Think about this: I'm running teleclasses about the subject of Resistance (and enjoying them!) but I won't write the newsletter that will announce them! Fortunately Andrea is notifying the Success Team Leaders and I've notified the 35 or so people who were on the Scanner Retreats in Corfu with me in September and October, so people are showing up. But I am watching this unexpected level of resistance with some surprise, not accustomed to feeling a 2-year-old child's level of stubborn, determined, heels-dug-in resistance toward writing the newsletter! No! I will *not* eat my spinach.
I might try to set some possible solutions in place, for example, perhaps omeone else has to write it first, badly, so I become impatient and superior and go about correcting it, and that might get me into the cold water. Once I'm splashing around the problem should be solved.
Or maybe I'll pull out an old one and use it as a template, deleting the content of each section and replacing it with something else. If someone reminds me. If a group of people are hanging around at work waiting to receive it at 5 p.m. so they can go home. If you hold a gun to my head. I don't care, said Pierre.
This is not completely new. I remember my son Matthew, in his teens, tacking a stuffed toy moose to the kitchen door with a sign reading "Write or we kill the moose!"
I should also be recording the rest of the audio tips, and for some reason that avoidane feels different, not stubborn. I'm just dodging it, and for reasons that are easier to understand. It's a little stressful and kind of difficult, not really fun. But recycling the first 21 tips over and over is just so stupid. I have all the equipment. It's easy to set up and maybe that will work for that particular problem.
I'm continuing to be very bad about these things. I guess I'm going to have to interview my Inner Brat.
On the other hand, yesterday I started a HUGE number of blogs, finally, some for projects I want to do, some for love and fun only. I was resisting that for years, and finally was rescued by technology (not for the first time!) because blogger finally took 99% of the frustration out of it, and now it's almost entirely rewarding. Thank you, blogger! I've been tackling blogs at least once a year since you first started, and got nowhere. Now it's actually entertaining!. And some of the blogs might help me overcome some of my resistances.
(Like the kilimwomen too blog might help me with the almost as stubborn resistance I have about sending out photos and describing the meaning of the symbols and the amazing yarns and the Fair Trade, etc. of kilims to help them sell for Xmas.)
I'm good at helping people break through resistance but I have turned out to be a very bad role model, to my shame and surprise. I can pretend it's good and use myself as a guinea pig, like a responsible scientist, but truth is, I should be doing better at this.
Well, dear reader, as my mother used to say, "Don't do as I do, do as I say." That may not be fair, but it's very wise advice. Save yourself! On these issues I'm hopeless and deserve to fry in hell.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Solutions for Indecision from Water Babies
In the land of Hearsay, Tom (the hero of The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley, serialized in England in the 1860's) meets a a giant who is also a naturalist: 'He was made up principally of fish bones and parchment, put together with wire and Canada balsam; and smelt strongly of spirits, though he never drank anything but water; but spirits he used somehow, there was no denying it. He had a great pair of spectacles on his nose, and a butterfly net in one hand, and a geological hammer in the other; and was hung all over with pockets, full of collecting boxes, bottles, microscopes, telescopes, barometers, ordnance maps, scalpels, forceps, photographic apparatus, and all other tackle for finding out everything about everything, and a little more too.'
The giant, obviously a kind of Scanner, has a motto some of us might find useful:
'Do the duty which lies nearest you, and catch the first beetle you come across.'
This is something I have incorporated into my methods for overcoming my resistance to organizing or tidying tasks. When things pile up too high, when I don't know where to start, I work my way around a room, arbritrarily starting on the right and choosing a table or chair or horizontal space full of clutter to clear. I take each thing on that nearby piece of furniture (or floor!) and put it away or throw it out (I give myself extra points for anything I throw out).
If my head is clear, I can find the place where each thing belongs, a home I've set up for it, and take it there. But sometimes I haven't gotten a place ready, haven't even considered it, just assuming that some things--postcards, gift books accompanied by kind notes from their authors, a beautifully colored little piece of cloth--will never have a home because I can't think of a category or a container for them. Maybe I'll find a special basket or drawer for all of them (as soon as I can figure out what to call them).
Sometimes, however, I do a very strange version of 'doing the duty which lies nearest me and catching the first beetle I come across' and I call it The Walkabout. I take an item, say a spoon, from my bedroom and walk it into the kitchen and put it in the sink to wash later. Then I look around for something that doesn't belong in the kitchen, say, a DVD sitting by the radio, and carry it into the room with the DVD player and place it in the right box. Once in that room, I look around for something that doesn't belong, pick it up and carry it into another room where I put it away.
I do a lot of walking (ergo the name 'Walkabout') have a lot fun, often finding little things I forgot I had, sometimes spotting something clearly that had successfully hidden in plain view from me for weeks--like a pile of magazines I know I won't read--and triumphantly carry them to the trash. While this is entertaining, it has its limits so i usually have a time-limit in my head, say 15 or 20 minutes, before I stop and do something else. Also I frequently have music or talk radio playing to keep me from getting bored (but I recently had to buy a number of inexpensive little radios for each room so I wouldn't get captivated by some discussion or piece of music and begin dusting or cleaning one place instead of continuing to walk from room to room.
Cleaning up has its satisfactions, a sparkling kitchen sink, a spotless floor, but anyone can do it, usually better than I and it always seems more temporary than de-cluttering. And putting away the items I've packed and unpacked, carried and scattered all over the house is a job of decision-making and choice, naming and finding proper containers for, a constructive and creative process no one can do with me things, but me.
The giant, obviously a kind of Scanner, has a motto some of us might find useful:
'Do the duty which lies nearest you, and catch the first beetle you come across.'
This is something I have incorporated into my methods for overcoming my resistance to organizing or tidying tasks. When things pile up too high, when I don't know where to start, I work my way around a room, arbritrarily starting on the right and choosing a table or chair or horizontal space full of clutter to clear. I take each thing on that nearby piece of furniture (or floor!) and put it away or throw it out (I give myself extra points for anything I throw out).
If my head is clear, I can find the place where each thing belongs, a home I've set up for it, and take it there. But sometimes I haven't gotten a place ready, haven't even considered it, just assuming that some things--postcards, gift books accompanied by kind notes from their authors, a beautifully colored little piece of cloth--will never have a home because I can't think of a category or a container for them. Maybe I'll find a special basket or drawer for all of them (as soon as I can figure out what to call them).
Sometimes, however, I do a very strange version of 'doing the duty which lies nearest me and catching the first beetle I come across' and I call it The Walkabout. I take an item, say a spoon, from my bedroom and walk it into the kitchen and put it in the sink to wash later. Then I look around for something that doesn't belong in the kitchen, say, a DVD sitting by the radio, and carry it into the room with the DVD player and place it in the right box. Once in that room, I look around for something that doesn't belong, pick it up and carry it into another room where I put it away.
I do a lot of walking (ergo the name 'Walkabout') have a lot fun, often finding little things I forgot I had, sometimes spotting something clearly that had successfully hidden in plain view from me for weeks--like a pile of magazines I know I won't read--and triumphantly carry them to the trash. While this is entertaining, it has its limits so i usually have a time-limit in my head, say 15 or 20 minutes, before I stop and do something else. Also I frequently have music or talk radio playing to keep me from getting bored (but I recently had to buy a number of inexpensive little radios for each room so I wouldn't get captivated by some discussion or piece of music and begin dusting or cleaning one place instead of continuing to walk from room to room.
Cleaning up has its satisfactions, a sparkling kitchen sink, a spotless floor, but anyone can do it, usually better than I and it always seems more temporary than de-cluttering. And putting away the items I've packed and unpacked, carried and scattered all over the house is a job of decision-making and choice, naming and finding proper containers for, a constructive and creative process no one can do with me things, but me.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Like, I won't do the newsletter -- or the kilims
I'm concerned only with the avoidance of things I really want to do, not things I'm supposed to do but just don't want to. To me this is most curious, and I've spent many years exploring this subject. I've never written a book that doesn't have a chapter called Resistance, and each book (there are 7 so far) has a different approach. And I'm like a heat-seeking missile when it comes to finding the source of resistance in others and coming up with a solution.
So I've decided to explore my own areas of resistance, because, embarrassingly enough, they surely exist. The biggest ones have been worked through, I think, and some interesting aspects (like being a 'Scanner'*
But I think I must try out my own techniques, and try out some of the techniques I find on the Internet, and develop some new ones, right here.
In my next entry, I'm going to explore what pushes me away from the newsletter (which includes recording the audio tips everyone likes so much) and selling the kilims.
* if you don't know what a Scanner is, see www.scannersrefusetochoose.com/boards or look at the explanations and comments about my book, Refuse to Choose, on amazon.com.
So I've decided to explore my own areas of resistance, because, embarrassingly enough, they surely exist. The biggest ones have been worked through, I think, and some interesting aspects (like being a 'Scanner'*
But I think I must try out my own techniques, and try out some of the techniques I find on the Internet, and develop some new ones, right here.
In my next entry, I'm going to explore what pushes me away from the newsletter (which includes recording the audio tips everyone likes so much) and selling the kilims.
* if you don't know what a Scanner is, see www.scannersrefusetochoose.com/boards or look at the explanations and comments about my book, Refuse to Choose, on amazon.com.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
