Taking a Little Downtime

“There are times when we stop, we sit still. We listen
and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper.” James Carroll

I recently came across an article written for CFO’s that cited a study which “found that 65% of American adults” sleep with their cell phones. The article alluded to the increased pressure to work longer hours in the face of current economic pressures, something most of us probably feel to varying degrees every day. Not to mention the pressures of trying to balance all that with our desire to honor the creative self which brings with it it’s own unique pressures.

The article suggested that, given all the investments CFO’s make into their businesses, one of the most important might just be an investment in downtime. “Planned and mindful slacking off,” it suggested, “may help optimize talent performance.” And the same is true for the rest of us: investing in our own downtime may help optimize the rest of our lives (not just work-related activities, but regarding the time we spend with our families, our creative endeavors, other personal interactions, and our own mental and physical health).

“Plants grow most in the darkest hours preceding dawn; so do human souls.
Nature always pays for a brave fight. Sometimes she pays in strengthened moral muscle,
sometimes in deepened spiritual insight, sometimes in a broadening, mellowing,
sweetening of the fibres of character,—but she always pays.” – William George Jordan

Another article in the Harvard Business Review claims that “drawing brighter lines between work and time off — family, friends, outside activities, and old-fashioned daydreaming — has clear benefits for productivity, creativity, and wellness. There’s an upside to downtime.”

Take a Seat and Relax

There’s a reason the business world is noticing this essential fact. They’re designed to explore the best ways to maximize performance and to reduce costs and they’re seeing the humans who work for them in that light. But how often do we examine our own lives that way?

It’s not all about dollars and cents though, but about common sense. After all, relaxation affects the body, the mind, and the emotions. Relaxation can improve things like blood pressure and other heart-related problems associated with stress, maintaining the immune system, memory and the clarity of thought, and so on. Physiological and psychological benefits to every aspect of our lives, perhaps most especially to the parts associated more with our interaction with families and our interaction with ourselves than with our jobs.

Though daydreaming can certainly get you off task at times, some studies suggest that a certain element of daydreaming labeled “mind wandering,” may also be helpful for problem solving, creativity, and keeping “you on course for long-term goals.”

“There is a tonic strength, in the hour of sorrow and affliction, in escaping from the world
and society and getting back to the simple duties and interests we have slighted and forgotten.
Our world grows smaller, but it grows dearer and greater. Simple things have a new charm
for us, and we suddenly realize that we have been renouncing all that is greatest and best,
in our pursuit of some phantom.” – William George Jordan

Taking time to relax, to slow down and be mindful of the moment, to do activities like yoga or meditation, enjoy a massage, or go for a walk can recharge your energy and your spirit, but it can also provide an assortment of other benefits. We hope you take some time this week (even if that is merely for fifteen minutes a few days) to just be, to relax, to breathe, to find your “tonic strength.” This can add to your well being as well as to your creativity. Namaste!

Photo Credit Yoga by MeditationMusic

March 4, 2013 By Dave 2 Comments Filed Under: Deep Listening & Re-connecting, Inspiration, Imagination, Innovation Tagged With: blood pressure, creativity, daydreaming, downtime, massage, meditation, relaxation, stress, well being, wind wandering, yoga

It’s About Time

How much of your day is influenced by time?

It’s somewhat ironic that the one thing our lives are inseparably tangled in (and with) is the very thing we tend to feel a dearth of – TIME. There just isn’t enough of it! Though chances are, as with most things, if we had more of it, we’d probably just find more ways to give it away and, in the end, we’d still feel like we were always running short.

Do you have the luxury of waking up simply when your body is ready to wake up on its own? Or do you “have to get up” at a certain time to officially begin your day? Do you have specific duties that have to be done at (or by) certain times? Getting the kids to school, for example, which might mean getting them up, preparing breakfast, lunches, making sure they’re wearing clothing (and that it’s not yours), driving them or making sure they make it to the bus “on time.” What then? How about afternoons? Evenings? Are weekends different? Does time unravel just a bit at the end of the week, does it loosen up a little, or do you have even more to get done then?

Over the next week (that’s seven days starting from the moment you read this), I’m going to ask you to give one person a gift. If I asked you to choose someone you know who needs to catch his/her breath, you might think of your spouse, your parents, your boss, your employee, your friend, your neighbor, and so on. Just deciding who to pick might take time you don’t really have. So I’ve picked for you. Just this once.

The person I’m asking you to give the gift to is YOU!

Making Resolutions – A Resolve to Let Go

What is Resolution?

In fiction, a Resolution is the event in the story that solves (or resolves) the conflict. While in photography, the term has to do with the sharpness of the image, with clarity in the sense that the lower the resolution the more pixelated or blurry the image. When I thought about these two things, I saw the act of making a Resolution in a different way. As an attempt to solve a main conflict. As an act needed to create an image that most clearly represents the original, the authentic thing. With these ideas in mind, I see a resolution as a positive thing, as a way of ending some sort of misalignment of your values and your actions, and also as a way of being clear about who you truly are. But that has not always been the case.

What To Do When Inspiration Can’t Be Found

Writer Who Is Stuck

Ever feel like, no matter what you try, it’s just not happening?

A writer recently asked us: “What strategies do you employ when you just feel like it’s not happening? ‘Just sit down and do it’ works well most of the time, and I usually find (as with physical exercise) when I’m finished I can’t imagine not having done it. However, there are days when the inspiration can’t be found.”

There are a number of things I do that help with this situation when it comes to writing (but also related to getting projects done for work, exercising, eating healthy, having fun, and so on). Since a writer posed the question, I’ll relate my responses to writing mostly, but will also try to tie the ideas in to those other things as well.

I’ll start with a reworked concept that you’ve probably heard before. It’s the K.I.S.S. philosophy (but instead of Keep It Simple, Stupid, as the acronym was commonly bantered about when I was younger, we’re creatively reusing it to mean):

Kindness
Intention
Simplicity
Slack

Kindness – in the sense of being affectionate and loving and sympathetic, but also in the sense of mindfully extending compassion. Kindness and Compassion are traits highly regarded when it comes to how you should treat others, but we sometimes forget that it’s equally important to treat ourselves this way.

“Treat yourself the way you would have others treat you.” ~ Susan Masters

Sometimes a gesture as seemingly insignificant as extending compassion to yourself can free up creative energy, as we tend to be hardest on ourselves. We tend to be judgmental with regards to our work – not just when it’s done, but while we’re writing, and sometimes before we even begin (this last phenomenon is a result of our judgment of ourselves – of self-doubt or a lack of confidence in our ability – which can happen, just so you know, to even the most successful of writers).

“Every time I start a novel, I think: “I don’t know how to write a novel. I don’t know how
to make it come alive. I don’t know how to tell a story. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
(New York Times Bestselling author  Alice Hoffman who has published over 30 books to date)

Finding Balance

Happiness & Balance

Happiness is not one of those things that just happens to you. Yet it is one of those values we do, at times, seem to treat as a tangible thing floating around out there in the air somewhere just waiting for us to come along and scoop it up into our hands.

“I’m killing time while I wait for life to shower me with meaning and happiness.”
- Calvin & Hobbes

Rather than share any so-called secrets to happiness (which would require me to pretend to know them in the first place), I’d really just like to draw your attention to one. One single word to be precise.

BALANCE.

In yoga we seek “equanimity” or a balance between mind, body and spirit. We talk about the importance of having our values and our actions in alignment. Peace of mind. Feeling fulfilled. Happiness. It’s all about balance, really, isn’t it?

When we (The Best Me) help people re-connect with their true selves, re-imagine the possibilities in their lives, and re-write their stories, we also help them examine the essential elements that make up their lives.

We help them align their values with their thoughts and their actions. To find a sense of balance.

Making Life a Little Simpler

The trees aren’t the only things changing, the leaves aren’t the only things that fall this time of year . . .

What if you didn’t have to make that New Year’s resolution to lose weight or to get in shape or to eat healthier? What if you were able to get to 2013 without the guilt or the disappointment or the frustration that tends to greet so many of us with the coming of each new year?

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” – Confucius

When I was just a boy my dad told me something that stuck with me and that has certainly shaped me (in more ways than one). He said, “it’s a lot easier to stay in shape than it is to get in shape. So the more you maintain your fitness now, the easier it will be to maintain it as you get older.” I may have very well rolled my eyes when I first heard that (the way teens tend to do these days when someone older shares insight), but my ears were obviously tuned in on his words. I’ve experienced the difference between staying in shape and getting back in shape. One is easier. The other makes things a bit more complicated.

This is the time of year when moods shift and spirits fall like the leaves, as if some sort of emotional gravity begins tugging at our minds and our hearts more and more as we amble through what remains of autumn and trudge into winter.

Part of that is due to shorter, darker, colder days. We are solar powered, after all. But it’s also the result of our living even more indoor lives after spending a summer reconnecting with the outdoors.

It’s this time of year, right now, when many of us start to disconnect again from the outside world. As a result, we also start to disconnect from ourselves. And, in some ways, that plays a part in our need to make those resolutions with the coming of the new year.

Ways of Understanding

Wyoming – Beautiful and Vast

It’s fascinating to me how I can have all the essential ingredients for a post like today’s (those primary ingredients, in this case, being interview responses from poet and author Lesléa Newman) and still spend days trying to figure out just how to get started. Not for a lack of ideas, but from an overabundance.

I’ve spent the past few days running through a list of relevant themes (from “understanding” to “empathy” to “compassion” to “belonging”) and each seems to warrant consideration. Each seems to demand it’s own place, not just in today’s post, but in several.

Late last night, after I’d been in bed reading for awhile, I finally decided to shape today’s blog around empathy and compassion. Of course, this morning, that changed a bit, after I spent an hour working on my YA novel, Mr. Bones. I’d finally gotten to a new chapter, to a new scene – one in which the protagonist (Gabe) and his best friend (Swatch) and their sworn enemy (Tyler) discuss the classic novel Of Mice and Men while working on a group project for school.

Unbeknownst to me, Swatch had come to a conclusion on her own about Steinbeck’s characters. She stated that nearly all the characters in the book wanted a piece of land to call their own. That theme is presented in the very first chapter – as George and Lennie discuss their shared dream (the “American Dream,” as it’s been called), but in many ways Swatch asserts it’s really just a human dream – when George says that “Someday . . . we’re gonna have a little house and a couple acres an’ a cow and some pigs and–” Lennie interrupts, “An’ live off the fatta the lan’ . . . An’ have rabbits.” I’ve always been especially drawn to that scene because it so deftly conveys Lennie’s childlike aspirations in the context of the much larger dream, one that, as Swatch pointed out to me and Gabe and Tyler this morning, is shared by most of the characters in the novel.

But, Swatch also suggested that the dream of being independent, of having something to call their own, might have also been written by Steinbeck to represent an even more basic human need (not shelter, but the need to belong to something larger than yourself).

Be Here Now: An Interview With Anthony Heald

Anthony Heald as Shylock Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Anthony Heald as Shylock at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

This week, we have the privilege and the pleasure of interviewing actor Anthony Heald (though, if you meet him, he’ll tell you to call him Tony).

Tony’s an acclaimed and respected actor (appreciated by his peers for his talent, his professionalism, but also for the consideration he shows them, and for his ability to make them better through the choices he makes). For the past 35 years he’s been involved in entertaining in just about every medium – from theatre, to film, to episodic television shows, to audio books. As a matter of fact, he’s recorded over 60 audio-books and is considered by some to be “the voice of Star Wars.”

His comments, though especially relevant to thespians, are every bit as relevant to anyone who wants to be authentic (you know, the “you deep at the center of your being” to whom Confucius alluded, the “you” many of us never quite get around to being).

When Invisible Obstacles Get In The Way

Catness

A cat sits on the window sill, nose centimeters from the glass, trying to find a way past a barrier that’s all the more perplexing in its near-invisibility.

The cat’s drawn to what’s beyond the window – the blue sky, the leaves rustling in the breeze, the birds that dart about the feeder, the unsuspecting chipmunk scampering a few feet below its own mortality – but what’s also compelling it to be out there is something inside the cat, some part of its true nature.

After all, the essence of being a cat has nothing to do with living an indoor life.

It’s not that different for any of us who have an ache inside to do a thing (even if we aren’t exactly sure what that thing is just yet), but we feel there’s some, perhaps, unseen obstacle preventing us from actually taking the first step.

Unlike the cat, though, as humans we don’t just perceive that there’s an obstacle, that something’s preventing us from doing what we want or what we feel compelled to do, we also tend to judge ourselves for not doing it. We begin to define ourselves in terms of our momentary inability rather than (for a writer, for example,) on the basis of our imagination and talent. And that judgment can often be one more thing that gets in the way (sort of like adding another layer to the glass). Of course, if we’re unable to break through that barrier, it very well may define us in the end.

“The Battles That Count Aren’t The Ones For Gold Medals”

If It’s Not An Olympic Event It Should Be

Olympic Wisdom

Summer is a time for many things – splashing on the water, cooking out with friends, sharing sunsets and dreams with someone special.

But this summer is also a time of athletic greatness.

Since the 2012 Summer Olympics is going on right now, we thought we’d simply share a few quotes from some past Olympic champions. We hope you’ll find their words relevant, wise, and inspiring.

From Wilma Rudolph:

“Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us.”

“No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helps you.”

This last quote echoes, to some degree, an earlier post about explorer Tori Murden McClure’s transition from a desire to be independent to an acceptance of and appreciation for the strength that comes from recognizing our interdependence.

Here are a few words from Jesse Owens:

“The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself – the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us – that’s where it’s at.”

Post Race Antics

From Carl Lewis:

“Scientists have proven that it’s impossible to long-jump 30 feet, but I don’t listen to that kind of talk. Thoughts like that have a way of sinking into your feet.”

And from Nadia Comăneci:

“I don’t run away from a challenge because I am afraid. Instead, I run toward it because the only way to escape fear is to trample it beneath your feet.”

“You should also appreciate the goodness around you, and surround yourself with positive people.”

For some interesting information on “50 Stunning Olympic Moments,” click here.

You don’t need to set world records, but hopefully you can make your own Olympic moments over the next two weeks – special moments where you just slow down and make the most of your time with family, with friends, with yourself.

July 29, 2012 By Dave Leave a Comment Filed Under: Inspiration, Imagination, Innovation, Pathfinders, Trailblazers, & Healers Tagged With: Carl Lewis, challenges, dreams, fear, Jesse Owens, Nadia Comaneci, olympics, widsom, Wilma Rudolph