Time, Attention & Boundaries

Merlin Mann had a wonderful series up recently on making time for creativity. He makes many, many salient points. Although all of his points apply (check it out, it really is that good), one in particular really struck me as oh so appropriate for this particular rant.

“Embrace the disingenuous charge of elitism (or, as I prefer to call it, maturity) by not pretending that everyone is equally “special” to you. …Widen the channels to the people you adore, and never make them suffer [because of] your weird compulsion to wave at strangers.”

Yeah! Exactly! What he said!

At some level this should be a no-brainer. But I often find myself in situations where almost complete strangers demand more of my time and attention than I would actually tolerate from the people I love. Sometimes, they are not complete strangers, but because of the lack of a real and meaningful connection, they come very close to it.

To put it bluntly, I do not have sufficient time in my life to respond to everyone and everything that is screaming for attention. So I prioritize. I am more likely to respond favorably to requests for my time depending on the nature of the request and the level of our prior relationship. Seems pretty simple and straightforward to me.

A few examples might be helpful.

• Scenario 1: A person who has served with me in working groups, teaching teams and conference style discussion panels, calls and asks if I could offer her some career advice. We have a shared history and a friendly relationship. I respond warmly to this request.
• Scenario 2: A person who has taken a few of my classes sends me an email asking me for recommendations for further studies in a specific area. I remember him as a curious but committed student. I search through my referral lists and respond with suggestions.
• Scenario 3: One of my full-time students has an emergency and calls me for support. I cancel what I can of my plans and respond accordingly.
• Scenario 4: A person new to the DC area emails me asking for suggestions for getting involved in the local pagan community. I send him my standard email with helpful links to local sources of info and contact.
• Scenario 5: A community member writes to me and asks when I plan to teach a particular class again. I send them what I know of my upcoming offerings and reassure them of any future plans in that area.
• Scenario 6: A person writes to me asking me to teach/speak/attend an upcoming event. I check my schedule for availability and respond accordingly with either regrets or further questions.
• Scenario 7: A friend or colleague writes to me asking me to teach/speak/attend an upcoming event. I check my schedule for availability (possibly rearranging what I can) and respond accordingly with either regrets or further questions.

What these scenarios have in common is that the nature of the request is inline with the nature of our relationship.

But in contrast, consider the following scenarios.

• Scenario A: A stranger writes to me asking me to be their priestess/teacher/mentor/whatever. If I do not get an “uncomfortable” vibe from the note, I send them a link to Reflections, Connect DC, my standard spiritual counseling/consulting services list, and, if they mention being local, the standard email with helpful links.
• Scenario B: A community member writes to me asking me to be their priestess/teacher/mentor/whatever. I assume they are aware of my classes, rituals and mystery school.
  1. So if they have attended any of my classes or rituals, I might suggest they consider joining my mystery school. But I also check my calendar and if I can, I offer them a time for a phone chat or and in person meeting to discuss it further.
  2. But if they have not attended ANY (to my knowledge) of my local offerings, I send them my standard spiritual counseling/consulting services list.

And it is this last bit that recently bothered a member of my local community. Both scenario A and B-2 represent requests not in line with the nature of our current relationship. And because of that, I am less inclined to either make time in my already full schedule or offer one-on-one face time w/o some form of payment.

When I reach out to others, I try to be careful when asking for some of their precious time. For example, I am really happy with my current medical doctor, chiropractor, intuitive healer and massage therapist. And I have a warm relationship with every single one of them. But I would not dare just call them up and ask for some of their time without expecting to pay them.

I also have several very close friends who are fairly well known, extremely talented and even busier than I am. And even knowing that they *love* me, I am very careful with taking up too much of their time.

Hell, even in my family we ask, “Is this a good time?” when we call.

I don’t know. Maybe I *could* be a bit more accessible. But then I ask you this? What do I drop to make this a reality? Do I drop the time I dedicate to my full time students and initiates? Do I drop the time I set aside to check in with my colleagues and elders? Do I drop the time I set aside for teaching, counseling and writing? Do I drop the time I set aside for self-care and self-nurturing? Do I drop my business or my plethora of medical appointments? Or do I cease the methodologies and processes that allow me to continue to work while facing several long-term chronic illnesses? Because dropping something currently on my plate is what I would have to do to be more accessible.

The bottom line is this … I am not trying to be elitist or arrogant. I am trying to make sense of an already very full life that has several real physical and energetic limits. So I am truly sorry if the person from B-2 above was disappointed.^{Note 1.} But your potential or very real disappointment is not my metric in deciding how to manage my life.

In my mission statement, I state the following.

My mission is …
To share my gifts.
To actively participate in my own evolution.
To acknowledge divine mystery.
To experience the joy, sweetness and beauty of life.
To be willing to touch and be touched by the journeys of my loved ones.
To be grounded in the present moment with an open heart and mind.
To engage in radical self care.

This is my metric. And this … is my boundary.

Katrina

1. To be truthful, I did offer a free phone call for us to discuss exactly what she was looking for from me. But I suspect that because I listed my prices for spiritual counseling and consults, she was disinclined to go further.

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Second Quarter Progress Report

I was sooooo busy, I had to wait till I finished my series on using dreams and symbols to navigate your productivity before I could do my update.

So although I reviewed my second quarter in July, I did not write up this report till now. The first thing I noted was that I needed to drop several of my previous goals. Secondly, that several of my goals were essentially completed. And lastly, and this one is a biggie, I have substantially changed trajectory and I need to re-evaluate all my remaining annual goals.

I review my Long Term Goals every quarter. But I review my annual goals every single week. And the slow change in focus has been obvious to me for a while now. So of the goals that are left, I need to consider just how many of them reflect my current focus.

I could go back to my original annual goals list and modify it as needed. Or I could restart the process and determine new goals for the last six months of 2008. I have decided to do a little of both. First I have updated my annual goals list with the current status. Below are the remaining open goals.

Remaining 2008 Goals

I have added two major additions to my annual goals

• Teaching at Cherry Hill Seminary
• Active collaboration with P (a web guy) to produce major web site designs

Which when added to my existing major projects of …

• Psychology & Magick book proposal, final draft and literary agent
• 2009 weekend intensive for Presidents Day weekend 09
• Reflections Mystery School (+Plan 2009 school year & school portal upgrade)
• Connect DC (+Complete web site upgrade)

… gives me a rather full plate for the last half of 2008.

I am thinking with these major items on my already full plate, these two goals may be too much for me this year.

• Answer requests for short term Drupal assistance on local job boards
• Let more folks know that I am available for out of town classes, workshops, festivals and conferences.

But I will hold on to the following goals, since they represent items that could be generally seen as representing home, health and finances. And those three areas usually represent a challenge for me in terms of motivation and focus. Although I may trim back my list of home projects for this year.

• Walk 30 minutes three times a week
• Baseline weight closer to ~200 lbs
• Build up my cash reserves
• Will and Power of Attorney documents
• Repairs and reorganization – Maybe three items from the list below.
  • Kitchen (3 projects),
  • Bedroom (3 projects) and
  • Closet (2 projects)

The remaining goals concern advertising my classes, workshops and intensives. I will most likely advertise the annual intensive as planned, but I will reconsider advertising my regular classes. I will review this area again in September.

• Create a Reflections Mystery School brochure
• Advertise classes and rituals in local newsletters such as the Hill Rag, DC North, Takoma Voice, etc.
• Advertise annual Reflections intensive in regional and national publications

I have already dropped goals that represented my old business focus and goals that would be difficult to accomplish with the upswing in business and a full teaching schedule.

So now all that is left is rescheduling the remaining items and updating my project files.

Conclusion

I have accomplished an awful lot this year already. But if I did not review my annual goals and drop ones that no longer serve me, I would be setting myself up for disappointment. Because things have change substantially in my life compared to earlier in the year, re-examining my goals helps me to refocus the second half of the year.

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And Finally, A Dialogue

This is part five, the last part in fact, of an exploration into how I navigated a recent difficult period. The first in this series is, Distorted Nostalgia.

Dream: Walking a path underground that I usually walk above ground. I get lost at some point. So I come up but nothing is familiar. So I retreat underground trying different options. I think I run into this man who I am sure is not to be trusted.

I begin thinking about the beginning of this disease (CFIDS) and the kind of stress I was under at that time. And although I am not under anything close to that level of stress, it feels/felt like it.

My dreams point to my walking in the dark of the unconscious where I normally am aware and conscious. And thus when I finally come up – I am lost. And being in unfamiliar ground, I retreat into the unconscious.

So where am I, really. I hastily write out a list of all that is on my plate. As I survey the list, I notice two things. First, no wonder I feel so stressed. And secondly, it is all doable. I note the conflict between these two views.

“Who is that? Doable based on what? How do you get the idea that I can do all of this?”

“I just know … we, I mean , I can pull this off … if …”

If what? Nothing else explodes? Nothing else happens unexpectedly? No surprises? No disasters? What?

… if we, I mean I just do it …”

Just do what?

It ... y’know .. get to work …

That m’dear is a lie! It is not going to happen. I cannot just get to work! I am working as hard as I can already. I cannot just work even harder!

Why not? It is what we, I always do!

Yeah, but at what cost?

Then, then … I will have to let something go … so smarty pants, what do I let go?

Oh, this is painful! I do not want to let anything go.

So we are at an impasse then?

No. We are in the midst of a dilemma. We have a lot (some would say too much) on our plate. But we truthfully cannot bear to drop any of it. So we have a dilemma. What this calls for is creativity, not hard work. We/I already work hard, and so more hard work may not be the answer.

Because of the cost yes, but also we will learn nothing from it. And learning is my/our prime motivator.

And at that moment, my entire internal chorus finally reached an agreement. I had found my way back to my passion. Learning something new was something all parts of myself were keen about. So I hastily wrote down some ideas on approaching this issue. None seemed to fill the bill. So I took a break for lunch. As I munched on romaine and grilled chicken, something caught my eye on my list of projects. And then another item caught my eye, then another. I picked up my pen and some scratch paper … at the end I had a new view. I had laid out the original list into groups. Some had relationships between them which I noted by connecting lines and some had a natural hierarchy. By the time I finished, I suddenly understood the big picture in a way I hadn’t before. And I discovered something surprising!

Apparently, it was all doable. But what was required was not more hard work. What I needed, most of all, was space. I needed more air. I was too close to the work.

An air person needed more air. Aha! I was underground where I should have been above ground. I began laughing out loud. I was in my shadow element, I was ensconced in earth. Not the healthy earth of a balanced earth person, but the shadowy earth of an air person.

I breathed a deep sigh of relief. Who would of thunk it? Air!

Two weeks later …

I am still under a lot of stress, but it all seems lighter somehow. Like before, I am getting a lot done and some days are harder than others. But I am not burning my self out nor escaping into ice cream – my drug of choice. I am sleeping better and taking plenty of breaks.

It still cracks me up, that all I needed was some perspective. I needed to spread my wings, lift off and gaze at it all from thirty thousand feet.

Blessings from a Bateleur Eagle,
Katrina

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Runaway Child, Running Wild …

This is part four of an exploration into how I navigated a recent difficult period. The first in this series is, Distorted Nostalgia.

"Runaway child, running wild …
Better go back home … where you belong …"
Temptations, 1969

From my journal …

My niece, wearing a pink outfit, is throwing up and running away ... from me. She has a bruise on her forehead. We were traveling together, and at some point she returns from the bathroom without her jacket – also pink. When I inquire, she said that she had thrown up. “On your jacket?” “Yes.”

At a restaurant, the staff helps her to escape. At first I say fine and leave. But at home I looked over all I had acquired for her. They were all inappropriate for a fun loving child. They were weights and tools wrapped up to look like gifts. I realized that I wanted her back so I went back and demanded her return.

I sit with the first message from this dream. My child self is not happy with what I have been feeding her (throwing up) and giving her (weights and tools). She was mad about what she had to give up and finally ran away. And I was fine with it until I looked at what I had been offering her. Then I realized what I had done and what she really meant to me.

The second message in this dream was where she chooses to run away -- a place filled with food. Aha! My runaway child is placating herself with food.

There is definitely a pattern here. My fire self, [the one who interrupts my quiet moments with the flame of anxiety and tension] is overbearing and pushy. My water self is rebellious and running wild. Ai yi yi, something has to give.

They are each overreacting, one to fear, the other to hunger. My fire self takes over at the first sign of chaos, loss of control and stress. I am afraid of losing ground to the chaos, the ten thousand things of life that haunts introverts like myself.

And whenever I succumb to the fear, a second reaction spills out due to my hunger for life itself. My water side rebels and starts me to binging to compensate – as if there will never be a chance again … to enjoy life.

Ah! The message of the dream I ignored comes dancing back before my eyes. I do not want to lose any more time, I feel like I have given up so much already, I do not want to miss out on the passion of living in the moment, not again, not anymore. I have been so sick for so long, enough with all this working hard all the damn time. And it does feel like a family curse, now that I think of it.

I sit with these realizations as tears well up and fall to my journal obscuring the words. When I can talk, I say out loud, “Please don’t leave me again … we will get through this together … I promise.”

Next … a dialogue … finally

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