Living In My Zone of Genius

I came across Lisa Sonora's website through a friend's blog and I absolutely fell in love with this journal page of hers.  For years I have been working with and delving into what my strengths and joys are, or as she so beautifully words it, 'zone of genius', and I just love how she has made such a powerful, encouraging and inspiring commitment  to herself and the world.

As I have mentioned before, I firmly believe that in following your joys and committing to them, you are serving the world in the biggest way possible, for that is where your genius lies and through your genius, others can but only benefit.

Yet it is hard for so many of to allow that genius to surface.  I think the ego comes up with so many creative obstacles that block the path and that magnificent genius that resides in all of us just keeps lying there, dormant beneath the ice, waiting for its opportunity to shine.  I have definitely found that with my writing.  There are always so many other things that just 'need' to get done and then there are also the bigger life events that slow us down; while time then just keeps ticking along.  So I feel inspired and motivated by Lisa's magnificent commitment to her genius!

I have signed up for her 30 day journal project which looks like a whole lot of fun.  Maybe it's something for you too? 

The Doorway Into Thanks

Roger Housden shared this beautiful poem in his weekly newsletter this week.  Paying attention and deep gratitude for the small wonders around us can transport us to another world.  

Praying
by Mary Oliver
 

It doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

On our recent trip to Namibia, on the banks of the Kunene river, my husband, a true explorer by nature, started observing the stones and pebbles in the river bed during his walk, and this is what he discovered and shared with us  .... 

All the stones and pebbles are covered in a thin layer of grey dust, but as soon as you wash them in the water, their magical patterns and colours emerge.  We had such fun and definitely slipped into a world of magic and gratitude.

Epic Journey - Namibia

On Sunday, I arrived back from an amazing three week camping trip with my family in Namibia. The sheer vastness and magnificence of the landscape is quite something to behold and take in.  It completely envelopes you. 

We also met such interesting people along the way.  I really do enjoy that aspect of traveling very much.

Over the next while I will share some lovely insights and pictures into our trip.  In the meantime, here is my favourite camping spot of the trip.  It is our own magical little 'boskamp' (bush camp) out in the middle of nowhere.  It was full moon that night and the land stretched out for miles around us with not a soul in sight.  We chose the spot because of it's beautiful open fields (and we had been listening to an audio of "Little House on the Prairie" and here we were, camping out in a magnificent Namibian Prairie) with Giraffe, Gemsbok, Springbok and Zebra!

One More Hug

A friend of mine sent me this last night in lieu of Father's Day yesterday.  So true ...

Opening the Door to the Heavens ...

I really like this 'Dharma Comic" and loved Elizabeth Lesser's book, "Broken Open" so I thought it would be lovely to share for the weekend. I have seen it over and over again in my women's circles; just the sheer bravery and honesty of where you are at today is profound and shifts you, whether minutely or gigantically, but there is something to be said for being real with where you are at in your life!

Off the Grid

We've got no electricity at the moment and it reminds me of how I've been off the grid of my blog for a while!! I've really missed it.  

My mom's been very unwell ;  in and out of hospital and the circumstances leading up to it very scary and heartbreaking.  So I have been very involved in helping her this last month.  It almost feels like a small bomb has gone off in my life, changing its landscape completely, and I am in survival mode doing bits here and there, dealing with the most urgent things as they crop up. It's quite a radical comparison, but my life as I knew it before my dad died a year ago,  has changed irrevocably, especially being the only child.  I've been dealing with my mom's incredible heartsore, loss, the sale of her flat, her admin, her idiosyncrasies and now also her ill health. Not only that, but also the loss for me of my very special dad, the sad circumstances leading up to his death, and all that that brings with it.  Then there is also the sense of a loss of the carefree child.  Now the responsibility lies on me with regard to my mom. Things like banking, investments, healthcare, legal documents, housing, travel, insurance, etc have all fallen into my lap. Things that are not really my strength or my joy but that take up huge time. I know it's the norm in many places and cultures to take in a parent and care for them,  but it definitely requires an adjustment to your life, mindset and time. It's the shift from being 'the child' to now being the adult child.  

I guess beforehand I was really fortunate as my folks were phenomenal with our kids;  when we were still in Johannesburg they often had the kids over, or helped with lifts to school or extra murals while we worked and then when the kids were a bit older, they took them for the odd few days while my hubby and I traveled.  But that resource has now gone and it too is a huge loss, for both the kids and us. 

Then there is also my mother's deep, deep grief .   That has been very painful to taste and see, especially not being able to help. It feels like I am standing on a boat in this rocky stage of her life,  throwing a lifeline out to her, and she reaches out and grabs it, but then a wave of deep grief knocks it right out of her hands again and she starts sinking. So I throw it out to her again and she weakly reaches out to grab it and the whole process starts all over again.  And all I can keep doing, is to throw out that life line! Either she'll eventually manage to hang on to it or the relentless waves of her grief will take her down with them.

So in essence, I have also been off the grid of my own independent, though not totally carefree life, for a long while now and I really miss that too. I miss my dad; I miss the care freeness of just being the child with strong, healthy parents; I miss having my folks as I knew them and I miss doing the things that I really enjoy doing or rather, I miss doing them in a consistent flow rather than the stop-start stop-start of it all.  At times it has also been very frustrating and taxing, especially the distance, as my parents have been in Johannesburg all this time, so my heart, time and energy have been split in two places and between two families; my own and my parents. 

Being somewhat of a hermit in my being, all of this is deeply challenging for me as I could quite easily just disappear into my own space and be very content just doing my own thing all day long; an only child's indulgence!  Yet, despite  all that, and despite all her idiosyncrasies, I have also enjoyed caring for my mom and I discovered this week that the very act of just washing her hair for her and styling it for her has been immensely gratifying and nourishing. 

And so, where to from here, I don't know? We've been taking it just one day at a time and that in itself is new to me.  I guess it's time for a new kind of grid and a new kind of normal. 

Rest is a Weapon

This is the new motto in my group of friends, and as the universe always does so beautifully, it backed it up with more and more for me to take note of.  

Recently, a woman in one of my circle groups, who runs her own business, has two very young children, and who is always sleep deprived, shared with us a gem from Arianna Huffington, the co-founder of the Huffington Post and author of numerous books.  It is an interview with her about the impact the lack of sleep had on her and her research into it.  She describes herself as a sleep evangelist.  She literally talks about sleeping our way to the top of the corporation!

Now, my relationship with sleep has always been a bit of a battle.  I absolutely LOVE my sleep, but to get my self to bed on time is a whole different matter.  Almost every night, it's the same story!!  "Tonight", I declare to exhausted morning self, "I will get into bed early!" And I truly mean it. I've even gone as far as pleading with the angels to help me get into bed early! :-)  And then most nights, when it comes to it, I just don't manage it.  There is always something I am busy with and 'have' to finish, whether it is tidying up the kitchen after putting the kids to bed, checking and signing their homework or quickly checking through emails, searching the net, or reading my book, writing, blogging ...  Plus, I hate leaving something undone and not finished.  I think I am also a bit of a night owl to be honest. Often, at eight thirty in the evening when my hubby says he's off to bed, I feel a kind of horror or panic, because it is 'still so early' and there's lots I still want to do. It probably also stems from not getting to do my things from about one in the afternoon when I fetch my children from school until about eight at night, and so there is an urgency to get stuff done when they have gone to bed.   As a result, I am often sleep deprived, feel it, look it and then always complain about it to myself in my morning pages!! Same story, different day. 

Yet my mother on the other hand, makes sure she gets enough rest and I have watched her this last year and a half and how the amount of rest she has, has helped her physically cope with the stress and angst of losing my dad.  She has not been ill with flu or any kind of bug in the last couple of years and I firmly believe it is because she gives her body the rest it needs. Even when she was visiting my dad in hospital everyday for five months, in among all the bugs there and especially with my dad having contracted more than one super bug.  I on the other hand, have been ill countless times and I know it is always because I have not had enough sleep, so where I cannot honour my body's needs, it forces me to rest when I am pushing it too hard, and it is always with a cold!!  According to Louise Hay, a cold is when there is too much going on in one's life and mind.  Well that fits the picture for me most times.  

So I love what Arianna had to say in this interview and her new book, "Thrive." Take a look. 

I have also added two other questions she was asked in another interview and her response to those because I think they are very powerful.  
You've described yourself as a "sleep evangelist"...  How has it improved your life?

Since I renewed my estranged relationship with sleep, it improved my life immeasurably. I feel more creative, less stressed, and more productive. Sleep is now a major editorial focus for us at the Huffington Post, and we also have two nap rooms that are constantly booked. And last year I gave all my friends the same Christmas gift -- a Pottery Barn alarm clock, so they could stop using the excuse that they needed their very tempting and sleep-depriving iPhone by their bed to wake them up in the morning! 

How amazing is that?  A nap room?!  I think it is ingenious and so honouring of our lives and that we might just need a nap to function properly and be more creative today!  So forward thinking.  In a video clip of Elizabeth Gilbert's home, she takes us through her amazing 'skybrary' where she has done a lot of her writing and there in the one corner is a huge king size bed for when a nap is needed when her creativity is low.

And then this comparison blew me away ...
So it’s about changing our priorities?I was looking at my phone and saw that it was 95% charged and I thought, we are so much more conscious about how charged our phones are versus how charged we are. It’s too bad we don’t have the same kind of indicator to show how depleted we are. We have a million ways to recharge our phones, portable chargers, cables, extra battery packs, but look at how we treat ourselves. Our own energy has to be below 5% before we figure out that we need to sleep, to recharge, to take a break. That has to change.

So my wise body always speaks for me when I just cannot let go of the doing, and forces me to rest.  Why can't I just acknowledge and allow myself the rest to recharge like I do with everything else?  This last week I have been more conscious of getting into bed even twenty minutes earlier and allowing my body the rest it needs so that I can function better the next day, even just in my relationships!


Rest has become my new weapon!