Scheduling crisis: Finding a balance

Monday, January 26th, 2009

My pasta is boiling over

So I had a bit of a holiday, because I needed one, because I’d been working through lots of thoughts and ideas and learning and changing and my brain and body needed a rest.

Only problem is, that after that I started to get that bubbling feeling, where I can tell there’s something under the surface starting to build up, like when I cook pasta on our annoying electric hob and because I can’t get the temperature right it’s constantly bubbling up under the lid.

Well, the starchy bubbles have started to pop out of the top of the pan, and they are spilling everywhere, making a mess, and generally unwelcome.  In the analogyverse the obvious thing to do is to take the lid off the pan.  However, that’s drastic, results in the pan then going completely off the boil and annoying to have to keep doing.

What I really want to do is get the temperature right so that I’ve got my pasta simmering away but the pan doesn’t spill over.

Balance

What I need is a balance so that I’ve got space for the stuff to come out, but that it’s not so much that I’m overwhelmed.  And in my mind I should be able to find a way for that to happen where I stay in a blissful state of balance the whole time, but I’m suddenly thinking, right now, that maybe that’s not going to happen.  That life doesn’t work like that and that it’s more a case of letting a little steam out every so often.  Little and often, my second rule for testing if something is true.

So if the method is more about little and often, about making it a practice rather than a state of being, what would that involve?

  • Time to reflect
  • Time to do
  • Time to rest

So yeah, my holiday has interupted by Alternative MA, and that’s what it was supposed to do, but it’s also telling me that something wasn’t working.  Despite all my best intentions there apparently still wasn’t enough rest time.  Which is just horrifying, because I really tried to give myself lots of time out, more than I was necessarily comfortable with, and it looks like I need more.

Still, there’s a few things I can start back on now, including my practice for releasing a bit of the steam (Dance of Shiva, and writing here – you know, that 30 day trial thing I did a while back and haven’t wrapped up any lovely tidy conclusion from, before your mind starts wondering).

Time to do is things like the garden and cooking, both being things that are bringing me massive joy at the moment.  And lots of reading.

Rest?  That’s where I get stuck I think.  How to rest.  How to rejuvinate?  I’m so used to doing, I’m struggling to find ways of being that aren’t so far removed from the familiar that there’s no chance they’ll stick.  Add to that the fact that the second I ‘do something to relax’ it becomes another task on my list and brings all kinds of effort and expectations which are basically what I’m trying to rest from anyway.

Wise self: Dear James, you have permission to just chill out for a bit, ok?

Me: Ummm, how do I do that without ‘doing’ it?

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6 comments

Charlie:
 1 

Warning: it’s late and I’m up, so no guarantees that this will be coherent. Or if coherent, insightful. There we go.

I’m worried about the either/or situation you’re set up. You can either do, or relax – it seems you’re saying “but not both.”

Why can’t “a doing” be “a relaxing?” I can tell from the change in your voice that you’re in a good space while cooking and gardening, so it’s leisure in that sense, but does it tire you out?

Personal anecdote: the sweet spot is hard to find, but if you balance “productive doing” with “leisurely doing” to the amount of time you have available, there’s only one more thing type of thing left to do: sleep, eat, and…other natural functions.

When you need rest, your body will let you know. If you’ve “worked,” “played,” and taken care of your other stuff – what’s left?

p.s. I still struggled sometimes when I was neither energetic to do physical play nor had the creative energy to be mentally active. So I found a non-draining, non-creative pseudo-leisurely task to do besides sitting on the couch watching TV. I’ll leave the mystery there…

CHarlie’s last blog post..Jingling Our Lives Away

January 26th, 2009 at 6:10 am
James | Dancing Geek:
 2 

You’re worried about it? I’m worried about it! Thing is I’m not sure what the alternative would look like, so I’m struggling to make it happen – I seem to overshoot one way or the other all the time.

So that’s why I’m wondering if it is more a case of trying to learn not to overshoot by so much, rather than spending a lot of energy trying to learn to be perfectly balanced and poised at all times.

Still, I do very much like the scale of leisurely doing to productive doing (I turn pretty much every duality into a scale). That seems more manageable as a concept than a triad of do, think and rest.

Plus, it would seem to nicely resolve some of my uncertainties around chilling activities like some console games, napping and mindless reading. These are periods of downtime when energies are low.

In fact, I’ve made a little image that came to mind:

Productive-leisurely scale against energy levels

January 26th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Alex Fayle | Someday Syndrome:
 3 

Practice staring at the wall with your eyes slightly unfocused. Let whatever thoughts drift through your head as you want.

It’s not meditation, it’s not anything. It’s just staring a the wall.

And it works.

Alex Fayle | Someday Syndrome’s last blog post..Waiting for permission: Wendi Kelly interview

January 26th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Alex Fayle | Someday Syndrome:
 4 

Of course, having just left that message, I want to take out the word practice because that’s still doing.

So here’s version 2.0 of the abobove…

Stare at walls. Let the brain drift.

That’s not-doing without doing it.

Alex Fayle | Someday Syndrome’s last blog post..Waiting for permission: Wendi Kelly interview

January 26th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Charlie:
 5 

I was doing some decision mapping this morning using a similar quadrant methodology and I was going to run here and talk about it and then…BAM! You’ve already got it down. I would have done it in the Cartesian method, but they express the same information.

The great thing about the model is that it helps you with the whole “what should I be doing right now?” question. First, sense how much energy you have. Second, sense whether it seems right to do “productive” stuff vs. “leisurely” stuff. It’ll probably be enough to guide you well enough.

Remember to celebrate the small victories – and that being in the moment and doing activities based upon your intuition is a huge victory.

p.s. My comment last night WAS horribly ungrammatical. At least I had gave the warning. ;p

Charlie’s last blog post..Jingling Our Lives Away

January 26th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
James | Dancing Geek:
 6 

@Alex – gah! *lots of yucky resistance* It turns out that the idea of staring at a wall is not so straight forward for some reason! But I’m trying to stay aware of my mind’s wanderings when I’m chilling after Shiva Nata. That may be similar enough.

@Charlie – cartesian? I thought mine was (at least by my mathematical understanding of that word). Just my y-axis runs from 0 to lots rather than negative to positive (cause negative energy doesn’t make sense to me for ‘doing’ stuff).

January 27th, 2009 at 3:10 am

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