Lessons from labor

I am writing this week's article from the hospital with a friend who has been laboring with her first child for over 48 hours. It's been an emotional journey the last couple of days for all of us. It's been powerful watching my friend balance her willpower, stamina and desire to meet her son with the surrender required by the birthing process.

One of the most poignant lessons has been the reminder that even when you do everything in your power to encourage something to happen, there are times that you just have to wait and let things take their natural course.

That's a potent lesson in this day and age, not only for expectant mothers, but for all of us.

How often do we pick our goals and decide exactly how we are going to achieve them? It can be so comforting to predict how we're going to act, what we're going to do, who we're going to do it with and what will happen. We often get so caught up in doing things the way we predetermined to do them that we miss the wonderful opportunities to do things differently, perhaps even more delightfully, that present themselves as we journey through life.

Watching my friend labor has been a reminder that most of the time we truly do not have power over the mysterious ways of the universe. It's also been a nice reminder about what we ALWAYS have power over: how we respond to circumstances beyond our control. We can get caught up in what we wanted to happen and be unhappy when things don't go the way we hope or expect, or, like my friend, we can stay fully present in the moment and make choices that honor the natural process.

My friends have really been an inspiration in how they've handled this laboring journey - they have become skilled at making choices in the best interest of mom and baby based on the factors available at each different point in time that the path forks.

In fact, my coach calls this type of decision making process "dancing with spirit" - it's when you keep your end goal in mind yet make decisions based on what's the best option, what's healthiest, what your heart feels is right based on what you know right NOW while letting go of all expectations of how things should go.

We can all benefit from my friends example. While you may have a vision in your mind of what you desire in your life, whether it's a new baby or a new business or even the outcome of a project - instead of getting hung up on HOW you expect to achieve your end goal, in my friends' case meeting their new son, you can release all expectations of HOW your goal will be achieved and focus instead on being in the moment and giving yourself the freedom to be open to choices and opportunities that you hadn't originally imagined were possible.

Checklist for letting go of clutter

Getting rid of my stuff is hard to do! If it were easy to do this, my house (and probably yours) would not be so cluttered and overstuffed in the first place! How do you decide to whether it's time to let go of something or not?

The technique I've developed is using a quick priority checklist. Here's what you do: Make a list of your top priorities for your home or office. Mine are comfort, breathing room, easy to find, and currently useful in my life. What are your priorities?

For each item that you are evaluating - run down the checklist. Does it meet any of your criteria? Yes, then keep it. If it doesn't, let it go. It is only taking up space and contributing to unnecessary complexity in your life.

In fact, this checklist comes in handy when you're considering investing in a new item. If it doesn't meet any of your criteria - then don't let it become clutter!

Streamlining your space

A few weeks back, I talked about how streamlining your home and office is one way to keep your energy up for fueling your life. If you missed the post about Saying No and Letting go, take a look here. That discussion inspired me so much, I am determined to go through my whole house by the end of the fall. Honestly - this is a pretty daunting project, so I did some research to find out what experts had to say about how to streamline and organize your home, office and life.

The first tip I found was to break down large projects into smaller, more manageable chunks! What a great idea! Instead of trying to find the time (and energy) to rehaul my entire home in one fell swoop, I decided to break it down by room and how much time I spend there. Since I spend most of my time in my office studio, I started there. Currently, I'm working on the closet and storage area since the bedroom is the next place I spend significant time. I plan to work on the kitchen and pantry once the bedroom is complete, and then move onto the livingroom, library areas and bathrooms.

Once I got my mini-projects, I wondered how to streamline. I found advice from another expert who recommended analyzing the area to identify problems, and then taking it a step further to figure out why these problems were happening and how to address them. So, taking my closet for example, I discovered it was hard to find anything or really know what was in there because it was crammed full of stuff and clothes. Why? Because I kept putting more and more items in there and never took anything out. The solution in my case - get rid of stuff!

Depending on the type of problems in your space, the solution is going to vary. If you aren't sure what is going to work in your situation, take a look at the myriad of resources on the internet. Organizing 101 on About.com has a lot of useful links, or Get Real Solutions for Your Home on iVillage. While you're there, you might even want to find out your Organizing Obstacles with the help of Vicki Norris.

In summary, this is what the experts had to say about how to start streamlining and organizing your space.

1st - break down large projects into smaller chunks
2nd - analyze the space to identify problem areas
3rd - determine the cause of the problem
4th - come up with a solution before you move on to the next area

Good luck!

A life of their own?

Returning home after a 20 day vacation provided the opportunity to look at my home, my office and my schedule with a fresh perspective. After living out of one suitcase for three weeks, everything seemed so much more complicated than necessary. My feeling on this was cemented while I was looking for an important document and wondering why there were five or six different places that it might be found. I wasted an hour searching, when I could have used that time to finish a project, or even better, had an additional hour at the end of the day for self-care and relaxation.

I wondered why there are so many places for important documents all over my apartment, and while I was at it, I also wondered why there are so many email accounts for me to wade through, so much junk mail to recycle, and so many different places I keep track of invitations and appointments. It appears that when life is hectic and busy, sometimes things just seem to have a life of their own and multiply until you put a stop to it.

The solution to making more free time and energy for non-work pursuits is to streamline and simplify! Conserving energy by not dispersing it in multiple unsatisfying directions is one of the keys to becoming and staying energized and well. There are many different approaches to simplifying, but I don't want that to get complicated either. I am going to stick with these two maxims: Say No and Let Go. For instance, I can solve dilemma about the missing document by Saying No to multiple locations where I toss things and instead designate a specific location and make a point of using it.

How many different areas of your life would benefit from using these phrases to focus, streamline and simplify? I imagine there is more than one! Here's an exercise in using them:

Pick one area of your home or office that seems to have the most life of it's own. In my house, it's usually the kitchen! Take a look around and identify the items of particular concern. In my kitchen, the recycling and those plastic grocery bags are out of control; in addition, there seem to always been more dishes than we can handle. Now, brainstorm ways to simplify by Saying No and Letting Go. I can Say No to plastic grocery bags at the store by bringing reusable canvas bags, and I can Let Go of the hundreds sitting there by putting them out with the recycling. As for managing the large piles of paper and plastic recycling that is often tripped over in my kitchen, I could start Saying No to buying individually packaged items at the grocery store, opting instead of bulk good whenever possible. I could also Say No to catalogs by having the companies take me off their mailing lists, and Say No to junk mail by getting my address off those lists too. I can also Say No to my laziness and make more of an effort to bring the recycling out to the bins before it piles up. As for dishes, I can Let Go of keeping 8 settings accessible for every day use by putting half of them away for special occasions.

Which part of your house (or maybe your job) seems to have the most life of it's own? How can you streamline and simplify by Saying No and Letting Go?

A change of perspective

From June 15 - July 9th, the planet mercury is said to be retrograde. While the planet isn't actually traveling backwards, it seems that way to our eyes because of the orbit of the earth in relation to the other planets. Traditionally it is believed that when planets are retrograde, things don't go as planned, and often repressed, hidden or ignored issues come to light. Sometimes even wacky things just happen - especially with technology just not working the way it's supposed to or transportation getting bungled up.

While this could be a stressful time, the activity of a retrograde is a great opportunity to practice wellness by letting go of your need to control your environment and allowing yourself to be led along the flow of the universe. Take a lot of deep breaths, if you need to, and consider this thought from Kasha Ritter published in We'Moon 2007:

There is a term, "Divine Chaos". I am sure you have heard it before.

It would be a great gift if we could teach our children the gift that chaos brings. That when you get a flat tire and you have to be somewhere, that life just gave you a nice pause in your day. Not that life hates you and is out to get you. This is your gentle remider that you are not in control, that someone is looking out for you, wanting to get your attention - and, most importantly, that when life does not go as planned, it is, always is a good thing. It has changed your perspective; it has given you an open door to meet someone new, let someone help you and reconnect you to life.

So, next time your day "falls apart", pause, say thanks and enjoy the ride.