Reclaimed Hours/"Let All Your Things Have Their Places"

Sunday. Writing Monday's blog a day early because my Monday list is huge and I want to get a jump on it. More than convinced by Benjamin Franklin's words, "Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." Thinking it's those early reclaimed hours of the day where the difference between success and treading water occurs. I suspect powerful, fully expressed people use the wee hours of the morning to make things happen. If you're like me, there is lot you want to accomplish without enough time, back-burnered dreams. By adding two hours to the day, think of what could be accomplished over time if those hours were put to effective use! This week will see me up at 5AM every morning with only 45 minutes spent in reverie over the first of the day's coffee. It's a sacred time, that quiet time spent sipping and thinking and looking at the tree - won't give that up. By 6AM I'll be constructing the day's list, hitting the elliptical for the better part of an hour and by 7AM, I'll be writing this blog, done by 8AM with a full day ahead of me for accomplishment.

Serendipitous - the same exact advice given to me this week, once by new vocal coach David and then the very next day by Tom, the Landmark seminar leader. And when I say the same advice, I mean THE SAME, complete with the exact same imagery. Then yesterday, I found myself passing that same advice along to Josh who struggles with juggling all the new initiatives in his life. And this advice? I believe it's the key to happiness, truly! Practice this one thing, each and every day, until it's natural and I'm convinced our lives will start to purr like a well-oiled machine, everything falling into place - things that were once a struggle, now almost effortless. And this advice I'm about to reveal hearkens back to the posts I wrote about the subconscious and that book Incognito.  Much of what we do in a day lives below our conscious awareness. Can you remember coming home yesterday, putting your key in the lock and opening the door? I'll bet you can't because, unless there was something remarkable about yesterday (i.e. you lost your key or there was a notice from UPS on the front door) you went through the motions of  opening the door in a semi-conscious way. You have automated the task of opening your door. When we do the same thing over and over in the same way, with the same predictability, it becomes rote and automatic and the brain is relieved to not have to work so hard - it is at ease with what to expect.

So this advice that I received twice this week and imparted once - it has to do with just that - automating that which is so difficult for most of us. Practicing something for weeks, a month, as long as it takes, for a new way to take hold in our bodies. It involves doing what's incredibly counter-intuitive for most of us until it is the new intuitive. And from my reading, I KNOW it's possible to create this new body paradigm. What feels so foreign at first becomes a new language - just like when I solved my office problem by learning to mouse with my left hand - I'm now a devoted left-hand mouser.

Voice lesson on Wednesday involved no singing - it was all about posture, inhaling, exhaling, larynx position, location of breath, humming, mouth position, and more - each practice crucial to the desired goal of becoming a better singer. There was a chunk of time spent on proper posture and once that was imparted, time spent on learning to breathe low, silent and hot (not intuitive), then on to positioning the larynx while, at the same time checking back in with the posture and the low, silent breathing. Over the course of the lesson, more was added, nothing was taken away.

Next day at Landmark, the lesson this week was given to us, "Practice producing extraordinary results through communication, which is free of force," while at the same time continuing the practices of the previous weeks (Integrity - being a person whose word is inviolable;  Being present to feelings of, "Something is wrong here" and letting that feeling go, and finally, giving up being right, even when you know you are.

In both cases, the coaches, David and Tom, used the analogy of spinning plates, plates atop sticks put there by an acrobat or circus performer and kept aloft while, at the same time, more and more plates are set to spinning. And, as you know, the trick to keeping them in the air is the performer's awareness of all the plates - knowing when a plate is doing just fine on its own or when it needs a nudge to keep its velocity.

Josh described to me his current struggle which is also his strength and weakness - his amazing ability to be laser focused on a task and produce extraordinary results. When he gets on a roll, he can apply himself to the task at hand, to the exclusion of everything else  - food, potty breaks, sleep, any kind of distraction. It's an awesome ability but the question must be begged - at what cost? Is it possible for him to work a new muscle, whereby he would apply concentrated effort while STILL not letting the other plates in his life crash about him?

I'm not good at this plate spinning thing yet - it's also a new muscle for me. Determined though to give it a chance even though, like left-hand mousing it initially feels wrong and hard. Your challenge today is giving thought to the imagery and evaluating your ability to keep your plates aloft. Are you good at it? If you are, wow! - you are firing on all cylinders! If you're not, welcome to most of us! Benjamin Franklin tried his whole life to keep his plates in the air - making a list of thirteen virtues he worked to master. By his own admission he never did master them, but that wasn't the point - it was the striving on all fronts that made his life worthy and accomplishment filled. I'm sure there were plates that crashed at his feet from time to time and yet, back up they went. Each day he would evaluate his efforts, focusing for a week on one of the virtues, while never taking his eyes completely off the ones he felt he had gained some mastery over. This was his list. It's daunting but inspiring.

Temperance: Eat not to Dullness, drink not to elevation 

Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling Conversation 

Order: Let all your Things have their Places. Let each Part of your Business have its Time 

Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve. 

Frugality: Make no Expense but to do good to others or yourself: i.e. Waste Nothing 

Industry: Lose no Time. Be always employ’d in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary Actions 

Sincerity: Use no hurtful Deceit. Think innocently and justly; and, if you speak; speak accordingly. 

Justice: Wrong none, by doing Injuries or omitting the Benefits that are your Duty. 

Moderation: Avoid Extremes. Forbear resenting Injuries so much as you think they deserve. 

Cleanliness: Tolerate no Uncleanness in Body, Clothes, or Habitation 

Tranquility: Be not disturbed at Trifles, or at Accidents common or unavoidable. 

Chastity: Rarely use Venery but for Health or Offspring; Never to Dullness, Weakness, or the Injury of your own or another’s Peace or Reputation. 

Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Peace,
Sarah

PS. Hey Ben, where's the exercise?