Are you having a busy week? I'm not. Oh, my calendar and to-do-list are plenty full, as usual: appointments, meetings, writing projects, household projects, pitching-in projects, activist activities, email and phone calls to catch up on, matters to check on (Where's my refund for those down mittens I returned last month? What's happened to the guy who's supposed to be re-staining our house? Why isn't insurance covering my upcoming dental work?). But I'm not going to say I'm busy. You know why? Because I have purged that word from my vocabulary, at least as it pertains to my own doings. The inspiration for this linguistic vanishing act came from an editorial I read in Mother Earth Living in early 2015. "For many of us today, 'busy' isn't something we are from time to time when we're working on a big project. It's the state of our lives. It's our default setting," wrote the magazine's editor-in-chief, Jessica Kellner. "Being busy. . . validates our existence in an unsure world—if we're constantly busy, our lives must be important." But all that busy-busy-busyness can feel awfully frenzied and stressful, can't it? Don't you wish you could still do all the things you need and want to do, without feeling frantic? Maybe you can. Maybe you just need to trick your brain, Kellner suggests. She cited a number of studies showing that simply changing one's mindset can have profound physical effects. For example, septuagenarians instructed in an experimental setting to live as if they were 22 years old sat taller, performed better on manual dexterity tasks and even looked more youthful after only five days of thinking young. Could a similar mental ploy help alleviate our sense of overload? Kellner thinks so. "Perhaps if we stop saying we're so busy, we'll stop feeling so busy," she concluded. "By aiming our thoughts toward serenity and calm, we might actually achieve serenity and calm—without changing anything about our daily schedules." Intrigued, I started my own experiment, simply substituting the word "full" for "busy" when thinking and talking about my everyday activities. The change was subtle, but almost immediately I noticed a difference. "Busy" had felt like a burden. "Full" felt like a blessing. How fortunate I was to have so many interesting things to fill my days. And if they weren't all so interesting or rewarding, well, that's where another mind-shift could come in handy. This one I came across more recently in a blog post by Bella Mahaya Carter on She Writes, a website for women writers. Carter shared her own to-do list from a recent day—a familiar-looking litany of pleasant enough activities (yoga class, edit memoir, write thank-you notes), along with a fair share of less-appealing tasks (clean kitchen, unpack from trip, grocery shop). Admitting she probably wouldn't get to everything on the list in one day, Carter wrote, "It helps to remind myself that it doesn't matter if it takes me two or three days to complete these items. What does matter is that everything on my list I'm doing for love." Everything? Really? That's pretty much how Carter reacted when she first heard the love-centric notion, put forth by spiritual psychology pioneer H. Ronald Hulnick. When Hulnick told Carter's class at the University of Santa Monica, "The only reason to do anything is for love," Carter was skeptical, and immediately started thinking up exceptions. But then she stopped herself and decided, as an experiment, to act as if it were true. Her to-do list didn't change much, but her approach to doing the things on that list did, and life felt lighter as a result. "For example, instead of complaining about cleaning my house, I focused on how much I loved my family and my home, and how great it was that I was able to clean my home," Carter wrote. "It also occurred to me that I was lucky to have a home." The love filter also helps her choose new activities. When asked to do something she's not sure she wants to do, she asks herself: Where is the love here? "I root around and sniff out the love. If I don't catch its scent, I say no and move on." Though I'm having a little trouble finding the love in toilet cleaning (don't ask me to sniff that one out!), I'm trying to keep Carter's words in mind as I decide how to allocate my time each week. Now, let me ask you again: Are you having a busy week? Photo of Bella Mahaya Carter: http://www.bellamahayacarter.com/
All other images are free-use stock images.
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Recently, Ray and I passed the twenty-five year mark as a couple, and in a few months we'll celebrate our twentieth wedding anniversary. I realize those numbers aren't record-breaking—we all know couples who've been together twice as long or longer. And my mate and I aren't claiming to be paragons of contented couplehood. Still, we've learned a thing or two about durability over the years. Here, then, is a handful of those lessons, offered not as instruction, but as an invitation for you to share your own thoughts about what makes a relationship endure, whether it's a marriage, a friendship or a close connection with a family member.
But sometimes, separate I spend most mornings practicing yoga, meditating, reading, writing and answering email, while Ray goes for walks and putters with projects in his workshop. On weekends, he might head off to a car show or woodworking demonstration, and I might play with my camera or attend a writing workshop. When we come back together, refreshed by our individual pursuits, we have new experiences and insights to share and more to talk about than whether it's time to take out the garbage. The five-to-one formula A few years after Ray and I got together, when I was still a staff writer at the Detroit Free Press, I wrote an article about research at the University of Washington's "Love Lab." That’s where psychologist-mathematician John Gottman was engaged in a long-term study of hundreds of couples, trying to tease out behavior patterns predicted marital success or failure. One of Gottman's key findings was that lasting marriages have a magic ratio of five times as many positive feelings and interactions as negative ones. Ray and I don't keep a running tally--how silly would that be? But we seem to have developed an internal counter that prompts us to balance every tense exchange with a slew of more loving ones. It makes for a sense of safety and comfort that fosters even more warm feelings.
Hang on Rough patches? Sure, we have those. Doesn't everyone? And we're not always graceful about getting through them. One thing I've learned to keep in mind, though, is that everything changes. If you're patient and calm, something will shift, and you'll find a way through. Now it's your turn. What have you learned about creating and maintaining lasting relationships?
A year ago this week, HeartWood's first post went live, so this is our blog-iversary, and we're celebrating! Come to think of it, we're big on celebrations in general, I realized as I looked back at the past year's posts. One of our earliest posts was a wide-ranging rumination on celebrations—of special occasions and special people, of big events and small moments that are just as deserving of a hooray!
We didn't have to go far at all for some of our experiences. We stopped in at local hangouts and even went on a writing retreat without leaving home.
When HeartWood launched a year ago, that same yoga group was central to many of our lives, and our teacher Ellie Randazzo was central to the group. Her death in August was a shattering loss that still affects us deeply. I'm happy to report, though, that we continue to honor her memory by practicing together weekly at the same time, in the same place where we practiced with Ellie. Her spirit still guides us. All of these experiences over the past year have given us plenty to think about, and we've taken time to reflect on such topics as serendipity, slowing down, home, expanding our social circles and the importance of striking a balance between on-the-go activity and solitude. We've embraced our bodies! And we've embraced our creativity, too, considering the roles of chaos and boundary crossing in stimulating imagination. And because this has been a year of divisiveness as well as harmony, we've given some thought to how we communicate with people whose opinions differ from our own. That's a look back. Now it's time to look ahead. When I started this blog, I vowed to stick with it for a year, then reassess and decide whether to keep going. How to decide? Feedback and figures are one measure, and on both counts I'm encouraged. The comments I get from readers and the growing numbers of page views and individual visitors tell me this endeavor is worth the time I'm putting into it. What's more, I'm enjoying this undertaking way more than I expected to. It's satisfying to have an outlet for my own writing and a place to share guest posts and interviews and to know that someone is actually reading this stuff and maybe getting something useful from it. So here's to another year of HeartWood, and here's where you come in. I'd love to know what kinds of posts you most enjoyed in the past year and what topics, events, places and people you'd like to see featured in future posts. Oh, and I know it's not polite to ask for gifts, but if you're wondering what to give HeartWood on this special occasion, a few more subscribers would be really terrific. My goal is to double (or more) the number of current subscribers over the next few months. So if you haven't subscribed, please consider signing up (see form at right side of page). And if you're already a subscriber, please encourage one or more friends to subscribe. Now, on with the party!
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Written from the heart,
from the heart of the woods Read the introduction to HeartWood here.
Available now!Author
Nan Sanders Pokerwinski, a former journalist, writes memoir and personal essays, makes collages and likes to play outside. She lives in West Michigan with her husband, Ray. Archives
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