Friday list #3 – Yay four and half steps!

Conflict-y Noticings

I was mainly watching things about emotions this week.

Things I noticed are:

Be careful of Hector Projector when both people are upset

It’s very easy when both people are upset to blame the other person. I mean, obviously what you’re doing is just a result of what they’re doing. They started it.

Thing is, they might be feeling the same.

Thing To Remember: See how I’ve contributed, even if I’m sure it’s the other person’s fault. It might help to minimise the unnecessary shouting.

Sometimes it’s difficult to notice that you’re feeling anything at all

Things that make me more quick to argue: being tired, being hungry and, I realised this week (again), being worried about something (see below).

When any of those are true, I need to give other people more slack, as, you know, it might just be me being grumpy.

Being gentle with myself helps

This week I had to do something connected with banking which I. Just. Dread.

I was already being not very present (see above), and I realised I was making things a lot worse by not only expecting myself to do the dreaded thing, but also expecting five other major things from me that day.

If a Person I Care About was going through the same thing, I would be advising them to be gentle on themselves.

Turns out that Life Coaching question #327 (‘What would you advise a friend if they had the same problem?‘ – I’m typing that in a really concerned-head-tilt voice. Obviously.) is actually pretty effective at times.

Huh.

Sometimes, even when you know you’re feeling something, it’s difficult to know what you’re feeling

I cleared away some of my desk clutter (well, moved it anyway) and had a big old rolling emotional reaction come up.

I had to really sit still and pay attention to realise that it was fear I was feeling, and even more of ‘What does this remind me of?’ to realise it was fear of being vulnerable (physically as well as energetically).

Stuff piled around me (and, by extension, the fat that Chip referred to last week) = protection.

Now, I should have known this as I trained as a professional space clearer with Karen Kingston, the queen of energetic clutter clearing, but, you know, we forget.

Triggers triggers triggers

In the spirit of getting conscious of When It’s Me Rather than Them, here’s a partial Trigger List:

~ Things coming at me from behind in the dark
~ Being patronised
~ Being thought of as clumsy/hapless
~ People I Care About being depressed

I’m predicting that if I know about these and remember them, it might help to keep things in perspective.

Also, you know exactly how to pick a fight with me now.

Be nice.

Opening is a big part of meditative Buddhism

I’ve been reading some Cheri Huber and some Pema Chödrön and there is a lot of talk about opening not closing. I’ve never really noticed that before. Might be some good advice there if I go and look for it.

Pema Chodron gave me my favourite quote for the week

I’ve been listening to a lecture she has made about shenpa – the part of thoughts that hook you out of the present moment.

Pema has the combination of humour, self-deprecation and depth of knowledge that mark out a real teacher (for me).

My favourite quote from the lecture is about how, no matter how much we want radical immediate transformation in our self-work, that it actually happens very gradually:

Five steps forward, five steps back.
Five steps forward, four and a half steps back.
Yay! Four and a half steps!

In-other-news noticings

Now people are reading, The Expert wants to write

Or rather, he doesn’t want to write as anything I think of isn’t expert-y enough. As predicted. Well, I’m hitting Publish on this baby, whether you like or not, Expert Guy. Ha!

I really love learning from a teacher who talks about how they failed miserably

When Pema Chodron talks about how she still gets pulled into thoughts after 30 years of meditation, and how she went into emotional craziness when someone hit on a core emotional issue for her, it actually increases the credibility of her teaching, and reassures me, rather than discouraging me.

Expert Guy – I’m looking right at you.

Tiny steps help when I’m procrastination

When I had to do the Dreaded Bank Thing, I realised I was spinning my wheels. So, somehow, I remembered tiny chunks.

This is writing everything down in, well, in tiny chunks:

Find address. Type address in. Cut and paste numbers in. Format numbers… Find envelope. Address envelope…

Then I work with one thing at a time. Gives me instant feedback, and keeps me on track.

Yay tiny steps.

Nigella recipes in Singapore? Hard.

Can I get a raw ham to make Nigella’s Coca-cola ham for Thanksgiving-Christmas-in-November? Can I buggery.

My natural colour choices? Waldorf school.

I was planning my next knitting project and found myself craving rainbow-dyed wool.

Not only do colour-graduated-stripes look cool, but they, scarily, keep my attention whilst I’m knitting (How will the greeny-bluey wool combine with the rainbow colour now? Oop… here comes orange!).

A Person I Care About said the swatch was very me.

Maybe it’s time I embraced my inner Steiner School Teacher.

Things that deserve their own posts:

~ Shenpa and how it helps to catch closing in the moment
~ Prefighting – how to shortcut a fight before it happens
~ How the silent argument in your head makes the shouting argument much worse

***

That is all. Well, it’s not all, but it’s all you’re getting.

Hitting Publish… NOW.

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