Lately I’ve spent ‘way too much time listening to my Inner Censor and its backup group The Committee.

This is not a good thing.

Besides doing a number on my self-confidence, listening to those turkeys makes it easy for me to fall into overachiever/drudge/doormat mode.  Among other things I find myself doing ‘way too much for people who are perfectly capable of doing stuff for themselves because I:

• am desperate for some kind of approval
• voluntarily set aside my own boundaries
• forget that “No” is an answer

Usually when this happens I end up depressed, viewing the world through corpse-colored glasses as I slog through my War and Peace-sized to-do list.

But this time was different.

This time I was royally, vehemently, unilaterally pissed off.

So I tossed my gotta-do list into the shredder, told the Censor and Committee to f*** right off and proceeded to do a bunch of stuff from my wanna-do list:

• Took a vacation day from work.  Words cannot begin to express how badly I needed this downtime.  The only chore assigned to that day (a Friday) was a trip to the grocery store in order to avoid the Saturday madness, which was a blessing all by itself.
• Bought some denim leggings. Been wanting to try them for ages but never did because I don’t look like the models in the ads. Well, screw that.  The leggings look good and feel great. (Side benefit: I have problems with my knees, and something about the fit of the leggings lessens the pain considerably. I found myself moving around a lot more; even going up and down stairs wasn’t as challenging.)
• Did a daytime full-moon bonfire.  Didn’t want to wait until night, so we didn’t.  Judd got a scrap-wood fire going and we sat enjoying the gorgeous blue October sky and sunshine. (As a fair-complexioned former redhead, quite a few months of the year my relationship with sunshine is akin to a vampire’s.  So this was a wonderful luxury.)
• Did a long-postponed releasing ritual.  Already had a nice fire going, so it was a simple matter to grab a notepad & pen, write down things I want to see gone on a personal level (example: “inertia”, “procrastination”, “fear of positive change”) and world level (things like “injustice”, “war”, “inequality”), add a brief clarification if one was needed, and toss each note into the fire.
• Worked on my book for the first time in ages.  While editing a conversation between a middle-aged former roadie with 20+ years clean and sober and a much younger  active drug addict,  I had the younger man say, “When everything goes up in flames, how do you keep doing that one-day-at-a-time stuff?”  The older man ponders for a moment, then replies, “The way I see it, if I stay clean, I can be an everyday phoenix, rising from the ashes. Beats the hell out of the alternative.”  I stared at that line  for awhile after I wrote it, and I’ll be thinking of it in a variety of contexts for a very long time.
• Rented Peter Gabriel’s “Secret World” concert from Amazon and watched it that night.  Loved every minute.  The last number is my absolutely favorite song of all time.  I use the concert version as an energetic meditation, and I want to share it with you.
  

Take care, all!

Donna