MJ Walters

Starting to notice how I actually live

This is something I learned today.

When I drop my shoulders, breathe from my stomach, pull a funny face in the mirror then smile, I like what I see. I see a healthy, vibrant, awake 36-year-old man.

In a Tricycle interview with Larry Rosenberg, a meditation teacher in Massachusetts, Rosenberg talks about walking and talking with Krishnamurti in 1968, and being given this advice on what to do about the work he didn't enjoy anymore: "Just go on teaching and start paying attention to yourself. Start noticing how you actually live." Yes.

How did I get to this peaceful place today?

I had heavy cold a couple of weeks ago that I'm just emerging from. Whilst ploughing through it I went back over old journals, from January 2007 to now. I noticed a pattern that was familiar, but obviously hadn't really struck home.

This was the pattern: I would get really excited about lots of things and start them all; after a few months I would begin to tire and have doubts about whether I was doing the right things, but keep going because they were all too important to me; at some point I would become exhausted juggling multiple things and begin to quietly drop them; and finally I would be back where I started, with some great stories and an inner sense of guilt and frustration because I didn't feel any different.

I've done this with writing, singing, piano lessons, guitar lessons, learning Java, Pilates, meditation, getting up early, garden projects, DIY projects, poetry, cooking, and on and on.

This pattern took four months to play itself out in 2007 - by the end of last year I was going through it in a couple of weeks! I was fast approaching some sort of manic singularity where I would disappear in a whirling puff of creative desperation.

Before I got ill, on January 2nd to be exact, I decided I wanted to be more mindful this year. Mindfulness and paying attention to myself has been on my radar for a few years, but it wasn't getting any traction in my mind. I wasn't practicing it. On an unconscious level I didn't yet see it's importance. But since the start of this year, with no real effort, I've slowed right down and I'm noticing things again.

I look at the daily prompt from the Mindfulist (thanks Gwen!) to remind me. I try and stretch every day, both to make sure I don't get injured again and as a mindfulness practice. And I think it was cemented when I saw that pattern in my journals spread over all that time. Three frickin' years. That's a long emotional rollercoaster. I was so tired - tired at the end, but mostly tired all the way through it. It was no way to live.

But I seem to have stepped off, and my recovery is underway. I've made some big decisions - more on that next time.

A short conversation with made-up me

As a software worker, coding and using technology is a safe activity for me. Studying is also a safe environment, by which I mean the act of doing it is relaxing and empowering.

But making something that is not software or study notes terrifies me. Sometimes I can make myself write short stories or poems, but more often I retreat to what I know I can do without criticism.

If I want to change (and lord knows I've been giving myself the signals for long enough) perhaps I can find a way to let go of the safety netting. When I begin to think about writing fiction, and the intense desire to enrol on a Physics course, or start a software business comes up, perhaps I can notice that and wonder at it.

I know the qualities I want to embody in this life - perhaps I could ask one of my imaginary role models. Or even better, some crazed mixture of people that represent the mindful, creative, courageous, confident, compassionate, life-long-learning focussed leader me that I am designing.

What do I need to do then, made-up me?

• Choose projects that solve the problems in front of you
• Use each project as an opportunity to study and learn (oooh, safety, I like!)
• Keep talking to other people (external) and mining your unconscious (internal)
• Keep talking to your shadow/anti-patterns/stucknesses as they come up
• Accept the incubation period of these projects will be as long as they need
• Write about what you learn, so you integrate and share

Holy crap, it worked. Deep breath.

What if I measured success by how I was, not what I did?

I'm trying to be more mindful and pay more attention this year. In my usual way, I told myself I would blog every day on each prompt the Mindfulist set. Which was almost immediately blown out of the water, along with not drinking alcohol in January, drinking less coffee and tea, and going to bed earlier.

But in practicing noticing through the prompts, I've uncovered a latent ability to notice other things - like the fact I'm rebelling against the voice that told me to blog every day, to stop drinking alcohol, and so on. I'm having an inner tantrum over it. Which is kind of cool :-) go me! I won't do what you tell me, me!

Which opens up other communication options. Like dialogue, and compassion, and playfulness, amongst other things.

Perhaps a better measure of my day (week, month) is not what I did, but how I was.

In my journal on New Years Day I glued photos from magazines of people I wanted to be more like in 2010 (don't ask). They embodied qualities like courage, vulnerability, leadership, confidence, learning and excellence. Perhaps a better measure of how my year is going, then, is how much I was able to embody these qualities in my daily life. By much, I guess I mean how often, and with what quality.

What word captures that 'muchness'? Not impact, that implies a focus on the end product. I might achieve nothing in the world on a day where I was very successful on being these qualities.

Let's say intensity.

If I was in an intensely creative state today, big tick - even if I have nothing to show for it. If I was intensely vulnerable today, bingo - even if the person I was talking with didn't appreciate it. If I stepped up and took a big decision, even if I got it wrong? Ha! I'm on my way.

Behind it all is being mindful. If I pay attention to my patterns, my feelings and my thoughts I can spot opportunities to be these qualities I can feel bubbling up from within me.

Is that what Gwen meant when she said this kind of awareness is like holding a weapon? Or perhaps realising that I am holding a weapon, and that I could hurt myself or someone else?

Instead of a weapon, what if this awareness is like an incredibly powerful tool (no sniggering at the back). That way it could be used for growth, as well as doing damage.

Does this make sense to anyone else?

Photo by James Justin, Flickr.

Power up

(My first post for "The Mindfulist" project)

My first thought on powering up my computer was - I wonder what the people I'm following on Twitter have been making overnight? I use Twitter to connect with people who share my interests and attitudes, people I find hard to find offline. And being in the UK following mainly American/Canadian people, the good stuff happens when I'm asleep.

It makes me wonder what else I can do to find these people in my physical life. Positive, emotionally-aware, mindful, compassionate people who want to make a difference in the world (even if they don't quite know how yet, or are just playing with new ideas).

I realised I wanted an inspiring, energised online presence - and this implies an inspiring, energised offline presence! I just want to be energised and inspired (dammit!).

2010 - Here we go!

I read Gwen Bell's post on a year of mindfulness and attention and I was both inspired and unsure about whether to take part. I am still ambivalent about living my life out here in the open seas of the Web. Boundaries are so important in these things - I am just not willing to go all in.

However, what could be more joyful than noticing things in the company of other like-minded people? Am I nervous of meeting new people who might just be my right people? Absolutely! And if I feel this confused I think there is something in it that requires my attention first of all.

So I'm going to do it, blog about it, see what I see, and notice what I notice. Who know what else might come to mind?

My thing is in here somewhere...

I have temporarily misplaced my thing, but I know it's not far away. It's somewhere in here I think:

 

Come out come out wherever you are...

My dammit list

Havi Brooks over at her Fluent Self blog came up with the idea of a dammit list. I loved the idea, but I didn't know why. So I tried it. Then it came to me.

I love it because it is a vision of my future self, said with passion. A stake in the ground. A line in the sand, Dammit!

So, here is the part of my dammit list (so far, it's still changing...) that I'm happy to have out here, in public :-) Some bits items in the list need to be... elsewhere. The last one was borderline.

• Have a healthy, energised body, dammit!
• Be relaxed and expressive, dammit!
• Have joyful connections with people, dammit!
• Be around as my son and daughter blossom, dammit!
• Know my work has impact, even when I'm a bit lost, dammit!
• Remember that joyful learning and sharing is the point, dammit!
• Confidently follow my curiousity, dammit!
• Be seriously eclectic, dammit!
• Beginner's mind, dammit!
• Embrace the details, dammit!
• Celebrate my talent for deep reflection, dammit!
• Be Randy Newman, dammit!

I've been thinking a lot recently about why I'm not writing. Well, today I give myself permission not to write if I don't want to. There, I said it. Now what?

How are you geeky?

I was getting my inner thigh bruised the other day by my sports therapist, and he said something that struck me: he described himself as geeky about the human body. He just loved working out how people's muscles and ligaments and tendons work.

This got me thinking about my geekinesses (for there is never just the one with me!) and I came up with a list - a bloody long list of things I think I'm geeky about. I'm primarily a self geek (no argument there), but I'm also a story geek, a word geek, a film geek, an art geek, a song geek, a piano geek, a guitar geek, a drawing geek, a software geek, a coding geek, a design geek, a bodywork geek, an architecture geek and a technology geek.

Once I had stopped writing these down, I was stunned. Here was yet another view of my ongoing problem.

First, a definition: to me, a geek is someone who is focussed on their subject, lives and breathes it, applies their knowledge of it to other parts of their lives, are almost obsessed by it to the point they wonder if they are normal.

Now I could immediately see that it's impossible to be a geek in all the things in my list. You can't be a geek about everything - that's just being curious. What I was highlighting to myself was my inability to choose a focus for my next creative project. I was overwhelmed by my interests. Which was very painful.

So, to try and clarify things, I chose my top 5 without thinking too much: Self geek first, then technology geek, code geek, song geek, and body geek.

Totally. Gutted. I tried it again. Same order. No! This wasn't how I saw myself! I was at war with my own passions!

And here was an epiphany (thanks Havi!). For years I had told myself I was an artist, a writer, a creative thinker, but in my day job I had been developing software. By spending the majority of my time with code I have methodically trained my mind to be interested, even passionate, about software.

Which was not in the montage.

A tension, then - to follow my intuition and be a software geek, or to follow my (other) intuitions and be a writer/artist/musician geek.

Now a well-trained part of me immediately piped up with the abundance idea of being both, but frankly that is where I am now and it sucks. I don't want to be both. I want to choose and focus and get down to some daily practice.

Perhaps there was another way to transcend the problem? What if I could consciously choose other things on the geekiness list and try them out? That could be fun - if I could let myself. Because our brains are malleable, right? We can take charge if we want to - right?

And isn't it important to cross boundaries in our work, to cross-pollinate our interests? Perhaps as an artist I could move between several mediums as my curiousity guided me?

And that's where I am today. But I've decided to apply a rule to help me. I can do anything I choose, but it has to be within a project. A short, sharp project. And I can only learn what I need to learn to get the piece of work finished.

I suspect I'll hit upon a skill that I particularly enjoy and then run with it for a while, but really, who the hell knows? That's why this is so goddam exciting.

Does this resonate with anyone else? Let me know if it does! How are you geeky? And is it real geekiness?

Organic fruit and veg box

Isn't that beautiful? And just £15. At least I think that's good value. I wonder what the same items bought from Tesco would cost?

However, I do feel good for buying them this way - grown in a walled garden near Richmond, less than 15 miles away and delivered by the woman who grew them :-)

Do I want to be a code poet? No!

I'm a software developer (sometimes I say engineer, but really? An engineer?!). I'm also a creative writer with my pause button pressed. I should be playing, but I'm not.

I came across a phrase today that made me shout 'Yes!', before I brought my hands down in a confused hairy muddle. Another software developer engineer person described themselves on their website as a code poet. A code poet! I love that. It captures something about the joy of coding, but it's also wrong, deep down in my soul wrong.

Of course I'm over-reacting, that's what I do when my mental patterns are on automatic.

A poet has something to express, expresses it in words and imagery, then keeps expressing it through the editing process until the poem is finished, both emotionally and structurally.

A coder takes a specification or set of requirements and produces a piece of software that is easy-to-use, intuitive, fast, and easy to maintain/change/add to.

The parallel that works for me is the reworking to achieve some sort of beauty of form, of elegance, of great design. Poets and coders both do that. But is calling myself a code poet an attempt to pretend writing code is like writing poetry? Saving me from taking the risk of writing real poetry? Of expressing my feelings and having the world read them?

Code is all about logic, and code poetry is elegance and simplicity of logic. It's working on a function, not a feeling. At this stage in my life, I want to work on my feelings. To avoid this work is wrong wrong wrong for me.

Maybe I'm not over-reacting. It is deep down in my soul wrong. Perhaps I'm confusing my 'mental patterns on automatic' with intuition.