I happen to be in one of those life phases where boatloads of crucial stuff is vying for my time and attention and it’s got me feeling like I’m being pecked to death by thousands of angry birds- a la Alfred Hitchcock. I know many of you are trying to jump start practices while juggling lots of other demanding things- so I figured I’d bare my big hairy demons for you all in the hopes that what I’ve discovered can help you with your own juggling act.

First, a list of what I’m juggling. I’ll pretend it’s because it’s cathartic for me, but mostly it’s because it makes the Puritan genes in me feel like I’m a good person. For those of you whose family didn’t come over on the Mayflower the short version of the Puritan work ethic is: hard work + productivity = I’m worthy of existing. So here we go:

• I’m a single mom to a two year old sweetie pie of a little boy.
• I’m going through a divorce. Those of you who’ve been there know this is good times.
• The majority of my work hours are spent on a consulting job for a non-profit in education reform. I’m the gal who’s re-vamping their digital life and helping them to build their tribe.
• I’m starting my third Rolfing practice from scratch in New Haven- NCBTMB exam, licensure, office space, website, marketing- it all must happen.
• I’ve got this little site, The Well Practice, you may have heard of it? This site is happily evolving along with my mission to help people to kick ass in their practices. Evolving so quickly that a total rebuild is on the horizon. Sure- no problem! (It’s going to be really freaking good though…)
• My free ebook is about to re-launch, and the manuscript for my printed book (aaah!) continues to be edited and re-vamped.
• I, with a few other good folks, am re-writing the Rolf Institute’s Practice Building curriculum.
• I’m consulting with a handful of fab wellness businesses to help them to spread the good word about what they do. (They’re all pre-launch, so I can’t give them a shout out yet)

Yay! I’m so busy that I must be a good person- one who is worthy of existing! Yippee! Now that my Puritan ancestors are nodding in approval, we can move on. (Provided you haven’t abandoned this page already because you decided you’ve been listening to the ravings of a madwoman).

After writing my multitasking post and taking my own advice, I was disappointed to find that the birds didn’t stop attacking. Even with tidy little time slots for my Stuff, the Stuff is still plain old overwhelming. (Hmmm, so I don’t have all the answers- dang!)

In the spirit of figuring out how to keep the birds from pecking me to death, I was inspired by Havi Brooks* to sit down and take a good look at what is clearly a stuck-ness for me. What I discovered was a surprise. The birds aren’t the Stuff. The birds are my own self-flagellating ways.

What kept coming up in my meditation was the relentless phrase, “I have to make progress.” As I sat with this phrase it dawned on me that I’m always having these internal conversations about what I need to “make” happen. Oy vey. The control freak in me seems to Never. Ever. Go. Away. God forbid I stop turning the handle that rotates the Earth- we would all surely perish.

This gets into the whole slippery business of what my friend Lissa Boles calls manufacturing vs. manifesting. When manufacturing we push, are exhausted yet wired, and feel like a flock of angry birds is following us everywhere we go. 

When we manifest we lie back on our couch, eat bon-bons, and stare blissfully at the ceiling until the Universe delivers our perfect life. Um, just kidding. But this is my constant fear about the manifesting route- that it requires a passiveness that will morph into gummy, sticky, inertia.

Herein lies the tricky balancing act. On the one hand is all the self-improvement stuff we’re constantly hearing in our type-A culture: “Kick ass! Work harder! Just do it! Push past the fear! Yeeaaaaaaah!” and on the other hand is the fear that the alternative is to waste away while we embrace receptivity- whatever the hell that means.

However, what if, with all of our work hard, kick ass stuff we’re actually creating the gummy sticky inertia? As Pema Chodron once said (I paraphrase): “self-improvement is a subtle form of aggression against ourselves.” Trying to improve ourselves implies that we’re not exactly big fans of who we are right now.

What if the self-improvement thing is actually the self-flagellating pain in the ass which- as with all pains in the ass- slows us down and creates the inertia we imagined was reserved for the manifesting route? What if receptivity- or manifesting- isn’t about lying back and thinking of England, but rather about remaining open enough that we can see opportunities, and do the work that’s in front of us with more joy and ease?

As I was forming this post in my mind over lunch, I opened a bottle of Honest Tea and the lid read, “No shade tree? Blame not the sun, but yourself.” I smiled peacefully and thought, “Ah yes, exactly what I’ve been realizing. I need to be my own shade tree. How wise and centered I am.” Then I burst into laughter because there I was back at self-flagellation again. The abbreviated quote does read, “Blame yourself” after all. Alas, it’s a work in progress- but at least I was receptive enough to notice the hilarity of berating myself for not being kinder to myself. Had I not been in a receptive mode, I would have missed that entirely and spun into a new batch of self-loathing. Ah delicious irony. Ah the perks of staying receptive.

 *Havi Brooks is a destuckification expert with an amazing and addictive blog. I’m convinced she’s a freaking genius. She also has a whole category for “not hating on yourself” I head over there when I need to stop the aforementioned hating on myself. I highly recommend.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 6:42 pm and is filed under For When You Feel Like You Can't Keep On Keeping On. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.