August 8, 2009 - I need help!

It’s 10:45 am. And I have to stop writing.

I went to bed at 2am and got up at 7. Chapter six has suddenly grown two other limbs and turned into chapters 6, 7 and 8. Six is now done, but seven and eight are morphing into unrecognizable masses before my very eyes. And I need help.

Here’s the part I’m starting to understand about writing.

If you let it take over, she will dominate your life much to the detriment of everything else. And right now, the writing has personified into a Nazi dominatrix, inflicting every manner of pain on me while cracking a whip over my neck and shoulders and whispering, “You like it don’t you” to which I gleefully respond, “Yes, oh writing Muse, YES! Give me more... more I say, MORE!”

Right now I’m fluctuating between writing at my desk and lying on tennis balls to take the knots out of my back and neck. I spent so much time on tennis balls in the last three days, I now have the equivalent of rug burns from those little yellow balls that are also, by the way, becoming bald from overuse - and I’ve never played a lick of tennis.

But this is a great trick if you’re suffering and can’t get to a massage therapist.

Lie on your back and put those little balls wherever you think the tension is greatest. When you scream, you’ve got the right spot.

And then just lie there until either you can’t feel it anymore (because it’s gone numb), or all bets are off and you’ve cried enough from the pain to fill your sink to do dishes in saltwater.

And if you have the kahunas, you can amplify your experience by angling yourself in such a way as to bear more weight on the round torturous objects beneath you.
But it works. Trust me, it works wonders if you can take it.

I must do this on a regular basis. Part of it is because I got whiplash (and squished a couple of vertebrae together in my neck) when I was about twelve. It was a riding accident. And every time I saw Superman Reeves in his wheelchair for the same accident that left me ambulatory but not him, I would think, “There but by the grace of God, go I”.

So what I go through is manageable. It sucks sometimes but I can handle it.

To some extent (and in some sick way perhaps), I’ve learned to embrace this experience. Do you want to know why? Because it’s not just writing at a desk that triggers it. If that were the case, my body would suffer evenly. But for me, it triggers an entire right side phenomenon.

My whole right side, from the top of my head to the tip of my toes, starts to go numb. Then it gets a dull throb and tightens up. I can’t feel as well on my right side, I can’t hear as well, I’m not as flexible and I swear there are more cellulite pockets on my right thigh than on my left. It’s really weird. And I think it’s because it lacks Chi.

But... I find when I’m fully relaxed, balanced and centered, it diminishes to an almost non-existent state. It’s amazing.

Which tells me - it’s a trigger. And a message. When it starts to escalate, it’s time for me to take a deep breath, take stock of what’s jamming me up and back the hell off.

So that’s what I’m doing. I’m backing off of the writing today. I’m recognizing that I’m jammed up, both creatively and physically and I need help.

It’s time to call...
My accountability partner.
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Entries August 5 - 7: A Secret Entry, Horoscopes, Excuses, & Freud

August 5, 2009 - secret entry

I’m noticing a shift - I can actually feel the fact that I'm holing up (for the sake of writing) while remaining positive about the possibilities.

And it feels good - even with the ups and downs a big writing project triggers. This year is my window and I must use my time effectively (she says to herself bravely and repeatedly throughout the course of each day).

But that doesn't necessarily mean everyone understands. It's something they'll have to get used to.

The boys get it - they like the fact that my life doesn't just revolve around them. They’re practically guilt-free (very unusual when you have a reformed Catholic for a mother). As for my accountability partner? She’s even stricter than I am about this little experiment. Bless her Olympic trainer heart.

But other people just don’t get it and I can feel the cold shoulder even when it’s draped like a sofa cover. And ever notice the same people who tend to give you the cold shoulder when you’re trying to achieve something out of the ordinary are also the ones who regularly embrace drama in their lives? And eat it up? What would life be without drama?

Bloody awesome, that’s what.

So I've decided to limit my interaction with such folks - even though I love them - because I need to sustain this energy as long as I can - like the rest of my life. Lucky for me, that accounts for a very small percentage of people. Very small. Tiny. Almost insignificant. They’re like ants.

And besides, I don’t do drama. I’m more of a comedy person. Drama is so yesterday.

Ever notice how some people are at their best when they see you working too hard or suffering because you’re overwhelmed, or in physical pain- like from migraines? Not that they want to see you suffer. And to prove it they will offer you that leftover T3 from last year’s root canal and give you a glass of Chardonnay to down it. But to some extent - even with people you know love you - misery loves company and they’re way more comfortable if you’re all in the same boat.

And if they like to gossip and you don’t? They pull a disappearing act and vanish faster than a prairie dog that spots a hawk right before your eyes because there goes your common ground.

And if you call them on it like a ref at a soccer game? It’s over before you know it like a day at the beach or good sex.

That's the only part of this whole thing that's tricky. And it's becoming impossible to deny the fact that I don't want to live my life with any more self-imposed limitations and no amount of bitching about it is going to change that fact.

Only 'doing' does the trick. And that seems to alienate some people.

You can find way more company if you only talk about what you want to do and about what bugs you. And though I think venting is an important part of being a healthy person (cause that's what I'm doing right now), an excessive amount of it never gets anyone, anywhere.

So I’m limiting my bitch sessions to five minutes.

And time’s up.
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August 6, 2009 - Horoscopes and other necessities

Yesterday I did nada. Nada damn thing.

Except go to the gym where I hurt my knees because apparently it’s not a good idea to do knee presses using one leg at a time.

Whatever.

But today I’m on it. And check out my horoscope!

Aug 6th, 2009 -- Restless emotions could raise your anxiety level today, but they might also be accompanied by a fantastic idea that has the potential to change everything. Don't worry about the details yet. There's no need to be concerned now with whether or not your stroke of genius will even work. Just revel in the light of your own cleverness and imagine how a clean break from your routine might feel.

Does that rock or what? And I always ignore the negative aspects of a horoscope. As a matter of fact I pretty much ignore the negative side of most things unless of course my life would be at stake if I didn't.

Just look at the two Cap images I've uploaded here. Guess which one I think I am? It's all relative darlin'. Einstein was right. You see what you want to see, you feel what you want to feel, and by golly if you think life sucks then it does.

So as far as I’m concerned ‘restless emotions and anxiety levels’ are living somewhere in Oz. Matter of fact, I don’t even open my horoscope if the tag line reads something like, A dark cloud hangs over you warning of impending doom. Frak doom.

Ever hear the song “I feel lucky” by Mary Chapin Carpenter? In the lyrics she gets up in the morning and reads the paper:

It only took a minute for my finger to find, my daily dose of destiny under my sign... My eyes just about popped out of my head it said, ‘The stars are stacked against you girl, get back in bed’ (chorus)... I feel lucky... oh oh oh... i feel lucky.. yeah. No professor doom’s gonna stand in my way.... yeah, I feel lucky today....”

Needless to say she plays hooky from work and wins the lottery.

That's how I feel.

And I know what you’re thinking. For your information I didn’t scour the web for my horoscope (thus breaking my rule of no more surfing the net looking at dumb stuff).
It comes daily to my inbox.

And it’s darn good thing too. How else was I suppose to know that I must “revel in the light of my own cleverness”?

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It’s still August 6th and only 9 am.

I’ve already checked my email twice. This information diet is going to take some discipline. Rats.

The good news is, I’m writing. Which reminds me...

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Aug 7, 2009 - Please excuse my excuses & Freud was weird

I got some writing done.

Sort of.

I edited my book proposal, reworked my table of contents and thought about writing more on chapter six.

Yeah, the writing sucked.

Yesterday was a 5 out of 10 kind of day. (I never dip below 5 - it’s bad for morale).

But, I had a tiny bit of a (somewhat) valid excuse... gee, I feel guilty even saying that. (Jack would not be pleased). Gulp.

At this point, if Jack were headmaster at a school for wayward girls in England and I was his student, he would take out a riding crop and rap me across the knuckles with the venom of a psychotic jockey pissed at his thoroughbred for losing a race. NEVER MAKE EXCUSES! he would say, wearing that gorgeous navy jacket he wears on the cover of his book The Success Principles. (And yer welcome for the plug dude.)

It’s against the first rule of following your dreams which is: take 100% responsibility for your life and everything that happens to you from now on.

Which really is a nice way of saying - get off the pitty pot.

Okay Jack, I will. After I wallow a bit in these feelings wondering if I’m good enough.

‘Cause today, I was distracted by those pesky things called memories. And not the good kind. And those were triggered by dreams. And not the good kind either. And it matters not what the content was, or even what the memories were. Because I know that Jack is 100% right.

But the fact remains that even though you can deny, transmute, change, alter, even fix everything you knew in your past, sometimes when issues creep in (like they often do in your dreams), it temporarily paralyzes you from moving forward. And the worse thing you can do, is deny it.

Rather than ignore what you’re feeling, your best bet is to accept it, let it wash over you and do something completely different to shift your energy. And it doesn’t have to be complicated. But doing something physical or outdoors usually does the trick.

So I went to a soccer game. Then for gelati. (Lemon and raspberry). It was the bomb.

It’s damn hard for me to escape my dreams. I remember them all. Thanks to Freud.

When I was about 14, I started reading Freud. Not such a good idea since alot of his theories revolve around subconsciously wanting to have sex with your parents. I couldn’t look at them for months after that. The sick bastard. “He used the Oedipus conflict to point out how much he believed that people desire incest and must repress that desire” (thank-you Wikipedia).

In any case, use what is useful and discard the rest right? So I discarded that part. But, he was pretty good at interpreting dreams using archetypal images and I for one, learned how to do that. He also taught a method for waking yourself up at night so you could write them down and proceed to analyze them in the morning. (And hopefully they weren’t all about wanting to have sex with your parents).

What he didn’t say was if you did this enough times (it took me about three months), pretty soon you wouldn’t have to wake yourself up but you’d remember your dreams anyway.

It’s like hitting the pause button on your dvd player because you want to get some Chubby Hubby chocolate covered pretzel ice cream with caramel and nuts before you get to the best part of the movie.

I can do that. With my dreams I mean.

I put my dreams away into a memory box that I can retrieve later for analysis. As a result? My sleeping moments are as full as my waking ones. That’s not always great. Sometimes sleeping wears me out. Especially those dreams where I’m Rambo.

And like I said, the content is irrelevant. What’s relevant is how quickly you learn to process that crappy feeling so you can get back to what you’re suppose to be doing. And that process is different for everyone.

You know what happens to me? My arms get heavy. They feel like lead. And I sigh alot. And when people ask me if I’m okay because my eyes look glazed over, I say “yeah yeah, sure sure” like some broken record.

Then, I usually try to ignore it and do some work. But that NEVER works. And if I’m smart enough to figure it out before bedtime, I can get rid of it pretty fast. Then I can get back to the business of being alive instead of a zombie.

Today, it took me about five hours to shake it off even after soccer and gelati. But I was good to go when I got home.

And that was good enough for me. Sometimes it has to be.

Part of this process is about being human.
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August 5, 2009 - The Information Diet Challenge

I’m sorry Tim. Really I am.

I’ve broken the cardinal rule of cutting out the fat in my diet - and I don’t mean diet diet. (That’s another story that practically needs its own blog). I mean information diet.

Useless, time-wasting, net-surfing information like who-is-George-Clooney-going-out-with-now-and-why-can’t-it-be-me? kind of diet. I mean, stop-checking-your-email-fifty-times-a-day-to-avoid-writing diet. Let me just check it once more IN CASE I MISSED SOMETHING SO VITALLY IMPORTANT THAT READING IT WILL HAVE A POSITIVE IMPACT ON TENSION IN THE MIDDLE EAST.

Uploading another pic on Facebook are we? from that birthday party we attended last year? You know, just in case that photo is the one that makes everyone think I deserve to be on the cover of TIME magazine as the world’s most interesting person?

And how are we feeling today? Make sure you let everyone know so they can get updates in their feed. Nicole is watching tv. Nicole is reading her book and enjoying the rain. Nicole is having the best day EVER (insert Valleygirl accent).

Nicole is this, Nicole is that, Nicole is going to lose her frakkin’ mind and fail her Six Month Experiment if she doesn’t adhere to a strict information diet!

TV was never the problem.

Streamlining those things that are time-wasters to free up real time to do more important things is the first thing Timothy Ferris talks about in his book. And he’s right.

And if you’re reading this and laughing, (yeah I’m talkin’ to you, you know who you are), then you know exactly what I’m talking about and that makes you just as guilty as me.

Don’t believe me? You’re reading this blog this aren’t you? Busted.

So starting tomorrow, I will reduce my email activities to three times a day (for my main account) and once a day for the others. I know what you’re thinking and don’t be so judgmental. That’s still like cutting out a whole pack of cigarettes for a three a day smoker.

And I will COMPLETELY eliminate surfing the net except for information that’s vital to the book. That's gonna hurt.

And I will reduce my Facebook activity to responding to comments and queries only. I will NOT go on there of my own accord.

(sigh) Everybody’s gotta start somewhere.

Back to the book...
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August 4, 2009 - I really worked on chapter six

I didn’t do a whole lot today.

I didn’t go to the gym. I didn’t clean my place or do errands. I don’t think I even cooked. And I sure as hell didn’t work on my spirituality unless you call mumbling Please God end this misery or shoot me now whenever I had writer’s block a religious experience.

But I did work on chapter 6. And I mean I really worked on chapter 6. It was a bitch, but after ten hours, I was in the flow.

One of those two guys - either Tim or Jack or maybe both, (I dunno and I’m too tired to care) - said that if you knew that you were only going to accomplish that one thing today (whatever it was you were doing that was occupying all of your time), would you be satisfied?

If the answer is yes, then you’re good to go because it means you have your priorities straight.

Well, I’m satisfied.

There’s still lots to do... but by golly, I’m satisfied.

August 3, 2009 - Not to Ayuhuasca, that is the answer

I have decided not to Ayhuasca. For now.

It came after I had a spiritual experience watching an all-day marathon of Cesar Millan, Dog Whisperer.

I’m sure by now you’re thinking that all I do is watch T.V. but I assure you that is not the case. It goes completely against any advice given by Ferris on reducing television intake to a maximum one hour a day as a means to unwind and I have no intention of contravening any of his recommendations (after all, he’s the one with the four-hour work week, not me). And he further recommends never, ever to make that hour of idiot box entertainment, the news. And FYI, Jack is of the same opinion. As a matter of fact a lot of happy, successful people are. (Notice how I didn’t just say ‘successful’)?

I don’t want to be a miserable, overworked success. I want to be a happy one with lots of free time.

So while it is commendable to remain abreast of what’s happening in the world around us (lest people think us callous, uniformed and barbarous human beings), subjecting ourselves to negative, depressing, chaotic, fear-inducing news, is not. If the news carried with it an objective view of world events, balancing good news with the bad, I might tune in once a week. But sadly, that is not the case because drama sells. And the more shocking the delivery, the better. Negativity in any form depletes your emotional resources and taxes your ability to remain focused. The solution?

Don’t watch it.

Ferris says if you want to know what’s going on in the world, just ask someone anywhere - a newsstand, by the office cooler, in the coffee shop - you’ll get an update of all the most important events in less than five minutes. People love to share how informed they are. In exchange, you’ll get the Coles Notes version of world events faster than you can sing the National Anthem. Think of how much time you’ll free up.

But watching an inordinate amount of television was never a problem for me as my standard M.O. is to watch less than an hour per day, if at all.

So where does the Cesar Millan marathon come in you ask?

Extenuating circumstances dictate there will always be occasion when rules are broken. Having a post-surgery house-guest with whom you sometimes ‘just want to hang out with while also being entertained’ is one of them. Let it go.

As luck would have it, in six hours, Cesar Millan and his dog-reforming, owner-training ways, reminded me of everything I needed to know to live my life fruitfully.

1. Leave the past behind. Animals do with each other. They don’t care if the dog next door or the one they share space with was a victim of abuse. As far as they’re concerned it’s just another dog. So they never, ever suffer from a symptom that people often do - enabling others (and therefore disempowering them) because they feel sorry for them. Animals don’t feel sorry for each other. They just react to the energy the other animal projects. If it projects a victim mentality, then that’s how they treat it. The past does not exist. Don’t be a victim of it. And don’t keep the story alive that helps others to remain a victim either.

2. Live in the moment. Whatever happened five minutes ago is OVER. Let it go. RIGHT NOW is a new beginning. Just because you failed to do something 5 minutes ago, 5 days ago, 5 months ago, or for the last 5 years, doesn’t mean you’re going to fail at it now. A dog who has been misbehaving for years can behave differently now because he doesn’t carry baggage with him, owners do. Live each day as if you’ve never failed in the past. And never believe rumors. An old dog really can learn new tricks.

3. Be calm and confident. Conduct yourself with dignity at all times. Dogs feel everything you feel about yourself and respond in kind. People will too.

4. To be fulfilled, every dog must be what it was born to be and every owner must support its true nature. If it’s a shepherd, it must expend energy in a manner that satisfies those genetic instincts. If it’s a guard dog, it must be calm enough to discern real danger from people just passing by. Discover what you were born to do, pursue it, and surround yourself with people who support and understand you.

5. Be the Alpha dog. (‘Nuf said).

While trying Ayuhuasca may prove to be an amazing experience, it is not a necessary step to fully embrace my Six Month Experiment.

But Cesar’s Millan’s wisdom is.

Repeat after me:

I am an Alpha dog that lives in the moment. I display a calm and confident demeanor, leaving old patterns behind. I am pursuing what I was born to do with no reservations from past failures because the past does not exist. I surround myself with people who love, understand, and support me in my quest to be fulfilled.

And if they don’t, frak ‘em.

Thing accomplished today:

1. I worked on chapter six (finally - wahoo!)
2. I cleared a space for daily meditation (doing it regularly however, will prove to be another challenge but it’s a start).
3. I got rid of everything in my place that might even remotely reflect poverty mentality (more on that later).
4. I got a new mantra. (See above).

All in all, it was a fab day.