This morning I woke up super early to feed one of my children. When that happens I use the time to meditate, read and listen to music. If I could I would do these quieter things all day.
I’m often more creative, engaged and productive with big stretches of time spent on my own. This is good to understand.
Happy Tuesday chimps.
It’s not so much a panic, but more a huge imagining of potential future outcomes for projects that live in my head.
Once I am awake (usually kids crying) my brain throws a thought at me, I think of some way to change the outcome and then the snowball effect means I don’t sleep for hours.
I can feel it when the Adrenaline hits the body and at that point i might as well get up and have a coffee. I ain’t sleeping anymore.
Last night was bad but gave me a few ideas to work on.
Hoping for sleep tonight though.
Happy Saturday chimps.
Here’s an interesting quote:
We banish the misaligned when we align with what we are called to, we become visible and real when we give our gift and stop waiting for the gift to be given to us.
I am ruminating on this like a cow with cud.
There are many methods to create new habits. If you create and persist with these new habits, you alter your longer term behavior.
At first these changes in behavior are hard to keep up. They feel wrong, and difficult and like hard work. But over time, if you persist, then they become second nature. What was difficult becomes manageable.
In this time of pandemic, panic, pandemonium – it makes sense to me that you could find yourself a method to create some new habits. Persist with the new habits even as you hit a trough of disillusionment. Even as you are tempted to take the easy route. Once you pass through the dip, you will find the new behavior easier to manage. It will normalize.
Sometimes my brain will flick a switch and bail out. Just like a wrestler tapping out of a choke hold, when my stresses build up and become too much, the brain seems to automatically hide from responsibility. It searches memories for simpler times and childhood. Sadness creeps in. The search for distraction and pleasure creeps in. It bails out of life. This happens quickly and quietly.
Inevitably when this happens, and when I take the time to look at my life, I will see a pattern emerging. Usually this “bail out” mindset happens when I haven’t looked after myself in one of three ways. Either I haven’t done any exercise in a while, I haven’t done anything artistic in a while, or I’m not sleeping enough. Or some combination of the three.
So yesterday my brain bailed out. So I ran in the afternoon….yes….endorphins! Then i went to bed early. Today I’ll try find some time to doodle on the guitar or work on the podcast….Yeah, the podcast I reckon.
Do what you can. Which is more than you think.
I never thought I would ever care about furniture. For my teens and twenties, furniture was just stuff to sit on or put things on…or lie on. Just stuff to use.
Now though, furniture has power. I have favourite pieces. I appreciate how things are made. I get a sort of mental clarity and peace of mind when furniture fits into a room the way I think it ought to. When it is comfortable.
I think this is born out of family growth and chaos. Like a little microcosm of the world, population explosion in my house has put pressure on resources and spaces. Furniture has become misused – a TV cabinet overrun by unicorn stickers – a lounge suite as a nappy changing station. Furniture gets in the way often – tables and chairs are moved around willy-nilly for little hands and feet to climb onto – nothing more than leverage to reach something high. Just stuff to use.
Interior design and furniture can impact your health and wellbeing. Kids don’t care, and there’s a beauty in their nonchalance, but I am becoming more and more convinced of the power that ‘things fitting into appropriate spaces for particular use-cases’ can have.
Or maybe it was just that I wasn’t listening – either way, I think this should change.
Who doesn’t know how to keep a calendar? This sounds ridiculous, but it has taken me about 10 years to understand how to use and trust my computer’s calendar. At school, timetables were dished out at the beginning of term, pinned up on walls and referred to by everyone else around me. I could always ask my parents, teachers, friends what was coming up and what was due. I could remember a lot (well, enough) of what was important without needing a reference. The net result is that I never developed the skills to keep my own time. I have never trusted my computer calendars until very recently.
When you start using a calendar though, they build upon themselves. The more you use them, the more dependent you are on them, and then the more you will trust and use them again. You are invested, and that makes the whole system work. In this way calendars are a great example for projects in general. If you want to get a project started, then just start. The mental buy-in is what matters. The same thing seems to apply to relationships, exercise, blogging, working a job, keeping healthy.
That is what no school ever taught me – the importance of mentally buying into a concept, and that you can train yourself to do it in order to get something done.
Seems to me, this mental trick in and of itself is one of the most useful things in the world.
Work-Life balance is important – we all agree on that. But what does it mean practically?
My next guest offers some insights. Balance needs to be planned a little and thought about with your family.
He literally built a space (a cabin….a bothy) for balancing his life, getting to nature, being mindful, planning meaningful conversations and experiences away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
It’s inspiring and I hope you tune in on Friday at chimpwithcans.com to hear his story and our chat.
What separates your actions from those of a stone or a piece of wood? Sometimes not that much. Sometimes a lot.
Intentionality is defined by the Stanford encyclopedia of Philosophy as “the power of minds to be about, to represent, or to stand for, things, properties and states of affairs”. Standing for something. Having a goal at the fore front of your mind.
It’s a lofty concept if you dig into it. Just check out the sprawling Wikipedia page: link. But it is at the centre of my next guest’s life. It gives him some of his greatest experiences and successes. Being intentional affects his family, his goals and his actions.
Tune in to the chimpwithcans podcast this Friday (audio posted to chimpwithcans.com) to hear some more.
My friend sent me a link to a personality test: https://www.16personalities.com
Although I know there are lots of different versions, the results of this one rang fairly true. Whereas I used to dismiss the results of these tests, I have recently started to think they are pretty useful.
To notice myself in action. To see the weaknesses and strengths play out in everyday life has become something of a hobby.
There is no hierarchy in a personality test. Just tendencies and traits that you will benefit from noticing. I’d encourage anyone to give it a try.
Chimpwithcans 