they say.

“do what feels right”

they say.

“They” being my first long term relationship

my teachers

my friends

my coaches

my professors

my trees

the whisper in the wind.

followyourheart

whatfeelsrightisright

but how

exactly

does that happen?

How do you know what feels right

and what is just the Dickensonian

undigested bit of beef?

How do you know what rises up to call your name

and what rises up to choke you?

How do you know?

How do you know?

It rises up

from your toes

takes a left and right at your hips

lodges in your gut, in your belly, in your

firstsecondthird chakras.

It feels like excitement, like joy,

like falling in love;

it feels open, it feels seductive, it feels good.

It feels good.

When you unfurl the petals it is beauty

when you sing the song it is beauty

when you taste the food it sends you into ecstasy that rivals the touch

of a skilled lover

the caress on your tongue

the depth of the flavor

the spiraling down inside you,

nourishment,

warmth,

satisfaction.

Intuition begins where pleasure makes itself known.

This it says.

This is it.

This.

**

Want to explore this?  Come to Boston on January 26th for Wishfinding and we’ll find our way into the forest.

So when I did finally see the trilogy, I was struck by how much useful inspiration sermon fodder philosophy was in there.  I now make references to the movies a lot…especially that one scene.

I’m a little bit fascinated by the Force.  Or maybe a lot fascinated.  I feel like there’s something true in there, some part of the story that resonates with so many other stories about the mysterious ways our minds slip around in the shadowy corners of our world.  And I’m especially intrigued by this idea of shifting someone’s thoughts.

Don’t we do that all the time, in speech, art, action, nonverbal cues?  What’s to say we don’t have a little extra something?  I have known extraordinarily persuasive people.  Maybe it’s real.

Or maybe not.

I DO know that fuzzy-brained feeling, though, the one where a clear and brilliant thought feels just out of reach, like my mind is being pushed gently away from where I really want it to go.

these are not the droids you’re looking for.

Indeed.

And when it’s a goal I’m noodling on, it feels even worse.  When I do get stuck, the longer I stare at it the harder it is to focus, until I can’t see a damn thing and I want to throw the whole project out.

Time to walk away, obviously.

But if I come back to it and it is STILL fuzzy, like looking through a frosted-over windshield, then I need help.

But if the help I needed were logical, I wouldn’t be stuck.  Logic is relatively easy.  Columns of pro/con/need/desire/resource don’t do a thing for me when I get the not the droids feeling.  I need…magic.  Light.  Wands and capes and flashes of insight.

I need intuition, but my own is shot.

So I borrow it.  I have a few friends who are brilliant at intuition.  They don’t try to fix things with lists and letters.  They will, if asked, free-associate, guess, and go to the unexpected places.

Better yet, I call a coach.  My favorite coaches are trained like I am, in following their gut instincts down the wormholes and out into other galaxies.

But I’ve had the joy once or twice of letting a whole group of people wash me in a sea of intuitive insights all at once.

Holy hell does it open doors.

Not the droids doesn’t have a chance.

So goals, yes?  Better in the positive than in the negative.  Don’t want your organization to shrink?  Well, do you want it to grow or stay the same?  Change cultures?  Change membership models?  What do you want it to be like in a year?  Or personally: Don’t like your weight?  Well do you want to lose it or gain it?  Do you want to be skinny or fit or lush?  Do you want to exercise or change your diet?  Do you want to spend lots of time on it?  Fall in love with your body or forget about your body?  What does the goal look like?

it matters.  Because getting there is way, way easier if you actually know where you ARE going instead of just what you’re walking away from.

And when your intuition just keeps saying, “I hate my job, I hate my job, I hate my job…” that’s not so helpful.

Usually I end articles with a thing to do; a question, a prompt, an open door.  Go think about this, write about that, try the other thing.  But my point today is that sometimes you can’t go it alone.  Sometimes you need help. So today, notice what you’re dissatisfied with.  Notice the Incompletes in your life: the things that make you cranky that don’t have a plan.  Notice “I wish the kitchen were better laid out” and “I hate my car” and “Thursday nights suck.”

And then find some intuition outside yourself.

OUTside.

If you’re interested, I’m running a half day event in Boston this month (and coming soon to a city near you!) to help the intuition happen.  It’s called Wishfinding: outsource your intuition and you can find more information here.  Click the link, read the copy, and sign up.

Here it is again: Wishfinding

See you there!

If you aren’t able to be in Boston, tell your friends. Because when one person gets unstuck, it cascades through everyone they know.  True story.

Tweet it: Boston people!  Ditch the brain fuzzies and get clear about your vision!  Join @LeelaSinha for Wishfinding http://ebbmassagestudio.com/wishfinding

Boston leaders, reinvigorate your people with clear vision they can love.  Join @LeelaSinha at Wishfinding: http://ebbmassagestudio.com/wishfinding

Creative leaders! Your people need something different, but you don’t know what.  Your mission is outdated, your vision is flat, your staff structure needs changing…but to what?  Stop banging your head against a wall.  Outsource your intuition at Wishfinding. http://ebbmassagestudio.com/wishfinding

Facebook: Friends in Boston, don’t get stuck with halfhearted negative goals!  Get clear about your YES with an innovative process at Wishfinding, a half day workshop with Leela Sinha of Ebb Studio. http://ebbmassagestudio.com/wishfinding

Facebook for leaders: Creative leaders in Boston! Your people need something different, but you don’t know what.  Your mission is outdated, your vision is flat, your staff structure needs changing…but to what?  Stop banging your head against a wall.  Outsource your intuition at Wishfinding. http://ebbmassagestudio.com/wishfinding

The first day they use smooth white stones which shine in the moonlight, and it works!  Brilliantly!  Much to their parents’ dismay they arrive back home in time for their tiny dinner.   But the next day their parents keep them from going out ahead of time, so they have to use breadcrumbs…which don’t shine and do get eaten by crows.  That’s how they end up lost and stumbling across the gingerbread house.

Bread crumbs.  That are hard to see and get eaten.

And I realised this week: That’s the problem with my to-do list. It leaves behind breadcrumbs and  I can’t see where I’ve been.

Do you have a to-do list?  Mine is a running list, with a few things rotated off an a few things added every day.  It includes shopping (get cat food!) and work (write blog post!) and anything else that doesn’t have an allotted time on my calendar.

And when I finish something I cross it off, check it or erase it, and move on; when I think of something, I add it.  So from week to week or day to day it stays about the same length.

Some weeks the list has a lot of concrete stuff on it: install curtains or paint walls or big cleaning.  On those weeks, I can look around on Friday and say, “HEY LOOK!  I DID STUFF!”

…and most weeks? Not so much.  Most weeks I look around and think, “Holy crap, what did I do all week?”  Sure I wrote posts or sent emails or met with people, but those things don’t leave a trail.  Bread crumbs.  It was just bread crumbs, and I can’t find my way home.

The bigger challenge is that we’re all kind of trained to do this.  Culturally, we valorize exhaustion.  ”Ohh my GOD I’m SOOO tired I’ve been working OVERTIME” is way more socially acceptable at Saturday morning yoga than, “Oh, I’m feeling lovely and balanced and I even had time to rearrange the flowers on the dining table this morning.”  What are you, showing off?  Trying to make everyone else feel bad?  Or just lying?  (Unless you’re the yoga teacher.  Then you’re not supposed to be stressed or rushing no matter what.  A,h the pressures on our leaders.)

But we also refuse to celebrate our successes.  Again, showing off=not good.  Especially for people socialized as female, saying, “Hell yeah I did that, isn’t it awesome?” is just not done.  So instead, we go for that exhaustion thing: “I did seventeen things but I’m rushing to do things eighteen through twenty!”  THEN we get praise and validation.  What the hell?

No wonder we’re exhausted.  I mean seriously, people.  If we want to live in a measured and balanced society (and it can be done: see Portugal, France, India, and probably lots of other places) where work is a minor interruption in life, instead of life being a troublesome interruption of our work, then we need to get out of the rut.  Additionally, naming your successes actually works better than hiding them if you want to get promoted or raise your rates.

My flute teacher used to say that it took seven flawless repetitions in a row (the Rule of 7)  to unlearn a single mistake.  It was all about practice.  If it was a particularly important passage, she recommended the Warrior of 7: seven times seven repetitions.  And of course listening to and visualizing the correct way always helped.

I think we need practice.  I think we need practice saying it, and I think we need practice being heard saying it, and I think we need practice hearing it.

We need to practice hearing it…

…and not saying in our heads: “UGH, really?! She sucks, I hate her.”

…and not saying, “I’ll never be able to do that.”

…and not saying, “What’s wrong with her?”

…and not saying, “Yeah, you and Martha Stewart.”

…and not saying, “You suck.”

…and not saying, “I’m a failure.”

…and not saying, “rich/productive/happy/energetic people are all phonies.”

our knee-jerk responses are so incredibly ingrained that we KNOW how dangerous it is to celebrate, because we know what goes on in our own heads when we’re not paying attention.

We need to know we’re safe to say it, and we need to know we’re safe to hear it, that we are going to be okay, that someone else’s success doesn’t mean our own failure.  For real.  Boots on the ground.

Enter the Yes! Success! Circles.  This is my idea; I think everyone should be part of one.

HOW TO HAVE A YES! SUCCESS! CIRCLE

Gather a group of six people.  They should be people you don’t hate, but you don’t have to know them or love them well.  They could be colleagues, members of a networking group, a running group, a parents’ group, or whatever.  Family are okay if you have a good, solid communication and support pattern.  If you have stress with your family, pick someone else.

Plan to meet for at least an hour, more if you like each other and want time to chat.  It can be anytime, anywhere, as long as you are not distracted.  Ideally you’ll meet in person, but if you live at the far end of Timbuktu and don’t have ready access to people, you can set it up as a group Skype call.

My experience says to set a REGULAR meeting time, and just stick to it–meet monthly.  If you have to miss a month or two you can reschedule if you wish but agree ahead of time when the next regular meeting will be so your schedule doesn’t get all shot to hell.  Be patient–it can take months before everyone automatically schedules around something important.

Here’s how a meeting goes:

1. gather, chat, get settled
2. decide to get started
3. figure out who runs the timer.  Set the timer for five minutes.
4. remember to tell everyone to silence their cell phones…except for the timer
5. start the timer
6. one person stands up and says, “Hi, everyone!  I’m (name) and I succeeded this month!”
7. they then proceed to spend five minutes talking about their successes.  It could be a long list or an in-depth description.  Everyone else just listens.
8. if the person stops talking before the five minutes are up, everyone sits quietly and waits.  Sometimes more stuff will come up if it has room to float to the surface.  Do not let people cede time and stop early–it is too easy to sell yourself short that way.
9. when the timer goes off, everyone cheers wildly.
10. reset the timer, go on to the next person.  No discussion, no feedback.
11. when everyone has finished, take a few minutes to say yay for everyone!
12. go back to chatting or lunch or whatever you are doing.

NB: After everyone has shared, if you want to talk with someone about what they said, ask first if you have permission.  Sometimes people feel really vulnerable about something they shared and they don’t want to talk about it.  Respect boundaries.  What happens in the circle stays in the circle unless you are invited to share it outside.  (Like if someone has a new business and WANTS you to tell the world, by all means, do!)

Go!  Get started!  Your odds of following through go from nearly zero to 85% if you write down your goal, have company and have accountability.  So tell us in the comments where you are in the world and what step you’re going to take today to start a circle.  Tell us when, tell us who, make it real. Let’s do this!

Danielle LaPorte is one of my favorite writers and visionaries. She practices what I like to practice: she holds big vision. She writes in poetic prose. She lives generously and clearly. She tries twice if twice is called for.

And this morning her email said that ”making do” is not something you want to normalize.

And I thought about that.

And then I wrote it on my dry erase board.

She has also said, at various times, that the reframe is critical. “I’m choosing to make other things a priority right now,” has much more agency than, “I can’t afford it.” Also, it is true. If you are buying groceries instead of fancy clothes, or store-brand instead of name-brand, you are making that choice because something is more important to you than some other thing. It might be a really really basic thing. But it’s still your priority. Food might be more important than a new outfit. But if you were going on a job interview, you might make a different choice. Propane might be more important than printer paper. Or maybe, for your car, snow traction is more important than sexiness. Or maybe traction IS sexy (then you can have both!).

And yet, making do is not a useful normal. Drinking in the sense that this is not making do, or tossing out the ugly sofa before you have a replacement, is really really important. When you have only two options, a choice not to have one is necessarily a choice for the other. That’s not a true choice. In order to have a true choice you need at least three possibilities so that there is no default.

And yet I say this while looking at the really ugly yellow chair that I have moved with me since my senior year of college. It is REALLY comfortable, although this might be the last year that’s true.

Am I making do or making a choice?

or both?

Am I making the choice to make do? Does that make it better?

I could cover it, slipcover it, something to make it easier on the eyes. So far, I’ve chosen not to.

I could put it on the curb. But I like having something to sit in, and I like sitting in it. So just for today (I could change my mind tomorrow!) I’m choosing to have the ugly yellow chair in my living room.

It’s not just money, either. It’s time, it’s attention, it’s skill.

Today I’m choosing to write again. Choosing writing over Facebook, over bed, over going to the beach in the rain.

I have time, just like everyone else.

What choices am I making with it? What choices are you?

Do you like them?

Write down three ways you spend a resource you have (time, money, attention, space…). Open the door to choice by figuring out what other options you have.

Now, if you wish, you can choose.

The coffee is cold. It’s been cold since yesterday afternoon.

Yesterday afternoon there were four or five guys here. They were shouting and smoking and laughing and tossing around obscenities and pouring a cement floor in the basement. I was so happy to have them, happy to feel like my landlord wanted to care for the house I’m in, happy to know the job was getting done, and really, happy to have them–they seemed happy and relaxed, which is a fantastic thing to have mixed into the concrete.

So when one of them knocked to ask if he could use my microwave, I was genuinely regretful. “I don’t have a microwave.” His coffee was cold. “I can heat something up on the stove for you if you like…” No thanks. But I wanted to make the gesture. So I fired up the kettle, put coffee in the French press, got things rolling. And then the cement truck came back with another load, just as the timer was going off.

They poured, they flattened, they left. , like some kind of benevolent Roman army. The guy they left behind to read a paper in his truck and guard the drying process was not the guy who wanted coffee.

Bemused, I left the coffee on the counter. I don’t drink coffee. It could be a long time before anyone drinks it. I know I will probably just rinse it out, but the unfinished-ness of it seemed important somehow. This morning I chose to sit tight, instead of rushing off, make eggs, relish the last of the three fresh peaches that the tree gave us this year. I actually did what I know is good for me; I sat. At the table. I ate breakfast. Now I am writing. Turning toward self-care in this world that valorizes exhaustion, busyness, and burnout, is a radical act not only of love but of transformation…and like so many radical acts of anything, it starts at home, quite literally. Breakfast and kittens instead of a networking meeting is a very good use of my time, when I remember to do it.

But back to the coffee. It is emblematic of a larger habit, which I think is why I left it there for a while. I tend to want to do nice things, make generous gestures, give deeply, support widely, live my values in active outreach. I want to. And often I expend not-insignificant resources to begin. But often my shyness (usually it is shyness) interrupts the process. I am, when I am not deeply grounded, afraid of the responses of others, afraid that my offering will be inadequate, offensive, wrong, or rejected. And so rather than be misunderstood, I elect to be invisible.

It’s a problem. It’s a problem because I believe in living my values and my faith out loud, in the world; I believe in putting time, energy, and money where my mouth is. Often I do, especially when no one can see or hear me do it. I have been much more techie than diva. But visibility is important, trying is important. It is important because we lead (and people follow) by example; it is important because even a notquiteright gesture still says that you wanted to do the right thing. And it is important because not trying, or, like my coffee, only getting halfway there, is the kind of thing that weighs heavily on my heart. I carry these missed opportunities like unpaid debts, a giant towering stack of shoulda-coulda-woulda’s that I can’t ascribe to anyone but me. I had the thought–I’m not thoughtless. I began the execution–I didn’t procrastinate. But then the moment passed and that awkward phase began and the longer it went, the awkwarder it got, until it was entirely intolerable and rather than confront the layers of complication I rinsed the idea down the drain and resolved to do better next time.

Ironically, I have gotten better. I forget (and I can’t forget) to give myself credit for where I started, with such massive social anxiety that there was no way I could even talk to a stranger unless my life depended on it. I would skip treats rather than go to the counter to buy them myself; I would eat foods I didn’t want because I was too shy to ask for what I would have preferred. By comparison, I’m a complete social butterfly. But I still want to be better. I want to act more on the good impulses (coffee for the cement guy!) and less on the unhelpful ones (stay in bed all morning instead of going to greet the ocean). And, credit where due, I am. I have been and I continue to. People sometimes think I’m rude, standoffish, or unsocial. That’s not me, and that’s the hardest part of all. We all want to be seen and known and understood–it’s human nature. The less I act on the the stuff that I want to do, the good and fun and interesting presence I want to have in the world, the less people know me for who I really am. If you really knew me…

And you, I know you have your own story, your own things that you wish you would do if only you would do them.

Where could you be more yourself in the world; be more visible, more seen, more real, more loved?

Change one thing, and it changes the world. What do you wish we knew?

The question isn’t what everyone else is doing, but what you are doing, and why.

Making a choice for the good of the whole is legitimate. Choosing to keep the peace so the family dinner can happen uninterrupted is okay. Choosing to stand up for yourself is also okay. What’s important is that your choice is not in reaction, but in integrity.
What is best for you?
What is best for your community?
How will you choose to act, given that information?
You don’t have to be different.
You don’t have to be the same.
You just have to be.
Happy new year.

click the big yellow button.

There’s this tug of war between want and need that we learn when we’re really little.  We WANT stuff because, well, we want it.  It feels good.  But it feels like an indulgence.  It feels like extra.  It comes with an extra shot of guilt.

Need, on the other hand, need is easy.  If you need something, then you have to have it, so you might as well be done with it.  Need is justified.  Need is important.

Want is frivolous.

Or…not.

It’s a false dichotomy.  And it all comes down to that damned oxygen mask.  You know the one: when you get on a plane the flight attendant always says, “In the event of loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will drop from the panel above your head.  Please put your own on first before assisting others.”

Put your own on first.

Because want becomes need really fast.

Because not tending to yourself first can make you pass out (metaphorically if not literally) and you’re useless to everyone else if you’re lying on the floor.  In fact, you’ve just become a liability.

So to reiterate: don’t become a liability.  Put on your own oxygen mask first.

Which means in this case, your wants might need tending.

Of course, that means that you need to know what you want…

Note: I’m not sure why the folks who made the video chose the images they did for the background.  They don’t seem to have any bearing on the text.

Note #2: I’m not convinced the writer’s interpretation of the Sodom and Gomorrrah story follows current scholarly interpretations.

*thanks to Reid Mihalko for the link (http://reidaboutsex.com/)

pleasure, violence, and culture (link)

Yeah, I just said “pleasure” and “budget” in the same sentence.

We’re pleasure-driven creatures.  We do stuff because it feels good.  We want to live our lives so they feel good.  Usually we start with how much we make and portion it out, like a pie chart.

But what if we started by asking how big the pie needed to be?

Nonprofits call this ‘visionary budgeting’.

I’m taking a slightly different twist and calling it like I see it.

It’s about pleasure.

You know how it usually goes.  You get the New Finance Program that will Get You Organized.  You set it up.  You feed it all your information: bank accounts, credit cards, passwords.  It downloads everything.  Great!

And then QuickMintforWindowsTm says: you should make a budget!

And you get that sinking feeling.  Yuck.  Budget.

But try starting with this question: if money were really truly no object (if you knew you could have as much as you wanted), how much would you enjoy spending on each of your budget items?

Really enjoy.

Let’s start where there’s no social shame involved:

Charity: how much would you like to give away?  How much would feel like too much?  How much is too little?  What would rock your world and feel awesome?

Education: how much would you like to give to educators (people and schools)?  How much would you like to spend on learning things?

Self-care: how much would you like to give to the folks who help you take care of yourself?  Your hairdresser, your massage therapist, the people who run the retreats that help you get on track?  Your coaches, your personal trainer, your cleaning person?  How much for new running shoes? If you don’t have all those people in your life, which would feel good to have?  Where does it become unwieldy?   How much extra would you love to add to your grocery budget to support small local organic farmers who give you tasty and healthy foods?  Which retreats would you attend?  Think of your doctor, your dentist, your acupuncturist.  It’s not selfish.  It’s oil changes and 100,000 mile tuneups for your body and spirit.  How much would you enjoy spending on taking care of yourself?

Housing and utilities: how much would feel fabulous?  How much would feel awful?  What would you enjoy spending on the place where you (and maybe your loved ones) sleep and eat?  Phone and internet are ways of staying connected; heat is part of making your home safe and comforting and comfortable.  What value do you place on that?

As you go through this, consider again: enjoy.  Take pleasure in.  Not how much could you afford or how much you should spend.

Savings?  How much per month to feed your nest egg so it grows up into a nest chicken or nest eagle (or nest gyrfalcon, for that matter).

Entertainment?  Groceries? Clothing?

Skip around at will.  Have fun imagining writing all those lovely checks or setting up the automatic payments.  Imagine the joy of the people who get the money, when they get paid to do what they believe in and do well.

If you could spend anything—as much as you want—how much would you want to spend?

We vote with our dollars.  Companies and products and small businesses rise and fall on our spending decisions.  But we also reinforce our own values when we go shopping, and not just for stuff.

So if we think of our individual spending as a way of expressing our beliefs, then our budgets are an expression of our core values.  But asking “what are you supporting right now” misses the point.

The point is what is possible.

So how much would you love to spend?  And where would you love to spend it?

If that feels easy and awesome, great!  If it feels like a Good Idea But…

Ramit Sethi has a few programs to help you have more to spend, if that’s what you need.  Morgana Rae has a great program to help you work better with money in general (and fall in love).  Marie Forleo really really wants to make your business a success and has all kinds of good stuff to help that happen.

You can use this with anything that you usually think of as limited in supply.  Not enough time?  How much would you enjoy spending on each of your tasks?  Not enough sex?  Maybe not enough sex drive?  How much would you enjoy having, how, where, with whom?  What are the must-haves?  What are the yes-buts?  If you could have it any way at all, what would it be?  Would you rather be eating chocolate?  Or do you want to want it?

All this gets you clear on where you are and where you want to go.

Because when you have enough, using your resources (money, time, sex) is a pleasure.

And when you let pleasure drive you, you’re seriously, really, authentically motivated–as long as you know what would feel really really good.

What’s your pleasure?

PS: want pleasure-based business planning?  Check out Danielle Laporte’s The Spark Kit.  I’m only halfway through but totally completely in love.  (affiliate link; I wouldn’t recommend it if I didn’t love it).