Tag: attention

Monthly Abundance Focus: Reviewing February (Energy)

/ Lanae / Leave a comment Featured

February – ENERGY


Intention: Boost vitality and improve atmosphere of home.
Mantra: Lightness, laughter, love, and less stuff.
Actions:
1. Sage home regularly. (This means, get home saging kit!)
2. De-cluttering, minimizing, reducing materialism. Too much stuff, not in order, saps energy.
3. Set up cleaning service – regular.
4. Ethical diet – mindful consumption. Move toward and into more vegetarian diet.
5. From pros/cons list – note energy feeders vs. energy drains. Determine appropriate actions to reduce energy drains, and focus on energy feeders.
6. Mindful of energy of communication.
7. Lighten up about expectations, chores, and chaos.
8. Laugh more. Get a game to play with kids that invites everyone to play and laugh together.
9. Energy healing (chakra work).

Some things I have noticed as this project/year unfolds:

*My action plans are rather ambitious, so I’ve found it essential to check my expectations – or let them go! I’ve given myself permission to not accomplish everything on each month’s list, so that I don’t weigh myself down.
*The idea on some of these action steps is simply to begin  – and to realize some of them are broad and dynamic, perhaps not finishable in a time-limited sense, but rather ongoing, evolving, deepening shifts in perspective and behavior.
*Many remain ‘in progress’ – they weren’t for just the one month, although that was a time to dedicate specifically to growing them into enduring habits.
*Broader actions or intentions provide a neat contrast and balance to the more specific, time-limited ones. It’s kind of nice to have actions or intentions that can be checked off, but some to put the ‘in progress’ next to, also!
*And – imperfect progress is progress.
*How relevant each month’s theme really are to my life in the moment! Of course, that could well be just because that’s where my attention is, so that’s what I notice, but the intentions and actions already planned have been so right for the needs that arose. Trust the universe, indeed!

So, to check in on February!

Let me tell you, I am now sold on having a cleaning service come in! It was beyond wonderful and such relieved joy to arrive home to a sparkling clean home that had been deep cleaned in places I haven’t gotten to in ages.  The first cleaning was a gift from dear friends who understood what a burden-lifter it would be, but a cleaning once a month from now on is my gift to myself and my kids, too!

Between that and a major decluttering of my closet and room, and donating loads of things from it to a local homeless shelter, the energy in my home became so much brighter, lighter, and more vital! Which meant my energy felt so much brighter, lighter, and more vital … and this flowed into my relationships with my kids, my parenting, and my communications with them. There has been more lightness and laughter ….

And less stuff too!

The decluttering of my closet and room had felt like an intimidating task to me, but turned out to be such fun once I buckled down to it. So satisfying to have a more neatly organized closet, and it’s been easier to get dressed faster in the morning because it’s only the things that I will and do truly wear that are there – fewer (and yet more viable) options actually makes decision-making much simpler, which in turns saves mental and emotional energy.

Another satisfying thing was releasing remnants of the past me, letting go of things that no longer suited or served me or had never truly suited or served me, removing burdens or bonds that I had allowed to remain, in some cases not even aware of how I had held onto them or the energy cost of that … the sense of lightness  that came from this, so liberating!

I have regularly saged my office space at the end of day, and found it powerful as a way of clearing my mind and soul, and honoring the stories and emotions that have been shared there that day along with preparing the space for those to come. I thought – why not give myself and my family the same gift at home – cleansing, sanctifying the space, dedicating it to sacred peace? My kids aren’t necessarily fond of the sage smell, bless them … but nonetheless, to me, I feel that the air and energy and spirit in our home is lighter and cleaner. Practices that invite peace and cleansing are vital!

About the non-meat eating, I’m still learning what a holistically balanced vegetarian diet looks like, and what will best meet my body’s needs, but my body does feel happier energy so far! As well, I simply feel more in line with my own values, my sense of mindful, ethical living, which helps my spiritual well-being.

Finally, one of my guide-phrases for the year is ‘Energy follows attention; energy follows expression’. This is 2-fold. First, my thoughts and my attention affect my energy level and my mood, so when my thoughts and attention went down a rabbit hole, my energy followed! And when I directed myself out of the rabbit hole, my energy followed. Also, science-y tidbit here – our brains take cues about our emotions/moods from our facial expressions, so putting on a half-smile, even a tiny curve of the lips, sends feedback to our brains that can shift mood. I’ve found this practice helpful to shift or lift physical, mental, and emotional weariness. Remembering the phrase and its practices have been a key way to manage the overall energy of my communication and my presence.

All these practices have been nourishing and cleansing, and so yes, my own and my home’s energy feel more vital, lighter, and brighter!

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Preview:

March’s theme is …. Money/financial abundance (and so, so in time, too!).

Monthly Abundance Focus: Reviewing January (Time)

/ Lanae / Leave a comment Featured

Monthly Abundance Focus

One main theme each month, a primary intention and mantra

January – TIME

Intention: Respect my own time and use it more wisely and mindfully.
Mantra: There is enough time. There is always enough time, in the Now.
Actions:
1. Set more precise time boundaries.
2. Refine FB/social media use.
3. Do pros/cons list of current obligations and activities. Discern time/energy required. Determine what has time priority. Determine ways to simplify, reduce time needed/spent.
4. Create structure and strategies for completion of paperwork and collateral communication. Keeping up on treatment plans.
5. Make time to write more. Create specific plan for when/where to write. Develop blog-posting plan. Sentences, short thought pieces, quotes? Abundance Project progress?
6. Be intentional about social and romance time.
7. Allow time to play and time to rest and/or do nothing
8. Say no to or change commitments that do not fit in your time/energy budget or align with values.
9. With board commitments, do not be afraid to delegate as much as possible and trust.
10. Respect sleep time needs. Keep regular sleep/wake hours.
11. Use your planner every day! Keep yourself organized.

Before it gets too far into February, here’s January’s theme and action steps and a little review and reflection of how it went and what I learned!

What I did – tried to do – as a basic accountability structure was review my guide-word and guide-phrases and visit the month’s intentions/action steps each day. I say, tried to do, as it didn’t happen every single day, but it did happen most days! To help me stay aligned this is exactly what I needed, to create strategies to embed these intentions and action plans in my awareness, so that they would walk with me where I walked, sit with me where I sat, be present with me wherever I was present.

Each week I also reviewed progress. It helped that in conjunction with this I also got a “fancy planner” with lots of guidance and reflection tools in it  – this was a leap of faith, as planners and I have had inconsistent relationships in the past; commitment has been an issue, you could say! But this particular planner has been fun to use and has helped me stay accountable and focused. It’s motivating to see and reward progress – and all progress counted.

I focused on Time first because time management/organization/detail overwhelm were huge drains for me last year in trying to adjust to a much busier work life + community commitments. So many times I found myself repeating the same refrain – I have too much to do, there’s not enough time! And this mentality became its own energy drain, and put me right in a place where I set myself up for time mismanagement, mental exhaustion, and more forgetting (or more kindly, less timely remembering of details and tasks!).

My purpose was to shift my mentality to shift my energy and change my relationship to my ‘busy-ness’; cultivate a more peaceable relationship with time.

So, how did it go??

You might notice that I was fairly ambitious and detailed in action steps – and might wonder, but didn’t those take time?? Well yes, they did require a time and intention commitment, but overall I feel they provided a structure and discipline I needed! And cultivated deeper self-respect, as well.

Telling myself consistently instead, there is enough time, helped me feel lighter and freer. In terms of abundance, it didn’t make there BE more time! Rather, the abundance is that it began shifting my mentality around time, and helped reverse the time and energy drain. As well, one of my guide phrases is, ‘One thing in the moment,’ and I reminded myself of this whenever I felt the weight of ‘all the things to do’ press in. Do this one thing now, with your whole attention; then do the next thing.

I got a little notebook I keep by my computer at work to write down tasks and details through the day that needed attention, and this relieved my brain and saved me time both. It helped me stay more organized and be more efficient; plus, it feels satisfying to check things off, too!

One of the most foundational action steps was #3, creating that pros/cons list, which helped me clearly identify what was costing me significantly in time/energy with less value return. That in turn helped me with #8, letting go of time commitments that were weighing me/my energy/my spirit down and perhaps even feeding resentment, burnout, overwhelm. That was difficult in one sense, as when I take on a commitment I take it seriously and have trouble letting go sometimes. But in another sense, it was so freeing, and I felt so much lighter and (time)richer once I did!

So, I learned it’s not only okay but also so vital to review and refine your commitments and obligations regularly, to focus attention and time on that which enriches you and let go of what may be impoverishing you.  As well, checking expectations and judgments – they’re draining, too! And this lesson feeds right into February’s theme, which is Energy.

And part of the blessing of abundance was that I had more time and space free for simply being, playing, enjoying friends and my kids, reading (yay!), and even writing (double yay!). It was more a matter of attention and intention, though, intentionally making choices to honor and care for what mattered most to me. Being more awake in the moment that I was in, being awake Now. (Another guide-phrase: Be here now, be awake Now.)

But did I really have more time? No – I had more life in my time! And more than that, I feel like I simply had more life … still boundaried by time in practical ways, but also less bound by it in my spirit. 

So thank you, January, and hello, February!