The Stuff I Value Is Not.....Stuff

It felt downright indulgent, selfish and "North American" to write out my "Day of Delight" last week.

What about all the starving children in the world?

Their day would be simple.

Find food. 

A person without work would only need three words.

Find a job.

But after having a week to ponder the exercise and review my delightful day, I have more to add to those critical thoughts. And they are a little less critical.

Now, I would agree that we are terribly self-consumed in the United States, and the truth is, we are one of THE most fortunate countries on the little globe that spins in my studio. (As a child, I always found those fascinating). 

But what if it simply means that we, who have been given so much, have a high calling to make the best of what we've been given and make a difference in this world?

But what if a day of delight isn't even about making a difference? What if it's simply a day of delight? Oh my, back to feeling self-indulgent! Or is it? As soon as you must make a difference in the world, it puts you back into "oughts and shoulds" which leads to obligation and removes the possibility for a "day of delight".

On to the next assignment: write down your life values.

On the surface, the pictures and text I chose last week would speak of luxury, technology, nature and fine dining. Stuff. However, emerging from this seemingly guilty pleasure of creating a day of delight is an interesting list of things I value and surprisingly, it doesn't seem to be "stuff" at all.

Supposedly, they say that our values cannot be based on our circumstances and those pictures look pretty circumstantial, even tangible to me. Glass buildings, an English butler serving me delicacies and ending the day on a farm in Franklin, Tennessee - they would all appear tangible.

But what if those were all taken away from me?  That could be easy to imagine, since I don't own a glass studio. In fact, my studio is in my "home" and my home is small and simple. I don't have an English butler (though my Dutch husband does serve me treats sometimes) and I certainly don't live on a farm in Franklin.

My songwriting tools, though somewhat contained in a digital format, are not simply pulled up by a vocal command and stored digitally automatically (unless I don't know how to use technology right - which could be true).

I DO have a cat that I adore. I DO ride a motorcycle and so does my husband. I DO get to spend time writing music and lately, I've even been ice skating a little bit. Those are all delightful.

So if what we value can't be based on circumstances, how do we find out what we value below the surface of our day of delight?

I'm not sure yet, but here's what I think I see emerging through my "tangible" list.

Ambiance

atmosphere, climate, mood, feel, character, quality, flavor, look, tone

Environment

setting, surroundings, aura, color, cultivation

Creativity

bring into existence, fashion, design, imagine, compose, give life to, shape, dream up

Routine

regular, familiar, seasonal, methodical 

Exercise

discipline, training, movement, pursuit

Learning

wisdom, information, study, education, knowledge

Music

sounds that are pleasant

Solitude

silence, privacy, peace and quiet, aloneness (not loneliness)

Relationship

connection, friendship, exchange, rapport, bond, kinship, marriage, nearness

I have always been very sensitive to ambiance and environment (you can insert all the above synonyms here).  I am easily inspired or brought down by surroundings.  All that being said, I am becoming creative about taking any circumstance and surrounding and finding delight in it. That's real creativity!

Basically, I believe that I was wired to create. Specifically, to create ambient musical structures that are intangible.  Music is like the wind, you can hear it and you can see the effects of it, but you can't see it without notes on paper or audio waves on a computer. You can drive down the road, turn on a song and be transported to a place of tranquility, though you never "see" the sound waves.

A by-product of that wiring seems to be a vocation wherein I create songs of honesty, peace and comfort, so I value the "places" from which my creativity originates.

In other words:

I value nurturing of the soul, both mine and others. I believe I can do that best by creating music.

Creating music (at least for me) comes about best through a routine consisting of a healthy blend of the following:

Solitude, spiritual disciplines, exercise, learning, relationship, ambiance and environment. The edifice of my soul is the strongest when these elements are present, no matter where I am.

In a nutshell, here's a perfect example:

I discovered a new kind of "delight" when I tried to take up figure skating a couple of years ago at the recommendation of my counselor. "Do something fun for once", she advised. I went ice skating - something I've loved since I was little.  I was not seeking to write music for a new project, I just simply followed my gut and took up skating. In fact, when it was first suggested to me, I had disengaged from creating music. I was quite depressed.

What has emerged? A brand new me, and with it, a brand new project of music. Somehow, the delight in skating evoked a new level of creativity and resulted in a stronger soul, expressed in the new music.

Maybe there is something to this "day of delight" thing.

Here's a very short video announcing the new music and the inspiration for it.  What a delightful day!!

Click here to view video.

Why not take some time to do this exercise for yourself? It can be transforming. 

Embrace The Suck

"Does it ever get any easier?" I asked the two runners I had just met on the trail as we stopped to exchange greetings.

I'd been increasing my exercise routine weekly and was now up to running 35 minutes straight.  I was huffing and puffing as we talked.

"If you never push yourself, yes, it will get easier.  If you just continue at the same pace though, you won't gain much", said the one who looked like she was an experienced runner.

"It sucks no matter what you do", said the other girl who seemed to be sweating and huffing, like me.  I could relate to her.

"JUST EMBRACE THE SUCK" she finally said with a sigh and a frown.  We all laughed.

                            

Yep.  Anytime we try to reach for our dreams, calling, desires...whatever we think we were created to do, there are times when it just sucks.  

Using the running analogy, it's rarely 'fun' to get up at 5:00 a.m., pray, eat some protein and then head out to the trail by 6:00 a.m.  I feel like I'm going to die most of the run.  Every day I feel like I just can't make it but I keep going. I sweat like a rainstorm and breathe heavy like a dragon minus the fire coming out my nostrils. I've never been a long distance runner so it's taking me a while to build up stamina.

When I am finished with this self-inflicted torture, the pay-off is worth it.  My mind is having a hay day and the good chemicals in my brain are being released.  I write songs, blogs, plan concerts, design merchandise and get new marketing ideas - all while I'm dying in my body.  

There's another payoff to all of this...at least when it comes to exercise.  I am losing weight.  My clothes are fitting better AND I'm heading toward reaching one of my many goals for the Christmas show in December.

Do I love getting up early to work on my goals?  Nope.

Do I love sweating a flood worth of water when I run? Nope.

Do I hurt when I get back? Yep.

Do I like when my jeans fit better? Yep.

Do I like the creativity my mind engages in while I exercise? Absolutely!

Do you want to win at what you think you were created to be and do?

Sorry....you're gonna have to...ya know...embrace the suck.

The CSD Diet

I was sitting in the pew at church, listening to the speaker.

I had been praying about my inability to say 'no' to food.

I think God answered my prayer that day.

It was a message on 'gluttony' - of all things.

Gluttony:  Excessive eating and drinking

Five forms of gluttony:
1.  Too soon
2.  Too expensive
3.  Too much
4.  Too eagerly
5.  Too delicately  - J.R. Briggs

I'm like most women in their 40's.  I struggle to maintain a desirable weight.  It's been almost a year since I injured my ankle and I am just now beginning to exercise regularly again without pain in my foot. I've gained between 15-20 pounds since that day in April last year.  Bummer.

Even though I have been trying to replace the snack foods I enjoy - my homemade cookies, cakes and pies - with nuts, grapes, oranges and apples, I began to realize that I just couldn't say no to eating, whether the food was healthy or not so healthy. Especially in the evenings.

I became even more alarmed when clothes that normally fit, were too tight.  That usually leads to self-hatred and frustration.  Many women know the cycle.  And it gets harder to break as we get older.  When it comes to losing weight, things that worked in our 30's don't work as easily in our 40's.

I think the thing that 'cut through the calories' as I was listening to the speaker was this statement:

Don't ask: How much is too much?
Ask: How dominated by the desire for this pleasure am I?

That's what I needed to hear.  See, I was thinking he'd address my portions and the truth is, I don't eat very big portions....but I AM dominated by the desire for the pleasure of eating.  That's where he got me.

I realize that even though I am learning to eat more healthily, I am still letting my flesh dictate my decisions.  Eating when it isn't necessary.  Eating just because I want to.  I think that's the excessive part.

"A glutton is one who raids the refrigerator in search of something to meet a spiritual need." - another quote by Briggs who could put away 6 baskets of fries at Red Robin.  He had his own struggles.  I appreciated his transparency.

I've made some changes since that message.  It's just what I needed.  It wasn't condemning.  It was freeing.

I want to be a singer/songwriter who is skilled and upright in every area of my life and I believe a part of that is self-control.  Discipline.  The ability to say 'no' to my flesh when it screams to have its way, in any area of my life.  Hopefully, as I practice discipline in every area of my life, when the big battle comes (whatever that may be) I will be well suited to fight.

So what is the CSD diet?  It stands for "Christmas Show Dress".  You can come up with your own special outfit. MOTBD - Mother Of The Bride Dress.  LCD - Leather Chaps Diet. Whatever works.

If I am tempted to eat when or what I don't need, I simply say to myself, "christmas show dress".   It gives a visual to my goal.  It's the reverse of waiting until you try on new clothes at the store and yell "I need to lose more weight".  Now I think about that dress before I eat the thing I don't need.  It's just a creative way to help me stay focused.

So there you have it.  Will I fail?  I hope not, but probably. That's what prayer is for.

Me & Dr. Robitussin

This doctor doesn't wear a white coat, though he has a white cap. This doctor comes in a plastic bottle and I've had a lot of meetings with him this week, thanks to what my husband unaffectionately calls "the Newville crud".  I understand that it's not limited to my town, however.  Apparently people all over the U.S. have it.  Fever, chills, some nausea and a bad cough.  Thus, Dr. Robitussin. (or Dr. R).

No matter that the bottle expired 10 years ago, I was desperate and decided to use what I already had in my cupboard.  It tastes as bad as it ever did so it must be legit.  By the way, how is it that you can't taste anything else when you're sick, but you can still taste that old Robitussin?

I smile when I take it (well, sort of) because it wasn't too long ago that my husband and I had a joke between us about my mother who would offer us medicine from "Columbus".  That simply meant that it was medicine she had from back before I was born when my family lived in Columbus, OH - like, the early 1960's!  Now here I am, using medicine that is 10 years old.  I guess I'm gonna be like her.

I knew things were bad when my cat, Missy (who is very nervous anyway) came over to me on my bed, took one look at the white kleenex in my hand, heard my abnormal very deep bass voice call her name and with big wide eyes, turned around and ran off the bed in a hurry. This was NOT the owner she was used to.  Some alien was lying in her bed.  I sighed.

I discovered this week that it's much more effective to be consistent with taking your medicine when they say you should.  Every 4 hours.  Yuck! But at one point I thought I was feeling better so I stopped taking the medicine.  That's when things got worse and I realized that I wasn't really getting better, I had simply been consistent with meeting with Dr. Robitussin and therefore, I thought I was getting better.  When I quit, it revealed my need to continue on my path of consistency.

There's a few things in life that I've discovered I need to be consistent with in order for them to really work.

Exercise

Yep - and it goes down just about as easy as Dr. R. sometimes.  But I always feel great afterwards and the more I do it, the better I feel.

Prayer and scripture meditation

The more consistent I am with it, the better the results for me.  I can tell when I haven't been as faithful.  My soul and my mind need it.

Healthy Eating

It doesn't do much good to exercise if you aren't going to eat healthy at the same time.  The two go hand in hand.  I'm certainly not a health expert and I'm not promoting any diet or exercise program - just promoting eating well as a life style.

Adequate Sleep

Everyone is different, but we all need sleep.  I try hard to go to bed at the same time every day and make sure I get adequate rest.

So there you have it, my prescription for life.  And oh yes, sometimes we are thrown off that routine and a little bit of Dr. R becomes necessary.  But I'm glad that's not the norm!