Category Archives: Lifestyle choices

My priorities as I turn 64

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In what has become a birthday tradition, I like to start my “personal New Year” by reviewing my priorities. Are they the same as they were last year? Or does something need to change? 

As always, I used this morning’s meditation time to identify what is most important to me. For each priority, I set a long-term goal, evaluated my progress for the past year, and created an intention for the coming year. 

The past year has felt like one long roller coaster ride marked by repeated trips to the hospital for myself, family members and friends. Even our two kitties developed medical issues. So needless to say, some of my priorities ended up sidetracked or completely hijacked.

However, I decided the priorities themselves are good ones, so they will remain the same for now – my personal relationship with God, self-care, family and friends, our home, my writing, service to others, elimination of backlog tasks, and serenity/gratitude.

This little annual exercise helps me stay focused so various kinds of clutter – material, mental or spiritual – don’t crowd out what really matters.

Priority: Relationship with God

Long-term goal: Develop a better understanding of God, so I can fulfill God’s purpose for my life, discern what my core values should be and live accordingly.

Progress this past year: I’ve met monthly with my spiritual director, who has helped ease my doubts about God’s existence and guided me in exploring various kinds of prayer.

Intention for the coming year: I plan to continue working with my spiritual director to improve my prayer life. I’ll also use journaling, imagery and other exercises to sort through my beliefs about God, clarify my values and explore more of my burning questions.

Priority: Self-care

Long-term goal: Stay healthy for as long as possible and help my husband do the same.

Progress this past year: First, the good news – I persuaded my husband Pete to embark with me on a healthy eating plan, beginning the day after my last birthday, and I’m now down 30 pounds from my top weight. The not-so-good news – I’ve had several recurring medical problems, some of them stemming from the ever-growing pharmacopeia of pills prescribed to me by various doctors over the years. In March, the blood-thinning medication I was taking landed me in intensive care for two days. Since then, I’ve been weaning myself off nearly half those meds under the supervision of my primary care provider.

Intention for the coming year: Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit and I’ve resolved to take better care of mine! I’ve begun getting much more assertive with my health care providers regarding medications and coordination of care. Meanwhile, I plan to continue shedding weight and I’d like to experiment with recipes delicious enough to convince both my sweetie-pie and myself that healthy eating can be fun rather than torture! I also need to focus on developing a regular sleep schedule and improving my exercise routine. 

Priority: Family and friends

Long-term goal: Keep in contact and nurture good relationships with the people I love and care about.

Progress this past year: Again, there’s been good news and bad news. The good news is we got to see most of my immediate relatives at least once, including a cousin who lives in Denmark, and we reconnected with a pair of close friends we hadn’t seen in a couple of years. The bad news is, some of my family and friends have spent as much time negotiating doctors and hospitals as I have. And the really sad news is that, after more than a half-dozen hospitalizations over the past year, my beloved mother is now in hospice care.

Intention for the coming year: More and more, I’m confronted with the reality that I’m not always going to have all of my family and friends around me. I plan to spend quantity as well as quality time with Mom in the time we have left with her, and stay in contact with other family and friends through regular visits or correspondence. I also want to let the people I love know how much they mean to me and stay out of other people’s battles.

Priority: Our home

Long-term goal: Maintain our home as a sanctuary for ourselves, our family and friends.

Progress this past year: Alas! The goal of a perfectly clean house with a place for everything and everything in its place still eludes me.

Intention for the coming year: I need to commit to one hour each weekday for cleaning and sorting. I’d love for this to be the year I finally sort through all the accumulated STUFF in our house, recycle or give away anything we don’t need, and find a place for whatever we decide to keep. Then, develop a maintenance schedule to keep the house clean and neat on an ongoing basis so I can invite people over more often. I want to enjoy our beautiful home!

Priority: My writing

Long-term goal: Write articles, essays, blog entries and at least one book.

Progress this past year: I’ve actually been keeping up with my blog pretty well and have even acquired some followers. I’ve found that posting once every 2-3 weeks works for me.

Intention for the coming year: I’d like to devote at least one hour per weekday to my writing. I sincerely believe my writing ability is one of God’s gifts to me. If I can discipline myself to stay off the Internet unless I’m doing something useful such as research or communicating with real people – and avoid the kind of mindless surfing that wastes hours and hours of time – I could really start to produce an abundance of writing. I also want to make my blog more user-friendly and take advantage of all the cool tricks Word Press is capable of.

Priority: Service to others

Long-term goal: Use a portion of my time, money and talent to help others and create positive change in the world.

Progress this past year: Shortly after my last birthday, I followed through on my decision to walk away from an abusive volunteer work situation that had been poisoning my soul for way too long. I have no regrets about that decision. With all the trauma from medical issues, I’m glad I haven’t had to contend with this additional stressor on top of it all!

Intention for the coming year: I plan to continue my current church activities – choir, bringing treats for fellowship hour on Sundays, bringing soup or desserts for Advent and Lenten suppers – and my participation in a musical group that entertains residents at a local retirement center twice a month. That’s enough for right now, because I’m learning I can do a much better job in one or two areas if I allow myself to pare down my commitments and focus my energy rather than trying to spread myself too thin. 

Priority: Backlog

Long-term goal: Eliminate backlog tasks and clutter that drain my energy, render my life more chaotic than it needs to be, and distract me from achieving my long-term goals. 

Progress this past year: I got our taxes done on time for the second year in a row! I’m not sure if our accountant has recovered from the shock.

Intention for the coming year: I need to make a list of tasks that are hanging over my head and commit to crossing off one thing each week. Large tasks can be broken down into bite-size chunks if necessary. I also need to avoid nerve-wracking deadline pressure by getting things done before the last possible minute! This unfinished business only keeps me in crisis mode and turns my focus away from important priorities like writing, healthy living, keeping our home looking nice and spending time with family and friends. What I also need to commit to, for now, is to not take on any new projects until I have everything crossed off my backlog list!

Priority: Serenity/Gratitude

Long-term goal: Achieve serenity by practicing mindfulness and finding at least one thing each day to be grateful for. 

Progress this past year: With my own health problems and with my mother in hospice care, I’ve experienced quite a bit of stress for the past several months. But the good news is I’ve been blessed with a tremendous amount of support from family, friends and church people. For that, I am VERY grateful! 

Intention for the coming year: If nothing else, this past year has reinforced my desire to actually live my life rather than sleepwalking through my days while I rush-rush-rush through deadlines and appointments. I want to be AWAKE! While we Christians may talk a lot about heaven, I believe God also meant for us to enjoy and appreciate life in the here-and-now. If that’s not true, why did God create flowers, beautiful sunsets, majestic trees that turn gorgeous colors in the fall, and small furry animals who curl up with us in bed? I need to reserve mornings for Pete and I as much as possible, take walks when the weather is nice, notice my surroundings and remember to count my blessings. 

And each morning for the coming year, I plan to start my day by reminding myself, “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!”

My priorities for 2018

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In what has become an annual birthday tradition, I like to start my “personal New Year” by reviewing my priorities. Are they the same as they were last year? Or does something need to change?

For several years now, this little exercise has helped me stay focused so various kinds of extraneous clutter – material, mental or spiritual – don’t crowd out what really matters in my life.

As always, I begin by identifying what is most important to me right now:

  • Developing a better understanding of God, so I can fulfill God’s purpose for my life, discern what my values should be and live accordingly.
  • Staying healthy for as long as possible and helping my husband do the same.
  • Keeping in contact with family and friends and nurturing good relationships with them.
  • Maintaining our home as a sanctuary for ourselves, our family and friends.
  • Writing – articles, essays, blog entries and, yes, at least one book.
  • Using a portion of my time, money and talent in a way that helps others and creates positive change in the world.
  • Eliminating the backlog tasks and clutter that drain my energy and keep my life more chaotic than it needs to be.
  • Achieving serenity by practicing mindfulness and finding at least one thing each day to be grateful for.

For the most part, my priorities for the coming year will remain the same as they were last year – my relationship with God; attention to self-care, family and friends, our home and my writing; service to others; elimination of needless stress and clutter; and serenity.

My efforts to stick to my priorities over the past year met with varying degrees of success. On the one hand, I allowed stress to derail my healthy eating plan too many times, with the result that I’m about 5 pounds heavier than I was at this time last year. On the other hand, this past year has seen three major achievements:

  • Committing to a journey with my spiritual director, something I’d thought about doing for several years.
  • Finally making a decision, just a few days ago, to walk away from an abusive volunteer work situation that has been poisoning my soul for way too long.
  • Persuading my husband to embark on a healthy eating plan with me, beginning the day after my birthday. Let me tell you, this last one is a major, MAJOR accomplishment.

This means I will be starting my 64th year with a bit more time on my hands, which I can spend experimenting with recipes delicious enough to convince both my sweetie pie and myself that healthy eating can be fun rather than torture! Wish me luck …

 

Clutter is a spiritual issue

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Ecclesiastes 3:6 reminds us there is “a time to keep and a time to cast away.” With that in mind, I resolved to make clearing out clutter a priority during this year’s recently-completed Lenten season.

Using the “one baby step at a time” approach, I actually managed to make an initial dent in the mounds of clutter littering our house. I thoroughly cleaned the refrigerator/freezer and about half the pantry, got caught up with a month’s worth of ironing, repotted several plants in the sunroom and took down the Christmas tree (yep, the first week in March). I even sorted through a drawer full of paper and shocked our accountant by giving her everything she needed to file our tax return on time this year rather than file for an extension the way I usually do.

As I cleaned and sorted, however, I realized the clutter in my life consists of more than just endless piles of paper and other physical “stuff.” My spiritual director has challenged me to identify the “spiritual” clutter clogging up my life as well. For example:

  • Computer clutter. As I said in a previous article, I could spend hours at my computer playing solitaire, mindlessly surfing the Internet or actually getting sucked into “news” articles about Miley and Taylor and Selena and the Kardashians. I am particularly likely to do this when I’m anxious or avoiding a task on my to-do list.
  • Calendar clutter. Some of the commitments overwhelming my schedule are things I really want to do – a visit with family or friends, singing in the church choir, community volunteer work. But too many other commitments have landed on my calendar because I can’t say no to people.
  • Nutritional clutter. Big-box stores, supermarkets and even health food stores seek to sell me cereal with sugar as the first ingredient, highly processed trans-fat-laden “dinners” I can pop into the microwave and whole aisles of cookies and candy. Restaurant buffets, family gatherings and church potlucks feature entire tables of desserts.
  • Mental clutter. And finally there is the steady stream of anxieties and resentments that keep me pre-occupied during the day and awake at night.

Why is all this clutter a spiritual issue?

When I put junk food into my body – the temple of the Holy Spirit – it clogs my arteries as well as adding extra pounds to my hips. The mindless Internet-surfing and solitaire games suck hours and hours out of my day that could be better spent taking a walk, connecting with other people, or just about anything else. Endless ruminating about resentments interferes with my ability to love my neighbor as myself. Turning down excessive demands on my time would help me focus more energy on those commitments that are really important. When the physical clutter in my house is out of control, my whole life feels out of control.

Alas, I still have quite a way to go just to address the physical clutter. Piles of paper cover nearly every surface in my office. My closets bulge with clothes and shoes I haven’t worn in years. Boxes and boxes and boxes marked “miscellaneous” remain stashed in the basement, many unopened from our last move nearly 10 years ago. And I don’t even like to think about the mess in the garage.

But I did make a good start during Lent, enough to motivate me to keep going. As they say around the tables at 12-Step group meetings, “One day at a time!”

 

 

Super Me

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My spiritual director gave me this assignment: Imagine myself in my ideal spiritual state. What does this ideal state look like?

Actually, I’ve been imagining my “idealized state” for most of my life. I have daydreams that would rival Walter Mitty’s about an amazing woman who, for lack of a better name, I’ll call Super Me. This marvelous creature is a slightly older version of myself, and she has her life totally under control. The Super Me fantasy is particularly potent when I’m working on New Year’s resolutions.

Not only can Super Me leap tall buildings in a single bound, she has a meticulously ordered household, with a place for everything and everything in its place – even in the garage and the basement. She frequently invites family and friends to splendid gatherings at her spotlessly clean house. She has managed to achieve a svelte figure by adhering to an eating plan that is both healthy and painless because she has re-educated her palate to prefer vegetables over chocolate covered peanut butter cookie bars and she never misses her Stay Fit exercise class even during an ice storm. She volunteers for various organizations that work to make the world a better place, and she even serves on the board of directors for a couple of them, but she never gets burned out because she’s learned how to set appropriate boundaries without people getting mad at her. Her recently published book sits atop the New York Times bestseller list. And she never loses sleep at 3 a.m. wondering who God is and what God wants from her, because she has finally discerned all the answers to life’s “ultimate” questions.

As I write this, it occurs to me that if I really did manage to achieve this level of perfection, people might not necessarily like me. After all, I personally find other people intimidating when their lives seem too perfect.

On the other hand, I don’t think I have a thing to worry about here: I’m in no danger of achieving that exalted state anytime soon. Fortunately, I’ve learned that God loves me the way I am – not because I’m perfect, but because God is perfect. Good news, indeed, even if I have to remind myself of this from time to time.

Setting boundaries with my computer

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For several years now, December 19 has been a special day for me. I call it my “Sobriety Birthday” and I consider it a great day for positive changes. On this date 25 years ago, I gave up alcohol. On the same date 16 years ago, I gave up cigarettes. Last year, I dropped “added sugar” from my diet, and 15 pounds along with it. So what about this year?

One of the changes my spiritual director and I have discussed: If I want to grab even a modicum of control over my time, I must confront my Internet addiction.

A huge challenge is that I can’t abstain completely from using my computer without losing its many benefits.

With family and friends scattered all over two continents, I would not be able to stay connected so well without Facebook. How are all my nieces and nephews and dozens of cousins doing? Who’s getting married? Which friend got a promotion at work or went on a fabulous vacation? Who just went to the E.R. and needs prayers?

Facebook has even allowed me to reconnect with friends I thought I’d lost track of forever. Many of these people were friends from my childhood and young adulthood. When repeated moves for marriages and jobs separated us, we promised to stay in touch, but this proved hard from a distance. Thanks to Facebook, the years and the miles have disappeared. In a couple of cases we’ve started visiting each other in person again.

I also use the Internet to research many of the articles I write. Most grant proposals I prepare for an organization whose board I sit on must be sent electronically. I pay bills, check my bank balances and renew licenses online. Ordering everything from clothes to books to groceries online saves hours of shopping time. Using email and Facebook to set up committee meetings or plan family gatherings saves days of telephone tag. Sometimes I even check the weather forecast to see how I need to dress for the day.

Suffice it to say that the Internet has had an enormously positive impact on my life, and I’m not ready to give it up and go “completely off the grid,” as some folks fantasize about doing. However, I realize the mindless surfing needs to go – complete with taking “click bait” and getting sucked into Facebook flame wars.

It’s one thing to keep up with family members and friends. But keeping up with the Kardashians? Do I really care why Taylor Swift broke up with her latest boyfriend? What do I gain by arguing about politics with friends of friends on Facebook except for some new resentments? And how many articles do I need to read about our elected officials calling each other names?

Okay, I did manage to avoid clicking on a couple of these: Giant Bird-Eating Tarantula … Snopes Fact Check: Did Michelle File for Divorce over President Obama’s Pregnant Mistress? … Revealed: The Lavish Life of an American Pastor … Did Tokyo Open the First Human Meat Restaurant? But not all of them, I must confess.

Political click bait has been a particularly potent trigger. To put it mildly, the results of the 2016 election threw me into a state of shock. For the first couple of months, I read one “news analysis” piece after another, trying to wrap my head around what happened. My husband and I also joined some of the new Facebook “resistance” groups springing up everywhere.

Meanwhile, I found myself getting into fights – even with people I ordinarily like – over politics and contentious “hot-button” ideological issues. One evening this past summer, I realized I had just spent the better part of a whole day debating total strangers on a church Facebook page over this question: “Is it racist to make jokes about lutefisk, lefse and jello at Lutheran potlucks?” (No, I’m not making that up). I further realized it wasn’t the first time this had happened.

In the past, I’ve conquered compulsions/addictions, like alcohol and cigarettes, by practicing total abstinence. The thing is, I can live (a lot longer, in fact) without cigarettes or alcohol. But it’s pretty hard in this technological age to live without my computer.

So it looks like I’m going to need to learn a new skill: Moderation! Now moderation has never been one of my strong suits, but maybe it really is time for me to acquire this valuable habit.

At any rate, I’ve decided to set some boundaries with my computer. If I have a legitimate reason to be online, by all means go online – long enough to check messages and do necessary tasks. Then get back off. Stop the mindless surfing. Resist click bait. Put a definitive time limit on how long I spend on Facebook. That way maybe I can keep my computer in its place as a valuable tool, rather than letting it control me.

Let’s see how I do with this one.

Letting some balls drop

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After writing down all those areas of my life that felt not-so-well ordered, I shared my “late-night laundry list” with my spiritual director and showed her the graphic I created to illustrate my current spiritual condition:

00a Overwhelmed SMALL

Looking the graphic over for a moment, she asked, “What stands out for you?”

I pointed out the “God ball” at the foot of the clutter pile.

I half expected her to supply some relevant Bible verses about the Godliness of cleanliness and self-discipline. Instead she recommended a children’s book – The Clown of God, “an old story” told and illustrated by Tomie de Paola.

The tale stars a small boy whose special talent is juggling:

He would juggle sticks. Plates. Then he would balance the plates on the sticks and twirl them. He would juggle clubs, rings and burning torches. Finally he would toss a red ball and an orange ball. Then a yellow ball. A green, a blue and a violet ball until it looked as if he were juggling the rainbow. “And now for the Sun in the Heavens,” he would cry. Still juggling, he would pick up a shining golden ball and toss it higher and higher, faster and faster. And how the crowds would cheer.

The small boy grew up and became very famous for his juggling act, the story continues. He traveled far and wide and the crowds loved him, until … he DROPPED the golden Sun in the Heavens ball “and the rainbow of balls came crashing down and the crowd stood around him and laughed! But not from joy.” Feeling utterly defeated, he made the decision to give up juggling forever.

But the story doesn’t end there. As it turned out, his best performance was yet to come. (Click HERE to hear the story yourself.)

Instead of incorporating my own “God ball” back into the rotation of balls I was juggling, my spiritual director suggested I might want to just leave it where it is for now. “Just sit with it,” she said.

Back at the drawing board (Photoshop, that is), I pulled up my Clutter Mountain graphic and painted my “God ball” gold like the one in the children’s book. I then imagined myself crawling out from under the clutter pile and sitting next to the golden “God ball” with my eyes closed and my back to everything else – a cup of warm coffee in my hands and my two cats at my side.

Clutter Mountain with gold God ball FINAL_edited-1

Of course this meant the other balls I was juggling would drop – at least temporarily, I told my spiritual director when I showed her the edited graphic.

“That’s okay,” she said. “Those other balls will still be there when it’s time for you to get back to them. They’re not going anywhere.”

Clutter Mountain

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One of the first assignments my spiritual director gave me was to come up with an image that best symbolizes my present spiritual condition.

An image came to mind almost immediately. I saw myself buried under a mountain of clutter – piles and piles of papers and boxes and boxes of miscellaneous stuff. I transferred the image in my head to the computer screen using Photoshop. (I always love a good excuse to play with Photoshop.)

As I created this image, I realized the clutter in my life consisted of more than just the endless piles of paper and other physical items. It also included the various distractions that keep me away from my priorities.

For example, I could spend hours mindlessly surfing the Internet, getting locked into political fights with friends and total strangers on Facebook, or actually clicking on “news” articles about Miley, Taylor and the Kardashians. I am particularly likely to do this when I’m anxious or subconsciously avoiding a task on my to-do list. I added a computer to the graphic, with the words “Click Bait” on the screen.

Junk food could qualify as nutritional clutter, I decided. When I put it into my body, it clogs my arteries and accumulates on my hips and around my waist. I added a bag of chips to the image.

My calendar presented another source of clutter. Some of the commitments really matter to me: time with my husband, a meal with family or friends, the autism support group I facilitate, singing in the church choir. But several other commitments have crept into my schedule because I can’t say no to people who must think I don’t have enough to do now that I’m retired. I tossed a To-Do list onto the pile.

I added a rope to the image to represent the tug-of-war over everything from my time to my personal values caused by competing demands and continual conflict.

Underneath the papers and boxes, I placed several boulders with labels on them – fear, resentment, pain – to represent the steady stream of anxieties and resentments that keep me awake at night and pre-occupied during the day. I added some baggage for good measure.

Sticking out of Clutter Mountain, my arms juggled several balls in the air: family, friends, volunteer work, the house. A couple more balls had been dropped and were nestled on the ground at the bottom of the heap: my writing, self-care, God.

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So how would God react to this image I just created? Am I about to provoke a bolt of lighting? Seriously, my sense is that God already knows what’s going on and might even be glad to see me acknowledge this reality.

God is there, of course, but after creating this image, I can see vividly how clutter blocks my spiritual path.

My priorities for 2017

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In what has become an annual birthday tradition, I like to start my “personal New Year” by reviewing my priorities. Are they the same as they were last year, or has something changed?

As I sat in my recliner earlier this week, with a cat on my lap and a morning cup of coffee next to me, I started by identifying what is important to me right now:

•  Developing a better understanding of God, so I can fulfill God’s purpose for my life, discern what my values should be and live accordingly.

•  Staying healthy for as long as possible and helping my husband do the same.

•  Staying in contact with family and friends and maintaining good relationships with them.

•  Creating and maintaining a beautiful home that serves as a sanctuary for ourselves, our family and friends, and maybe even a stranger or two I can turn into friends.

•  Writing – articles, essays, blog entries and, yes, at least one book.

•  Using at least a portion of my time, money and talent in a way that helps others and creates positive change in the world.

•  Eliminating the backlog tasks and clutter that keep my life more chaotic than it needs to be.

•  Achieving serenity by practicing mindfulness and finding at least one thing each day to be grateful for.

These will be my priorities for the coming year – a personal relationship with God, self-care, family and friends, our home, my writing, service to others, elimination of needless clutter, and serenity.

Over the next few days, I’ll reflect on why each priority matters to me and set some goals. Then, about every month or so, I will check in and see how well my daily activities reflect these priorities.

For several years now, this little exercise has helped me stay focused so extraneous STUFF doesn’t crowd out what’s most important in my life.

Time for some good orderly direction!