Bravo, Sherry!

Sherry Johns Holland did a stunning job on the invitation to our art show - separately, we're Cold, Hard Steel to Warm, Soft Fur (John, naturally) to Thinking outside of the ... (yours truly), while, together, the show is called Serendipity.  


Went beyond what I'd imagined.  Beautifully captured the best of John's work & the evocative feeling of my own.  


Now that the invitation is done & we await its arrival, am turning over this blog to my creative endeavors, including the show, with updates & news about this remarkable present (translate on every level).  

REWARDS

's 3:18 a.m.  

Was in bed, lights out, at 10:45 p.m., fulfilling this week's key pledge - asleep at a wiser, healthier, more wholeness-aspiring hour.  

And here I am.  Writing a blog entry at 3:20 a.m.

Awoke around 2:45 a.m.  Don't know if it was toothache or a kitty litter box that needs attention or the fact that Sky (who usually sleeps tucked next to or near me) was nowhere to be sensed.  But something awoke me.  

As mentioned, no Sky.  Sky is & maybe always will be a traumatized kitty.  As a kitten, he was put in the care of a young boy.  The boy probably didn't intend to torture the wee small creature, but he did.  And in spite of all the love that Leslie gave him, all the love that we do, he's remained deeply suspicious of life itself & everything, everyone in it.  But the one thing that he's done from the time he first allowed himself to leave the safety of the darkness under the master bedroom bed has been to sleep with me.  

At one time, plastered between my body & the back of the den couch (where I sleep due to breathing problems if  I don't sleep at least partially sitting up), then later right ON me, which has progressed to right next to me, to curled up at my legs, to finally a bit away from me.  But in the wee small hours of this morning, he wasn't next to me or near me or even atop the end of the couch.  Assumed he was with John (as he's sometimes bold enough to be, on the rare night), but turned on the light, just to check around.

And there he was, on the next cushion over, sound asleep, his arms flung over the edge of the cushion - total slumbers.  And asleep right next to him was Rennie.  Sky was sleeping right next to another cat.  That was an amazing sight to see & filled me with a deep sense of homecoming - it might not seem like much, but it's what I've hoped for ever since we took over Sky's care over three years ago.

There I was, about 30 minutes ago - sitting in a room that is fragrant in ways you really don't want, in the middle of the night, happy as all get out because two cats are sleeping right next to each other.

Seeing that progression in inner confidence gives me a tremendous sense of reward, if that's even the right word.  What I've hoped for - a more confident, at-rest-in-his-fur kitty - is one more step closer.  That is the sort of thing that fills my heart with happiness.  

Much like decorating cookies on Sunday at the New Church Day Craft Fair, where I turned a kid's activity into an opportunity to encourage all ages to have confidence in their choices, to know what they truly wanted & to make the most of being allowed to choose what they wanted, rather than what they felt was allowed.  

So, one little boy chose all little purple candies, when everyone else had chosen an assortment.  One young girl took all four of the few red M&Ms.  And every child who wondered out loud if it was okay to do something was asked, "Who's cookie is it?" and each came up with the answer - often immediately - "Mine."  Whatever they wanted to do with their cookie was okay, as long as it took 12 candies, no more.

Sometimes, none.  One little girl, around 7 years old, admitted to wanting only the gold icing without any of the candies I was using it to anchor.  She dropped her voice & admitted that what she really & truly wanted to do was just criss cross her cookie crown with piped icing.  Will always remember her sense of happiness as she stood next to me, her hands next to mine on the piping bag, and slish-slashed her way back & forth across the cookie with golden butter cream.  It was the sort of moment that's always given me the greatest sense of spiritual homecoming.

The cookie decorating event was over in less than an hour.  Ran out of cookie crowns.  Two of the boys who'd decorated cookies stopped by.  A girl who'd decorated one at the start of the fair was carefully loading up two mini baking cups with unused candies.  The boys stood in from of me, their eyes fairly dancing over the remaining little purple, red, orange & green gumdrops.  They asked if they could have some  & their eyes flew open as I told them to take them all.  As they divided them up on the two little plates, I leaned across the table to share some wise old woman advice - "Always ask.  The answer might be 'No' but you'll never get a 'Yes" if you don't ask. Always ask."  

There I was, trying to get back to sleep, and what I'm wide awake thinking about is the kitty peacefully slumbering at my feet, now curled up right next to Rennie, and empowering kids through cookie decorating.. That sense of whatever it is I feel has always been the reward I've sought in all I do.  And that's wonderful.  But it's time to expand my rewards system to include a similar sense of deep homecoming when I've done something tangible, like not only working on the kitchen on a Monday, but getting it spic & span clean; like not only getting a laptop, but setting it up for actual use & using it to make a success of an awesome business idea.

Rewards are important.   

It dawned on me, stretched out in the dark on the couch, unable to get back to sleep, that the reason I always felt like Mim & Peter personified the "right" way to be wasn't because they were held up as  exemplars of best living practices but because it seemed that whatever it was that they did were behaviors my parents rewarded with praise & admiration (at least, that's what I heard).  It wasn't what my parents said, but the intangible ways they seemed to reward Peter & Mim that drew me to conclude that the two of  them got it right while I chronically got it wrong.  (worth a posting all by itself, since peter & mim seem to have experienced things the other way around - maybe none of us were rewarded & all of us felt unrewardable!)

To only apparently seem to digress - it's never made sense to me when others have ease my frustrations over throwing all sorts of obstacles into the path of doing things that would serve my interests, without any detriment to others.  In most case, with benefits to others.  "Don't beat yourself up over it - it's human nature."   It's human nature to SEE what calls out to be done, to SEE the next best step to getting to a better, wiser way of living, then NOT doing anything to make it so?  It's human nature to see the Promised Land & content yourself with wandering around instead of figuring out how to get across the Jordan and DOING it?  

That's perverted human nature.  And we are capable of better.  We are put here to do better.  

And I don't digress, because what we do in our lives is directly tied to our concept of rewards. It was many years ago that I first heard the concept that the reason we do things that hold us back is because we get some sense of reward from it.  Until we figure out what the reward is, acknowledge then reconfigure it, we're going to keep living in a messy house or blowing our chances to develop prosperous income streams or messing up relationships.  

I tolerate an aromatic house (not in the way people want - in the way that keeps us from having friends over) because of the reward I get seeing a small tuxedo kitty sleeping curled up next to a fluffy marmalade tabby.  

I grew up with a funky sense that the most important rewards would always be beyond my reach, because I could never hope to be even close to Peter & Mim in what I could do.  Turns out, that's right.  I never could be like Peter & Mim and what they appear to process as rewards isn't what I do.  But that's NOT wrong, doesn't make me chronically, hopelessly off kilter - it just makes me me.

Took me until the wee small hours of a Tuesday morning - now 4:14 a.m. - to realize that a key (perhaps THE key) to moving past my apparent human nature to my genuine spiritual on is by first overhauling my rewards system.  

It's all well & good to experience deep happiness in Sky's progress.  What I need to move to is encouraging, nurturing in myself deep happiness in having a spic & span kitchen every Monday, in getting the front yard looking good every Tuesday, in setting up & using the laptop that I purchased five months ago, in making a personal & prosperity-creating success of Cyber Access for the Technically Timid.

We do what we feel rewarded by.  Always has been, always will be.  To change my life, change the reward system in which it's rooted.

Weird Body Clock

Why do I feel utterly worn out in the morning & early-mid afternoon, then full of energy the rest of the afternoon - evening??

Task ~or~ People?

Anna Friesen Cole, ALC (Awesome Life Coach) had me take a personality profile.  Just a few questions, but that seemed to be all it took reveal me as a Free Spirit/People type.  


Included with the determination were descriptions of what each "type" was like.  Which was when I realized, much to my surprise, I wasn't at all a "People" type, at least not according to its description!  Turned out that I was far more "Task," which would have been a shock to my teachers & a hoot to my family.


Me?  A TASK personality?  The person who told a career coach, in all seriousness,  that I don't set any goals "because that would be a guarantee I never complete it"??  


Been thinking this past weekend a lot about which of the two I am closest to - PEOPLE or TASK.  Seems to me that whichever it is, it's been pretty well messed up over my lifetime.  Feels darn tootin' amazing to seek, at 60, opportunities to set both back on the course from which they've strayed for so long.


If I am a PEOPLE type, then it's weird I lack an intimate circle of friends.  John & Karen.  Two people.  Doesn't seem quite right, does it?  Am good friends with a lot of people, but intimate?  Just those two.  My husband & a remarkable woman who came into my life less than 10 years ago.  And, of course, Dave & Candy - but they live way out in Sioux Falls & are kept on their toes by a wondrous family that defines inclusive.


Mind you, I was raised to believe myself the ULTIMATE people person.  None too bright, perhaps, but a social marvel.  At least, that was the self image I had dinned into me.  The first 50 years of my life focused on people and on developing & maintaining relationships.  Primarily FAMILY relationships & if not family, then fairly one-sided.  Being "none too bright" (at least compared to older sibs), it was essential to me that I make the most of what I did really & truly did best - providing loving support to those who mattered most to me, even if it was unrequited (not in their natures & even less in their nurtures).  


By nurture - yes.  By nature - no.  So it seems, at heart I'm NOT a "People" type, after all. 


Which leads me to being a "TASK" person.  When I first read the description, it felt like an electric shock went right through me.  Have always thought in terms of tasks, of setting out goals in logical steps that can easily measure success or need to focus more intently, apply myself more successfully.  Drove my teachers batty, being able to see what needed to be done, able to detail the steps, but then not doing it.  Labeled LAZY.  Wasn't.  Just lacked any sort of infrastructure to turn the task into reality.  Setting tasks - fun.  Doing tasks - dull & prosaic.  Completing tasks - not a core concept in family discussions.  Mostly beginnings, rarely next steps, never end product.   


By nature - yes.  By nurture - no.  At heart, I am a "Task" type all the way, but woefully unequipped to make the most of what should be one of my greatest assets ~ seeing the best-next-step task before me.  Even today - June 4 2012 - can see the best-next-step, but respond by dodging it or numbing myself out of effective action.  


How easy it would be to get further messed up with "woe is me" and "if only I'd realized earlier" and "too late now" thinking...  BALDERDASH!  I am a TASK person - and darn proud of it!  


It's not an easy effort, making the time and investing the psychic & emotional & realtime energies necessary to turn things around, but any decent Task type worth her salt would see it as right up her unobstructed alley.  Simple - no.  Essential - yes.  


And what's the key to making all of this HAPPEN, to developing my Task side while nuturing my inner People Person?  It is...   Nah - been writing enough this a.m.  Off to clean up the kitchen.  More about the key later!!