“The art of being yourself at your best is the art of unfolding your personality into the [person] you want to be… Be gentle with yourself, learn to love yourself, to forgive yourself, for only as we have the right attitude toward ourselves can we have the right attitude toward others.” ~ Wilfred Peterson

Self care is at the top of my personal resolution list this year – driven, in large part, because I fell so totally off the wagon between Thanksgiving and New Year’s and paid the consequences.

Now… when I am resolved, I tend to be RESOLVED…

I have an inner critic who reminds me a lot of Louis Gossett, Jr, in An Officer and a Gentleman. He is BIG; he is MEAN; he wants me to PULL UP MY BIG GIRL PANTIES and get my butt ON THE TREADMILL. He wants me to PICK THAT WEIGHT UP AGAIN!!

He is also into denial – NO sugar, NO wheat, NO chai tea lattes!

According to Lou, self care is about hunkering down and doing what’s RIGHT; it’s about DISCIPLINE and, YOU, GIRL (that would be me) NEED TO GET SOME!

Beginning this week, the plan was to be back in the gym – with a VENGEANCE!

So I went, full of grim determination and grit, my New England roots showing all over the place. I had an action plan in hand and I was going to follow it through to the bitter end.

But there was a problem…

(betcha didn’t see that coming!)

See – this grand plan I had made for myself, sitting in my cozy apartment with the Drill Sergeant yelling in my ear- it pretty much picked up where I had left off when I stopped running, which, when I’m really honest with myself, was around the time softball season entered into full swing… in other words, JUNE.

In the spring, I could run 6.5 miles at a 7 mph pace and feel successful and triumphant at the end. I was considering training for a half marathon…

6 months later, 3 miles at a 6.8 mph pace left me gasping for air and feeling like a failure.

Oooh, you should have heard Lou – I was LAZY and UNDISCIPLINED, if only I had STEPPED AWAY FROM THE DESSERT TRAY, if only I had been a better person ALL SUMMER LONG…

Which is where I called a halt to the beatings.

NO ONE – not even the meanest, most hard ass inner critic there is – gets to mess with softball.

Because, really, if I had to do it over again, I would still choose playing short center, sliding into third, drinking Mike’s Hard Lemonade on the bar patio after a tough won (or lost) game, and riding my bike home through the dark, quiet city streets over spending the summer in the gym.

Softball is fun and competition and companionship and a little bit of church all rolled into one… the treadmill is just… discipline.

And at the end of my days, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to wish I’d had less fun and more regimentation… so why am I trying to make it my life now?

So I took a big breath and a giant step back from all that self-berating and I re evaluated.

First, I had a big chat with myself (yet again) about the Perfection of Effort –

Being upset or disappointed with myself because I’m not where I could or should be fitness-wise doesn’t really help. And trying to stick to a plan that I’m just not up to is going to end with me dropping out all together, or worse yet and way more likely, sticking to it and getting hurt.

If I accept that I chose to make other things a priority over working out, and I agree that that was the right choice for me at the time, then I can accept responsibility AND treat myself gently.

Maybe self care doesn’t have to be about buckling down, and limitations, and denial… maybe it can be about expansion, and freedom, and affirmation…

The actions may look the same – I’m still going to not eat wheat, or sugar, and limit my chai tea lattes. I’m still going to go to the gym and I’m going to work hard…

But now I’m coming from a place of being ok where I’m at… of appreciating myself enough to want to take as good care of me as I would anyone else – which means good, healthy meals and enjoyable exercise that pushes me without killing me; it means enough sleep and a nap when I need one.

It also means embracing the joy and the fun and the grace that is always there for us – if only we loosen up a little and give ourselves permission to see it.

“Love yourself—accept yourself—forgive yourself—and be good to yourself, because without you the rest of us are without a source of many wonderful things.” ~ Leo F. Buscaglia

“Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.” ~ Hippocrates

“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” ~ Paul Boese

A year ago, I was a reluctant social networker… I didn’t want to be found; I had moved on from my past and become somebody new. I didn’t want to go backwards; I didn’t want to feel like I had to defend who I had been, or worse yet, have people expect me to still be that person.

But I joined Facebook anyway. Truthfully, it was because my softball league started a page and I wanted to support my girlfriend who was organizing it.

And, of course, the next thing I knew, I was getting friend invites from people I hadn’t seen in almost 20 years.

“She never talked to me in school, “I muttered, “Why does she want to be friends with me NOW?”

“He never said two words to me – does he even know who I am?????”

So I let those invites pile up… but the longer they sat there, the more anxious I became.

I found myself reliving old hurts and humiliations, stupid things I had said and done, embarrassments that almost a fifth of a century later still made my face burn with shame.

“They don’t know who I am; I’m not the same person I was then… I’ve grown, deepened, matured, mellowed… I am NOT the 8th grade Class Chatterbox anymore, DAMN IT!”

And then it hit me… yet another of my should’ve-been-obvious Cosmic Ah-Ha moments….

If, over the last 19 years, I’d changed…. maybe they had, too?

Maybe they wanted to discover who I’d become?

Maybe the only person hanging on to who I had been back then was… ME?!?!

oh

wow

I accepted all of those friend invites and have discovered – or recovered – some pretty amazing people…

I’ve also had my entire high school experience reframed – I’ve been reminded of kindnesses I did, and told that things I said back then made a difference. There have even been a few past crushes who admitted they’d been interested, too… even the bad boy down the street… 😉

I’ve worked really hard over the last 20 years to get to a point where I like who I am… but the truth is that the stamp of approval I sought was always mine to give… even in high school, I was ok – I just didn’t know it.

Now, when I look back, there’s no more pain, just empathy and compassion for that girl who, even then, was striving so hard to become…

In healing the past, I’ve freed up space for the future… and I have Facebook to thank for that.

Who’d-a thunk?

“The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it.” ~ Wendell Berry

“It is not irritating to be where one is. It is only irritating to think one would like to be somewhere else.” ~ John Cage

“Survey says American workers can’t get no job satisfaction; recession partly to blame.”

This was one of the headlines in today’s Chicago Tribune. Apparently, we, as a nation, are reporting record rates of job dissatisfaction.

The article goes on to talk about employees who find their jobs dull and the disconnect between the rate of inflation and workers’ salaries. For those who are interested, you can read the piece here:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-ap-us-unhappy-workers,0,3793430.story

But I think there’s another factor at play.

What I keep hearing over and over again from people in all kinds of professions is that they’re “lucky to have a job in this economy.” And they’re not incorrect.

But this isn’t an expression of gratitude; it’s an explanation for why they’re not leaving jobs that make them miserable or asking for what they need to make their work bearable.

I think we’re unhappy at work because, in the midst of these difficult economic times, we feel as if we have no choices.

I’ve worked jobs that I wasn’t crazy about, means-to-an-end kinds of jobs. And, for the most part, as long as no one was trying to force me into too small of a box by piling on rules the point of which I couldn’t understand, or demanding an intellectual/ emotional commitment I couldn’t, with integrity, give, I was fine to come in, do what was asked of me, make my money, and leave.

I was happy to sit in the corporate cage so long as the door was left open; I stayed years in jobs like that. But I warned more than one boss that if they tried to lock me down, I was likely to beat myself to death on the bars… and them with me.

And I meant it… being trapped in a job is a little like suffocating…

A certain amount of freedom seems to be a basic human need. Having choices means we have power over our lives. And feeling disempowered means feeling discontented… if we don’t feel we have any control over our work life, it’s no surprise that we are unhappy.

The truth is that there are always choices… powerlessness is a perception, and it has nothing to do with reality.

There are always means of improving where we are standing, alternative ways of looking at our situation… and if we can’t find our way through the fear and the despair, that’s when we need to call on our support system to help us see with new eyes, to recover the choices that can make all the difference.

“But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.’” ~ John Steinbeck (East of Eden)

“I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.” ~ Robert A. Heinlein

“We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched.  Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives… not looking for flaws, but for potential.” ~Ellen Goodman

A new year!  A new DECADE!!!!

Like a brand new notebook, time stretches on before us, full of possibility, just waiting to receive whatever wonders we will allow….

Like everyone else, I have a list of New Year’s resolutions aimed mainly at whittling away the holiday poundage and working on my overall health… gym time, vitamins, diet, a temporary suspension of all caffeine, wheat, and sugar…

But in addition to these “usual suspects”, I found myself writing a whole new set of resolutions… hopefully the beginning of a new way of being?

I thought I’d share… and I’d love to hear what lifestyle changes you’re choosing for 2010 and beyond….

1.  Put my self care at the top of my own priority list

I had to write the whole list out four times before this actually ended up in the #1 spot… oy!

The rest, in no particular order:

2. Laugh more & worry less

3. Trust more & analyze less

4. Risk more

5. Practice LOVE at every opportunity

6. Be gentle with myself and others

7. Follow my own bliss – actively participate in the things that make me happy… or may make me happy ☺

8. Experiment more – and be as happy to find out what I’m not as what I am

9. Set better boundaries & be more clear about what I want

10. Focus on the MIRACULOUS

11. Say YES to adventure & NO to anything that makes me feel drained and unbalanced

12. Be TODAY

13. Breathe more

14. Enjoy more candles, flowers, dancing, and MYSTERY

15.  Expect WONDER & ABUNDANCE

16.  Sprinkle JOY everywhere possible!

I know that some of these will be harder to keep than others, and there will be times when I’ll need to cut myself some slack… a little Perfection of Effort reminder will no doubt need to be applied to “sprinkle joy everywhere”… there are definitely going to be cranky days when I’ll be lucky if I can sprinkle anything…

But, I like the possibilities that open up when I think of living with these resolutions….

Potential… yeah…

“ ‘Where there is a will there is a way,’ is an old true saying. He who resolves upon doing a thing, by that very resolution often scales the barriers to it, and secures its achievement. To think we are able, is almost to be so, to determine upon attainment is frequently attainment itself.” ~ Samuel Smiles

“I do not know how anyone can live without some small place of enchantment to turn to.” ~ Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

“That’s the thing with magic. You’ve got to know it’s still here, all around us, or it just stays invisible for you.” ~ Charles de Lint

I was in desperate need of some magic this Christmas Eve.

I don’t know what happened… somehow, despite Thanksgiving to mark the beginning of the holiday season, the various parties, and my annual wrestling match with the holiday letter, Christmas itself crept up on me – or ambushed me… I kept thinking, “I don’t know how we got here so fast.”

There was need in the air, and, somehow, all those self care things that I know make such a difference had all been tossed to the wayside… I was burnt out trying to fulfill the demand.  I cried… a LOT…. not necessarily about anything in particular; it just seemed to take very little to tip me over into tears of one kind or another.

What?  You thought we healer types had this all nailed down?  HELL NO!  We’re caretaking human beings – our natural inclination is to give to others before we give to ourselves– it’s a constant battle to make ourselves a priority… this is why we understand so well when others struggle with the same issue – Pot advising Kettle, that’s what THAT is! 😉

So I was worn down, in need of a recharge, and scraping the bottom of the joy barrel just to get on an airplane and go home.

I have a memory of one Christmas Eve – in a church full of warm wood and candlelight, a beautiful soprano sings O, Holy Night – a musical remembrance of one of her own childhood Christmases passed on to me… it was magic…

And very few Christmas Eve’s have lived up to it…

But I needed this one to, and my need made me fearful.

I was afraid there wouldn’t be enough candles, that the music would be weird (the Unitarians are champions at pulling out obscure tunes that no one has heard since they were written),  that the choir would be off key (they frequently are), that the message would be focused on the ordinary (I love, Love, LOVE the minister, but I just couldn’t connect the year the sermon focused on her rain coat), that people from my past would, out of their love, make demands that I couldn’t fulfill.

And it made me – ever so slightly – bitchy…

I was still kvetching as we pulled up in front of the church… “I just need some f”ing MAGIC,” I growled for about the hundredth time.

The greeters at the door smiled and wished me a Merry Christmas.  One, who I’ve known since childhood, hugged me.  The hall was filled with soft beautiful piano music, and the flowers and evergreen branches scented candle lit space.

I closed my eyes and breathed.

And then the choir filed in… I inwardly cringed, setting my face in an effort not to react to the wrong notes I knew were coming…

But it was beautiful… simple… words of hope, and faith, and love, and trust that light would come again.

And I started to weep… I wept all the way through that first song, straight through the Alleluia, and into the first reading – done beautifully by a young woman from the congregation who is studying to be a minister, a young woman I have known practically since birth… I wept my exhaustion, my fear, my joy that this beautiful being had found her calling.

When the choir returned, I found myself profoundly grateful for the missed notes – they gave me a chance to pull myself together… oy!

“What is wrong with you?” My poor mother asked, both concern and a slight giggle dancing in her eyes.

And the sermon… all about losing touch with the season, about finding grace in the midst of things not going as we planned, of peace on earth, good will towards men, and, please, let it begin with me…

I wept – eyes streaming, nose running, not a tissue in sight… my mom leaned over and suggested I use my pashmina which almost reduced me to howling with laughter on the floor…

After the sermon, the offertory – I handed my mother a not insignificant amount of money.

“Oh, no!” she said, “I’ve got it.”

“Mom,” I replied, crying, giggling, snotting, “I needed some friggin’ magic, and I got it in spades.  Pay the lady her money!”

And I ran for the bathroom where I proceeded to cry a little more, use up all the paper in the stalls, replace all the rolls so no one would be left without, and then, hanging onto my emotions by the fingernails, return to the service just in time to hear Maya Angelou’s Christmas poem, which set me off all over again.

And finally, Silent Night sung while a flame was passed through the congregation.  Each person lighting the candle of the person beside them, till the whole room was alight, and each person glowed soft and beautiful… faces full of love, full of hope, full of faith, full of trust.

And mine among them.

My Christmas spirit, landing as most miracles do, just in the nick of time… a reminder that grace comes not so much when we want it to, but when we are in such need that we cannot help but surrender to it.

Grace… grace, at last this holiday season.

“Grace is the face that love wears when it meets imperfection.”~ Joseph R. Cooke