, and the allocation of energy.
NB: Hi everyone. I’ve made a fast and dirty podcast of this post with my silly little microrecorder. It might convey my inention a little better than words on a page alone. Cheers, Rachelle
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So, I wrote this article about my Easter discomfort, and it threw me into two worlds. The first world is the one I adore, where recovering evangelicals and other misfit truth-seekers cling to each other and celebrate discovering a (rek)new(ed) way to be. The second world is the world of religious debate, in which people–people who I like and respect and admire–spend a great deal of time trying to convince me that ”we” are wrong and “they” are right.
I get why this is. I get that in the evangelical/fundamentalist world view, there is a Right and a Wrong and never the twain shall meet. Furthermore, for these folks getting things Right is highly valued. In part, this is because not getting it right results in not being right with God, and ultimately in a really long stay in Hell. So it stands to reason that people who hold this worldview want to debate with you about the places where your ideologies and their ideologies do not match up. Of course they want you to come to The Right. They like you. Maybe they even love you. They want you to fix your thinking because they care. They really care.
The problem with this is that we are experiencing cross-cultural dissonance here. Because in the post-modern world, there is not a Right and a Wrong in the same black-and-white sense that there is in modernist country. In the post-modern world truth is not seen as a concrete, attainable goal, but as an intriguing, slippery beast. To post-moderns there is more than one true way of answering the same question–and so the questions, and not the answers are tantamount. In the post-modern zeitgeist, this is fine, because you can hold two different truths in one open palm. But in the modernist milieu, that is not an option.
So, to use a phrase of my father’s “Let me say this about that.“….My target audience is this post-modern group of malcontented seekers. Malcontented Seekers. I know it’s an awkward phrase, but both of these words are important here.
Malcontented: by which I mean “requiring change, discontent.”
Seekers: by which I mean “not willing to stay in the discontent, but being eager to create/discover something proactive and positive, something (re)new(ed).”
I have readers who are modernists, and I thank you for being here. But I’m asking you to please remember that you already have a place to belong. A place to live out your beliefs. A place where others share your convictions. It’s a super well established place with lots of support for your way of being. You can live there in comfort. But the others–the malcontented seekers–not so much. They are out there on their own: beat up and disoriented; hungry and eager; excited to find something new, and more than a little bit sad that they had to leave the former behind. It’s a difficult place to be. And these folks, they need a safe place, and they need to find each other. That’s what I do here. It’s what I strive to achieve. That is mycurrent calling.
So, if you are one of those lucky folks who live happily in a safe and content place; one of those folks who know the Truth and the Truth works for you; if you feel confident in your understanding of things like Jesus, and Easter, and Sin and Redemption–I’m happy for you. Believe me, we all sometimes wish we were there with you. But we aren’t, and we literally cannot be there again. So please try to understand. We aren’t rejecting you. We aren’t trying to pull you out of what you know, or convince you that you are wrong and we are right. But your language is no longer our language, your culture is no longer our own, and the basis for how you form your understanding of the world — the idea that the Bible holds all the answers, or that faith is cut-and-dry, or that all our holy stories are literally true–these things are no longer bedrock for us. So we may miss each other a bit, we may not always connect. And that’s okay. We can still be significant one to another. But we need you to let us explore.
What this means for me, personally, is that I won’t always respond to all the comments from modernist Christians. I just can’t. I’m a chronic pain survior, I’m the mother of several, and I’m an ExPat trying to live in a foreign and difficult (for me) culture. That doesn’t leave a lot of energy for me to play with. The energy I’m left with I am JOYOUSLY compelled to give to my malcontent friends and soulsibilings who’s questions lead them to seek truth in the margins. These are the edge-dwellers and my passion leads me to them — leads us to each other. So their thoughts and concerns will get the bulk of my time. I hope you understand.
That being said, thank you for all who have commented here, and on BlogHer, and on Twitter, and especially on Facebook, where the discussion is the most active. I appreciate your passion, your concern, and your gorgeous hearts and minds.
And to those of you who have come to those same places to be pissy, or sad, or curious, or hopeful, or all of the above–I am so, SO glad you are here. I know that together we can form a giant pool of wisdom that will allow us to create a way of living that doesn’t do damage to our souls. Come join me on the picnic blanket, and bring your most favorite passions–especially the one’s you’ve had to keep under that mattress until now. We’re going to have fun!
Karin and Lindord my friends, play us out, will ya please? …..
Next up at Magpie Girl: On authenticity, niceness, and the benefits of being pissy . :-)
The Blessings
i promised to stop adopting teenagers, but they keep slipping into my heart…
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I love these young ones so much it’s ridiculous. Each one has crawled into my soul in a different way, and while at times this process splits me open, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
There’s a scene in the Princess Bride where a funny old crone makes a pill for new life, and she paints something on it croaking: “The coating makes it go down easier.” I want to wrap my arms around each of these precious ones and let my heart for them coat them like chocolate –one long-lasting dose of mama-love to help the new life of adulthood go down a little more smoothly.
I want wrap them up with affection. With warmth. With stability. With all the elements of unconditional love you can think to put on a menu. And then, when they are all warm and cozy, I want to drop integrity into the center of their chests, like a silver quarter slipping into a coin slot.
If they have integrity then all thier live-long days they will be the stellar creatures they are already becoming. Not integrity to the rules, but the kind of integrity that allows you to acknowledge who you truly are, and stand in that truth. The kind of integrity that is not beholden to outside rules, or your peer’s opinons, or because of ‘the way it’s done’– but because of a solid internal compass that will not steer you wrong if you listen. The kind of integrity that lets you live a life on the outside that is true to the life you hold in your heart. If they have that, well, they will have everything they need.
So that is what I bless them with, in my dreaming, in my words, in my living. And the old Christian mystic who married that witchy little crone in my soul says, “Amen, may it be so.”
“Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid”
-Basil King
Choosing the Beast
9.20.08 Update: This is now up in essay form as well…just scrolll down.
This is something that came to me today. It will be up in a day or two as a text post. But for now, I think it wants to be just sound. I’m sorry it doesn’t look prettier. If anyone can tell me in simple terms how to change the code so this is an embedded file that doesn’t have to open in a new window I’d appreciate it. Until then, thank you for listening as-is. Oh, and please say nice things, or at least that you listened. Podcasting still feels tender-new to me. Tak.
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Choosing the Beast
I sat in silence for the first time in a long time today. No television on as background noise, no music, not even the warm tumble-thump of the dryer. Just the candles and a tub full of warm water, and the sounds of my noisy mind slowly settling into stillness.
There is a way of holding still without becoming stiff that only happens for me in the womb like waters of a bathtub. As I have no bathtub here in my Danish expat home, this watery stillness is a much longed for and uncommon occurrence. Today, in my borrowed claw foot basin something came to my side. A revelation:
The choice to love, to really love, is incredibly, ridiculously brave.
It is not a surrendering of self but rather, a time when you scramble a bit to find your footing, and then you stand in your own power and look the Vast Beast in the eye and say, “I choose this.” I choose this thing that can both protect me and tear me apart; that can and will bring me my most enthralling joys and my most excruciating and unanticipated pain. I choose the risk. I choose the possibility of endings. I chose to be as simpatico as old souls and to be equally, heartrendingly misunderstood. I choose to be at intervals rashly taken advantage of and unexpectedly worshipped. I choose this terror and this beauty. I choose love.
There are many times when we step into this place of love in naiveté—in the blithe flush of new crush and happy mutual adoration, blissfully unaware of the awe-full power we are inviting into our lives. We do this when we marry; when we choose our children; when we accidentally fall in love with a jubilant soul, with the idea of beauty, with wanting to be a writer or a painter or a poet; with a country we did not even know was part of our bones. When this happens, we live in that place for awhile with ease and contentment, unable or unwilling to see the depth of the pact we have made, not acknowledging that some part of our soul was the currency used in the bargain. Sometimes this joyride continues through the long luxurious length of our journey. But more often the fearful awesomeness of what it really takes to sustain the choice to love looms in front of us and we find that we must be very brave. Brave enough to say, “I choose this still.” Brave enough to stay the course, to maintain the bond even when it becomes painful to do so. Brave enough to say I will bear the ache of watching you grow up, of watching you be sick, of watching you grow old. I will bear the confusion over what to do, over how to love you best. I will love you through this whirlwind, through this firestorm. I chose this beast called love.
I am in a place right now where I must very intentionally choose to love: to love people who are far away; to love my challenging tween and teen; and most challengingly to love my own ill and tired self. And I am watching others commit brave acts of love: surrendering to a first love; watching someone die; tending to a baby soul born at midlife; loving someone through the sickness part of “in sickness and in health.” These acts, these making of stands on the high ground of love are so real, so raw, so terrifyingly powerful they make me want to shield my soul from the solar-flare burst of it all.
But I won’t. I don’t. Instead I stand in the choosing. I stand in the heart of the flame and I try to remember, “if you are never afraid you can never be brave.” And then, I chose love.
Sacred Sunday: Hewn
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Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek God
Look to the rock from which you were hewn,
and to the quarry from which you were dug.
Look to Abraham and to Sarah who bore you;
For they were but two when I called them,
but once I blessed them they multiplied.
God will comfort Zion; God will comfort all her waste places,
God will comfort all her mounds of ruins.
I will transform her dead ground into Eden,
her moonscape into the garden of God,
a place filled with exuberance and laughter…
This was the lectionary reading from Isaiah this Sunday. When I heard it read aloud in the clipped Danish accent of Hanna, my sister in liturgical ministry, I was immediately transported back to Stonehenge, where I lay my hand upon an ancient heel stone. It made me think of my ancestry, held in ancient stories, and of my—of our—deep connection to the earth. These words and this memory released inside me a wellspring of gratitude for the very real connection I have to such an ancient heritage.
When I returned home and read the text again, I was struck by the feminine language that Isaiah uses for Zion. This is a word which has many meanings, but perhaps most meaningfully to me is how it holds the idea of homeland–the physical or metaphysical place in which we find our source, our identity and our solace. It encouraged me to know that this ancient statement of true things, this old poet’s tongue, still stands. It is an affirmation to me and to my soulsisters, known and unknown, who are feeling as though bits of them have been converted in mounds of ruin–who feel as though they are living in wasted places.
As my dear Jen always says, “Whatever you do hold on to hope…that this is not the end of your story.” Our sisters, our mothers, our ancestral Sarah’s, have been holding on to the hope that the homeland of our hearts and hearths would be comforted—would be made into gardens like unto Eden. Whatever you do today, in whatever way you can, hold on to hope—like a seed in your palm, like the scrap of a fortune cookie paper cupped in your hand. For this is not the end of our story, but the very place from which it is born. Amen. May it be so.
click for more podcasts: Beaches and Bodies, The Care and Keeping of Sacred Stories.
click to learn more about Sacred Sunday.
The Care and Keeping of Sacred Stories
editor’s note: the closing blessing in the audio version is attributed to clarrisa pinkola estes as below
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Since I’ve let the cat out of the bag regarding what I truly believe about sexuality and faith (or at least some bits of it) women are finding me anyway they can. Through the comments and contact info on this site, via facebook and twitter, even in my flickr mail. Not to argue with me, or to tell me I’m wrong. But to give me the gift of their stories. Stories about receiving messages of shame regarding their bodies. Stories of regret regarding about not having sex, or feeling bad about it when they did. Stories of pain and loss and confusion. And best of all, stories of recovery and hope.
Dear ones, we must to do something about taking care of all these precious stories.
My soulsister Jen Lemen has embedded the importance of stories deep in my being. Like her, I am “helplessly in love with the idea that stories can change you and me forever.” Furthermore, this I believe: it is within our power to allow our stories to shape us for the good, to bring us healing, and to draw us towards shalom.
I am still relatively new to this world of stories and am I’m learning to harness their redemptive power. Still, I am sure, that together we can we can hold these stories “in all tenderness,” and let their power sing from the rooftops.
So here friends, is what I know right now about telling stories:
• Embody your stories. Write them in a journal; capture them in images torn from magazines and picture books; jot them in lines of poems; create them in smears of color; or distill them into lists of words. Just sit down with a pen, or a keyboard, or a paintbrush and say “I don’t know, I don’t know…” until the knowing comes and the story flows. The first step is acknowledging they are real, that you are real.
• Name your stories. Give them titles and subtitles. Let them have a one-word identifier. Line them up in a number system. Naming is powerful. When we name something we can better hold it in our hands. When you hold a story cupped in your palm you can decide to continue holding it like a treasure –or you can let it slide past your finger tips and release it: to let it guide others; or to let it companion other story holders who have otherwise felt alone; or to watch slide away past your finger tips, because you no longer need to carry it.
• Speak your stories outloud. Let your voice sound out into an empty room. Tell a friend over tea. Record yourself on you cell phone’s voice mail. Giving voice, literally giving voice to your stories can be in turns affirming, empowering, releasing, and healing.
There is more here, waiting to be formed into words and continued into practice. There’s something about what to do with painful stories. How to say “this really happened.” How to know “I am bigger than this story.” How to let your painful stories catapult you onto bigger, better tales. I can’t quite get it into words yet, but it’s marinating. In time—with your help, with your stories and comments and ideas and intuitive know-how—we will find it together. In time, it will come.
Will you do this work with me? Will you be brave –a little or a lot—and let your stories sing? Start writing. Start blogging. Start painting. Start giving birth to the poet on your tongue. Start making lists of words you do not understand, drawing lines–literally, on the page with a marker, drawing lines–between things you did not know were connected. Start commenting. (Use a pseudonym if you want. I’ll screen all the comments. I won’t let anyone yell at you. I’ll do my best to keep your story safe.) In the worlds of my soulsister, “Something healing this way comes.”
I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you and that you will work them, and water them, with your blood and tears and laughter ‘till they bloom, ‘till you yourself burst into bloom.
-Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Eden on Art
Now that I have a digital recorder I’m going gaga making soundscapes, audio essays, and interviews. In one such interview, Eden chatted with me about living the artist’s life — specifically about quality control, mass production (pro or con?), and pricing your artwork for sale. There’s some really helpful stuff in there.
By the way, Eden is nine.
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It’s a little bit of a rough recording because I don’t know how to edit properly yet, but hang in through the not-too-long slower bits to catch Eden’s pearls of wisdom. In the recording I mention this product and this event, and Eden talks about my vintage collection which you can find here. Also, as a nice little tie-in I’m reviewing the band you hear at the end of the podcast in my weekly review over here. Happy listenting!
P.s. I’m a little shy about posting these podcasts, so if you feel like commenting it would go be ever so encouraging. And I promise to learn how to edit soon!
Beaches & Bodies
Cate’s summer knees on brilliant display.
There is a part of me that misses preaching, and another slice of my persona that desprately wants to be this guy. So here’s a little bit of both captured in my very first podacst — it’s me reading my latest blog post. It mentions a couple of things you can link to like Tweet and this charming get away.
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