building your self-run business

A few weeks ago, I went to a presentation by Joanne Killmeyer, a professional executive coach, about things you can do to build your coaching business.  I was asked by the group (ASTD -- the American Society for Training & Development) to write it up for their blog, and I did.

You can see it here.  If you run your own business (or want to), there are some good ideas to be had.

"why shouldn't you succeed?"

A client of mine recently sent me this article from the Huffington post and I think it sums up why people who work with coaches benefit from the relationship. As the author, Deborah Gaines says, "With kindness and patience, [my coach] began to do what all good coaches do: dismantle the road blocks I had placed in the way of my own success."

For me, as a coach, this happens in two directions. First, it's about removing what you've layered onto yourself in hopes of being/having/doing all the things you've wanted to be/have/do. All of those layers aren't working, right? If they were, you'd be/have/do all the things you've wanted. So removal. Then, alignment. The second part is all about identifying what's important to you, and then getting more of that in your life.

To do this, I often have clients identify their values. What are the guiding principles that steer them through their lives? What makes them tick? What makes them uniquely them? What principles and practices are important in their lives? What do they want from the people and the world around them? And then I ask them to identify what percentage they're living that value. (Usually the answer is under 50% for at least one essential value.) And then I ask what it would take to bump that percentage up 10%. Not 100%. Not even 25%. Just 10%. And we go from there.

We're a culture that often asks "what's next?" instead of "what's possible?" And coaching, on the whole, asks both. Because what's next is of no value if you haven't truly considered what's possible.

The Perils of Setting Goals

In a recent NYT article, Experts’ Advice to the Goal-Oriented: Don’t Overdo It, the author, Alina Tugend, highlights the dangers of casually setting goals without examining yourself, the process, and the goal itself.  Some goals are too overly focused, she says, and leave out important elements.  Some goals are overwhelming, and require all your effort, leaving no room for the other things you want in your life.  And some goals are too preposterous and lead easily to cheating.

That's why goal setting all by yourself can be a dangerous thing -- it's easy to lose perspective.  In my recent Make it Happen Now! class, each participant arrived on the scene with a goal in mind.  We worked together -- sometimes as a whole class, and sometimes just in pairs -- to make sure everyone's goal was viable.  That it was reasonable.  That it was only one goal (and not multiple ones).  And then we worked together to come up with actionable steps each participant could take to move that goal forward.

One participant said, "I couldn't think of a better way to start the new year than taking [this] class and getting my goals crystallized through [Kate's] methodical and proven process."  And that's what it's all about -- put your goals through a process.  Examine not only what you get when you reach a goal, but also what you get if you don't reach it.  Look at what you give up if you reach your goal.  It's counter intuitive, but doing this kind of work means you won't be blindsided by these surprises down the road.

There's still a chance to take Make it Happen Now! this year on Sunday, January 27th.  Find more information and register here.

some interesting research on goals

I saw a compelling article the other day about goal setting that I thought I would share with you. It's from a website called Leadership IQ that has great work- and management-related posts and webinars on a regular basis. But this one caught my eye.

Leadership IQ asked around 5,000 people about their goals, focusing on the differences between how men and women approach their goals.

Here are four of the study’s key findings:

Gender Study Finding #1: Women care about their goals more than men: Because women are more emotionally connected to their goals than men, they’re more likely to stick to their goals when the going gets tough.

Gender Study Finding #2: Men visualize their goals better than women: Like the visualization used by elite athletes, men more clearly picture their goals than women. This gives them greater direction and focus.

Gender Study Finding #3: Women are more likely to procrastinate than men: Women feel less urgency to achieve their goals than men. This results in procrastination, and potentially, goal failure.

Gender Study Finding #4: Women set tougher goals than men: Women are more likely to leave their comfort zones and set challenging (and even scary) goals. This leads to both greater achievement and fulfillment.

Interested in more? Read the rest of the article here.

Tools for the new year

Now is as good a time as any to start preparing for next year.  To help you do that, I've organized a number of tools that I think you may find useful in pursuing what you want next year.

1.  Me
Lest we forget that I am more than just a blogger, I will remind you that I coach, I teach, and I help get people unstuck from wherever they're stuck.  I charge $75 a session (which, in this world, is a STEAL) and I've got a lot of happy clients, with always room for one more...

2.  Make it Happen Now! Workshop, January 12th and 27th
This is a course I offer every year at the start of the year.  It helps you identify what you want, figure out what stands in your way, make a plan to go after what you want, and develop accountability to make sure you stick with your plan.  It's $75 for four hours and past participants have repeated the course year after year.  Find out more about it here.

3.  Notes from the Universe
This is a great site that will send you messages every weekday morning to remind you how wonderful you are and how you fit into the bigger picture of the universe around you.  I use them as a springboard for my meditation and to reconnect me with my heart.  Here's a sample message:

The one thing all famous authors, world-class athletes, business tycoons,singers, actors, and celebrated achievers in any field have in common, Kate,is that they all began their journeys when they were none of these things.Yet still, they began their journeys.You are so poised for greatness,The Universe
One day, they're going to name something big after you, Kate!Like a statue, a college... or a hurricane.

You can sign up for them at here.

4.  Robert Holden's Shift Happens

I've learned a lot from Robert Holden and find him to be one of the warmest, sweetest, and friendliest thinkers out there.  I've signed up for his mailing list and, like the Universe, every weekday morning I get a motivating message from him.  For example:

Today is a good day for forgiveness. Mind you, forgiveness is not for everyone. It is only for those who would like to experience peace, love, joy, bliss, healing, freedom, total salvation and things like that.

You can sign up here , where you'll find lots of other great tools from Robert, too.

5.  Coach Alba

This is a tool from the people at Change Anything that can help you stay on track by receiving texts to help you get through what they call "Crucial Moments."  I imagine I might use it at night when I have a tendency to eat mindlessly -- just a quick text from Coach Alba to remind me to be mindful, and all of a sudden I'm brought back to myself.  At the moment, it's programmed to best work with people who want to lose weight, though I imagine they'll come up with other iterations of it.

You can find it here.

6.  StickK

This is a site I wrote about earlier that provides you with external motivation when your internal motivation starts to lag.  Essentially what you do is sign up for a challenge -- losing weight, getting a new job, working on your memoir, writing a new song, whatever -- and then wager with stickK that you will commit to taking action on that goal, or you'll have to pay money, either to a friend, a charity, or an "anti-charity" (a cause you hate).  I've used this technique with clients before with really great results, but you can try it for yourself online here.

7.  Avoiding Destination Addiction

Just watch this video:

8.  My Previous Posts on Goal Setting

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part III (part two)

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Part VII

more on beginner's mind

My last post mentioned the concept of beginner's mind, and I found an article that expands on it, pointing out 10 different ways to expand your perspective:

1. Take one step at a time.
2. Fall down seven times, get up eight times.
3. Use Don’t Know mind.
4. Live without shoulds.
5. Make use of experience
6. Let go of being an expert.
7. Experience the moment fully.
8. Disregard common sense.
9. Discard fear of failure.
10. Use the spirit of inquiry

Read the rest of the article here.  I enjoyed it and hope you will, too.

"the best years of our lives are not behind us"

A few weeks ago, an article from the Yale Daily News made the rounds on Facebook.  A young, talented writer had some encouraging words about her experience at Yale that I think apply to us all, no matter how young or old we are, no matter whether we went to Yale or didn't.  She says:

But let us get one thing straight: the best years of our lives are not behind us. They’re part of us and they are set for repetition as we grow up and move to New York and away from New York and wish we did or didn’t live in New York. I plan on having parties when I’m 30. I plan on having fun when I’m old. Any notion of THE BEST years comes from clichéd “should haves...” “if I’d...” “wish I’d...”

Of course, there are things we wished we did: our readings, that boy across the hall. We’re our own hardest critics and it’s easy to let ourselves down. Sleeping too late. Procrastinating. Cutting corners. More than once I’ve looked back on my High School self and thought: how did I do that? How did I work so hard? Our private insecurities follow us and will always follow us.

But the thing is, we’re all like that. Nobody wakes up when they want to. Nobody did all of their reading (except maybe the crazy people who win the prizes…) We have these impossibly high standards and we’ll probably never live up to our perfect fantasies of our future selves. But I feel like that’s okay.

Marina Keegan, 22, was set to graduate from college with more wisdom than some of us attain by 122.  Unfortunately, she never made it there, as she died in a car crash just days before commencement.   Her writing (which you can read the rest of here) is so full of hope, of encouragement, and stands as a reminder to the rest of us that it's never to late to do something about your dream.  To find those people who make up your web and be grateful for them every day.  And to spend more time with the boy across the hall and less time procrastinating.

the math of dating

I read a cute little article in checkmatemagazine by Catherine Lowell that I thought I would share with you:

"One day in 1999, computer scientist Tristan Miller decided that he would never, ever find a girlfriend. As a tech genius with a sense of humor, he decided to do a comprehensive analysis to show why this might be the case.

His conclusion was simple: the math simply wasn’t in his favor. Using census data from 1998, he concluded that there was a 1 in 18,726 chance of finding “the one.”

Below is a simplified version of his logic.

Number of people on earth:   5,592,830,000

Number of females on earth:  2,941,118,000

Number of females in developed countries:  605,601,000

Number of females aged 18-25 in developed countries:  65,299,083

Number of those females who are “beautiful” (two standard deviations above the norm):  1,487,838

Number of those females who are intelligent, too (one standard deviation above the norm):  236,053

Number of those females who are also single (assuming 50% of women are single):  118,027

Number of interested women (assuming Tristan was one standard deviation above the woman’s average):  18,726

See his math in Why I Will Never Have a Girlfriend.

What Can This Mean!?

It means that if poor Tristan went on a blind date with a new girl every week, he might have to wait 67 years before he found the girl of his dreams.

What You Do!?
1.) Start dating at a very young age.
2.) Curse fate for handing you a statistical trap.
3.) Or… Chill out.

Tristan’s analysis exemplifies why looking for perfection in a partner is an exercise in futility. If you look for someone who is the top percentile of the top percentile, it will take you 67 years to find out that it’s hard to satisfy every box on your checklist.

Besides, imperfections make life much more interesting. Remember what Yogi Berra said: “If the world was perfect, it wouldn’t be.” An imperfect person might actually be the perfect person for you.

It’s not the best idea to go looking for a better version of yourself. If you work to become the best person you can be, dates will find you.

If you’re still discouraged… you can always apply to be Tristan Miller’s significant other."

walls in our heads

Thanks to my friend Brian, I'm happy to share an interesting article about the allure of creating the walls in our heads, which continues on the post I shared two weeks ago.

For those of you who might not want to read the whole article, here are a couple of quotes I think are interesting:

"Walls, then, are built not for security, but for a sense of security."

"...walls can also block one’s view, but that should not be such big problem, especially when one wants to hide."

"The erection of a wall signifies that someone has got something precious and that the others should know about it."

Whenever we identify ourselves as something ("I'm a New Yorker," "I'm a nice person"), we exclude other options and possibilities and limit ourselves. Do I love being a New Yorker? Yes! Is it important to me to be a nice person? Absolutely. But when I build a wall that says "I'm a New Yorker and I'm not anything else," that limits me. Same thing with being a nice person -- or any other identification you're likely to make.

Why draw lines? Instead, be flexible and explore what it would mean to not be a New Yorker, or to be a mean person. How would that change you? What would the impact be? You might be surprised by what you find...

farming vs. mining

Many moons ago, my cousin Brian pointed me to a really interesting blog post that inspired me. The premise is that you've bought a plot of land and have two choices -- you can farm that land, or you can mine it. Which do you do?

"If you farm," says author Wil Shipley, "you’ll have to purchase seed up-front, and work on it for a season before you see any profits. And every season you’ll plow most the profits (literally) back into the land and salaries and your mortgage. You husband the soil to ensure that it’ll keep providing for you for years and years. If you’re lucky, and if you do a good job, you’ll gather a following, sales will increase, and eventually you may make a tidy living. But every season, no matter how rich you get, you’re going to be back out there, breaking your back and working with the soil. When you finally retire, if you’ve done a good job, the soil is as good as when you first got it, and your farm will live on."

"Or," he continues, "you could mine; you’ll need some initial money to lease mining equipment, and to hire some people to work the mine. Then, bam: profit. You’re making money. You tear a giant hole in the ground and eke every last bit of metal out as quickly as possible; there’s nothing to preserve, there’s no soil to keep in condition. You’ll make a big score, then the land will be spent, and you move on, leaving an unusable crater."

He then goes on to parallel this analogy with starting a software company, which I won't go into, but it really applies to how you want to live your life on a broad basis. Are you willing to invest a part of yourself in your development on a regular basis, or do you want to get in, get out, and get emptied?

Some people are naturally long-term focused, and so for them, farming may come easier. Knowing that it's in their best self-interest may make eating healthy easier to do. Believing that insight will follow a week with no television may make it easier to bear the silence. But for people who are short term focused -- or even long-term focusers who are frustrated by their current situations -- mining may feel more rewarding.

And is there a way to combine both? Can you mine part of the land and farm others? Life is not black and white, it's much more of a continuum. And if you aim to land in farming more often than in mining, I think it's a winning proposition. Because the image of that "unusable crater" is pretty haunting.

we build the wall to keep us free

I've been listening recently to this incredible musical based on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, and Why We Build the Wall (the song above) has been stuck in my head a lot in the last week or so. The premise is great and seems totally backwards -- we're building a wall to keep ourselves free. The lyrics say:

What do we have that they should want?
We have a wall to work upon!
We have work and they have none
And our work is never done
My children, my children
And the war is never won
The enemy is poverty
And the wall keeps out the enemy
And we build the wall to keep us free
That's why we build the wall
We build the wall to keep us free

And it makes me wonder -- where in our lives do we build these walls? Walls that seem to be keeping out an enemy and providing us with freedom but that are still closing in on us and keeping us small. Walls that give us something to focus on and something to keep ourselves busy, but walls that, in the end, don't get us what we really want.

I'm thinking of a friend of mine who works six bajillion hours a week. The "enemy" in this case is failure or disappointment, and working endless hours at his job (the "wall" in this case, too) is what keeps the enemy at bay. But even if he builds that wall, failure will be patiently waiting on the other side of it, looking for the smallest crack to climb inside.

I'm also thinking of myself -- in my case sometimes the enemy is "feeling too much" and shutting down those feelings so I don't have to be overwhelmed by them is my wall. It seems like the smart thing to do -- manage emotion so it can be tamed or mastered, but in truth, the more I try to sweep my feelings under the rug, the more they become protesters at Occupy Kate's Wall Street.*

If what we want is endless work with no payoff, we can have that. There will always be more fear. There will always be more walls to build. But what does it take to knock down the wall and start giving up the war in the first place? Acceptance. Recognizing that whatever's on the other side of the wall -- poverty, fear, disappointment, too many feelings -- it's always going to be there. And we can't pretend it away. So why not start to accept it so that we can let go of the concept of it being an enemy?

Easier said than done, I realize. But worth a shot -- unless you want to move to Hadestown, that is.

*I know, sorry, I couldn't resist.

What is fun?

If you can’t see or hear the video, I’ll break down for you what Michael Shore says about fun.

First, in his years of studying children, fun, and play (he is the President of Worldwide Consumer Insights at Mattel) he has come to understand fun as having ten different aspects. Each one is an important, but different, piece of the puzzle.

1. Freedom

This is any unstructured, voluntary activity that a child engages in. It’s essentially running around. There are few constraints and there is an immediacy to the fun. It’s about living in the moment.

2. I Dream

This is imaginative play in which children come up with possibilities and enjoy pretending. This kind of play can improve our language and social skills, and is also linked to resilience and delayed gratification.

3. I’m Special

This is the kind of play that is about luck or have the rules suspended in your favor. Staying up late, getting an extra ice cream cone, or otherwise getting some privilege is what this kind of fun is all about.

4. I Belong

This is all about acceptance into a larger group and cooperative play among kids.

5. I’m Wacky

Kids love being wacky! This is about delight, vitality, and goofiness. Shore says that the best way to make a toy wacky is by having it burp or fart. If it’s a pet, make it poop or pee. Wacky!

6. I Know

This is about exploration, accomplishment learning, and gaining mastery and control.

7. I’m Cozy

Even kids like to kick back, relax, and snuggle in. This is just about being comfortable and lazing around.

8. I’m Proud

This is about benevolence, defending others, nurturing others, and protecting one another.

9. I Stand Out

As kids get older they enjoy performing and expressing themselves more. This kind of fun is about identity, performance, and creativity.

10. I Dare

Shore says this is the kind of fun that kids would have a lot more of if there weren’t such a thing as consequences and getting caught. This is bold, defiant fun. It could be mischief, shenanigans or any other rule breaking.

In looking at all these different kinds of fun, I have to admit, they all sound pretty good to me. I’ve been trying to come up with the essential elements of fun for myself – what has to be in place for me to have fun? – and I’ve discovered that the biggest factor is willingness. Am I willing to have a good time? And if not, what do I need to get out of the way so that I can be willing to have fun?

Another TED presenter I listened to, Dr. Stuart Brown, says that if you’re feeling down, just get up and wiggle your body around. Jump up and down. Flail around. This kind of body play can really prep the mind for being able to have more fun. (So forgive me if I have more typos as I’m flinging myself around while I write this.)

One thing that seems to be missing for me in Shore’s list of 10 is the element of connection – not just belonging to a group, but really connecting to someone else on a very human level. Maybe it’s a little bit of all of them, or maybe it’s something that’s less important to kids. Or maybe it’s implied in the connection between the kid and the toy. But fun for me is hard to have without connection, either to my surroundings, someone else, or myself.

Think about things that you do that are fun: which elements are involved? Let’s say you love shopping. Is it the ability to go to whatever store you want and try on whatever you want that is fun? (Freedom) Is it imagining yourself at the ball wearing the gown you’re trying on that makes you smile? (I Dream) Or is it finding that chartreuse-and-puce argyle sweater that makes you squeal with joy? (I Stand Out or I’m Wacky)

If you’re down and not having fun, first, start wiggling, and then pick an aspect and try to live it up. Start dreaming. Join a group. Snuggle up with a good book. And see what happens.

quiz-a-palooza!

Do you like taking quizzes and assessments? I do. I love knowing more about myself and finding new ways to look at my inner workings.

If you want to know whether you're authentically happy or not, what your biggest character strengths are, whether you have enough grit to make things happen, or how you're doing in terms of how much time you currently spend feeling happy, then visit www.authentichappiness.org and take an assessment or two.

Not only will you find out more about yourself, you'll be helping the positive psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania find out more about the human race.

And it beats a night of watching mindless television!

doing The Work

A few weeks ago I went to a two-day workshop with Byron Katie, a teacher and leader who has developed a very clean, streamlined way of digging a little deeper into the thoughts and beliefs that keep you stuck. And while I didn't care for Katie herself (she was a little holier-and-more-transcendental-than-thou than I care for in my teachers), much to my own surprise and consternation, I got a lot out of her workshop.*

The first thing we did when the workshop started was to fill in a Judge Your Neighbor Worksheet. (You can get one, too, for free here.) You're asked to think of a specific situation in the past that has caused you pain and continues to cause you pain or discomfort whenever you think about it. Then, with that scenario in mind, you fill in the statements on the page.

Once your statements about what you needed someone else to do, say, think, or feel in that situation are on the page, you take a deep breath, and go back and question those statements. I'll go through one of mine as an example.

I looked back on a breakup situation and wrote "In that situation, I am angry with Frank because he wasn't ready to be in a relationship with me." (The underlined phrases are what I filled in. And "Frank," as usual, is a pseudonym.)

That statement is then subjected to four questions:

1. Is it true?

2. Can you absolutely know that it's true?

3. How do you react (behave) when you believe that thought?

4. Who would you be without that thought?

So, was it true? It sure seemed true. I was angry. I was angry at Frank. And he wasn't ready to be in a relationship with me -- he even said so. So it seemed pretty true. But when I got to the next question -- can I absolutely know that it's true -- things fell apart. Frank may have told me that to get me off his back. He may have changed in the several months since we split up. He may have been ready, but the timing wasn't right, etc. There was really no way of knowing what was going on outside the confines of my own head.

So the answer to the second question was No.

How I react when I believe that thought is to get frustrated all over again. To feel like I'm not worth being ready to be in a relationship for. To feel like I'll never be in a relationship. I feel angry, and sorry, and frustrated, and fired up, and invested. None of which is pretty.

So who would I be without these thoughts? I'd be more free. I could be more understanding, less judgmental, less angry, less invested. I could be a better friend to him. I could be a better friend to myself.

(See how this is starting to work?)

Then, the final step is to take the statement through a series of turnarounds.

Initial statement: "Frank wasn't ready to be in a relationship with me."

First: I wasn't ready to be in a relationship with me. (Doesn't feel very true, but I sit with it anyway.)

Second: I wasn't ready to be in a relationship with Frank. (Again, doesn't feel very true, but I let the ideas wash over me.)

Third: Frank was ready to be in a relationship with me. (This one had a little more impact, because it allowed me to see what a relationship at that point would have been like. It wouldn't have been the kind of relationship I would choose, that's for sure.)

I used this technique on a series of non-useful beliefs to great results. Imagine this one:

"I'm going to be single for the rest of my life."

First: I'm not going to be single for the rest of my life. (Heard it.)

Second: I'm going to be single only for a short time. (Hmmm, all of a sudden, singlehood is a precious commodity...)

Third: I'm going to be partnered up for the rest of my life. (Wow! I better make the most of this singleness now, that's for sure!)

I recommend picking up a worksheet, taking yourself through it, and sitting with a friend, coach, or trusted advisor and having that person take you through the questions and turnarounds. And when you're done, you can thank me for saving you $295 and a day and a half of uncomfortable hotel seats and recycled air.

* When I don't like a teacher personally, I don't want to like her work. I don't know why, but it probably has to do with a smallness and competitiveness in me that says, "But you don't like her, her work can't be good!"

help from one of my favorite podcasts

Think about the last time you didn't get something that you wanted. When you look back at what got in your way, what was it?

Most of the time, when we're truly honest, the answer to that question is "me." (And I don't mean me, Kate Sandberg. I mean "me," you.)

Radiolab, one of my favorite podcasts that blends science with humanity and storytelling, has done an episode on some of the things you can do when your biggest obstacle is yourself.

(My favorite part is at the beginning, when Elizabeth Gilbert talks about how Tom Waits talks to his muse. Because picturing what she describes is so delightful...)

carrots and sticks and bears, oh my!

I've been reading an interesting book about motivation and sticking to your commitments called Carrots and Sticks, written by a Yale professor of economics. The book proposes two different approaches to goal-reaching; being rewarded for reaching milestones along your journey, and being punished for not doing so.

(Hence, carrots and sticks.)

The interesting thing, though, is that Ian Ayres (the author) has built a website, www.stickk.com, that allows people to put up a certain amount of their own money as a bet against their failure. For example, Ayers himself has been striving to keep his weight under 180 pounds. To aid in this, he has agreed that stickk.com can take the $500 he has put at risk every week if he goes over 180. Even more compellingly, he has agreed that stickk.com can send that money to a cause he does not support.

How does the website know that he's gone over 180 pounds? Well, he tells them. Part of Ayres' commitment is his willingness to participate in the contract (and report honestly) in the first place. Because are you really going to bet $500 that you'll stop a behavior you kindasortakinda want to stop? I doubt it. Stickk.com encourages users to identify an external arbiter to oversee these contracts -- someone like a coach, for example -- to make sure the person is reporting honestly, and really making use of the system.

Because once someone lies about one commitment, the whole thing is shot.

I find this particular type of motivation both exciting and terrifying. Putting $500 of my own money at risk would ensure that any undesired behavior would cease to happen -- especially if that money was going to, say, the NRA, the Tea Party, or Sarah Palin's campaign fund -- and yet, I don't know if I could forgive myself if an emergency happened and I couldn't stick to my commitment. Not only would I be letting myself down, I'd be out $500, and would probably have to drum up another $500 to donate to positive causes to balance out the harm I've done.

And that's what I like about using money as a motivator; it brings the issue into the front of my consciousness. There are a number of things I want to do -- like blogging regularly -- that, if I lost $500 every time I didn't do them would happen more often. At the same time, I'm not sure I'd want to live with the stress of that kind of money hanging over me.

A client of mine is using this approach -- not through the website, but through a verbal agreement with me -- and I'm amazed to see the amount of work he's doing. Will this last longer than one week? I'm not sure. But it definitely is motivating him to make absolutely sure the desired behavior happens seven days in a row.

Who knew Sarah Palin could be so useful?

cheese alert!

I try as hard as a human being can to stay away from things that are sappy, schmaltzy, gooey, corny, saccharine, or otherwise cloying.

And yet...

I also periodically need the pick-me-up,-dust-me-off,-and-try-it-all-again perspective (smothered in a barely tolerable layer of gouda) provided here.

take a deep breath...

I'm not very good at being quiet or sitting still. I like to move, to talk, to fidget, to twitch, and to generally think myself into all sorts of things. But I'm finding that just plopping down, breathing deeply, and taking some time Not Thinking is doing me a world a good.

It was hard to start at first, just sitting there quietly, so I downloaded a series of guided meditations from meditation oasis. What's great about them is that they're short (between 8 and 20 minutes) and easy to listen to. Not too cheesy, not too demanding, just lots of space To Be.

Which, if I'm honest, I really need.