Hey, everyone! Rebecca here.
You know, I thought I had a handle on the things we’re covering in this chapter. I’d dealt with the poisonous playmates, the crazymakers and the skepticism. I don’t have a problem paying attention to the “small things.” I love the small things. I was in line to get an A++ in Week 2.
Then I got to the exercises.
Have you done any of the exercises yet?
Question 2 was an eye-opener: Where does your time go?
I thought I knew. I mean, I’m a freelance writer with a food blog. My top five activities would have to be writing, cooking, shooting photos, promoting my site, and planning future projects, right?
Well, I DO do all of those things, but not every day.
Nope, on a daily basis, one of my top five activities is wasting time on the Internet. Letting myself get sucked into checking e-mail, Facebook and Twitter. Reading articles and blog posts for HOURS.
I can’t be the only one who does this.
Then I got to question 8: List 10 changes you’d like to make for yourself, from the significant to the small.
No problem, right? But as I was writing my list, I started feeling really anxious. And as I started feeling really anxious, I really, really wanted to check my e-mail.
So, yes, I learned something about myself. I learned that I use my time online to numb myself to anxiety. I have anxiety, because I’m not making changes. I’m not making changes, because I’m online too much. It’s a vicious cycle.
Thanks, Julia.
Do I want to waste my time on mindless crap? NO! I have too many things I want to do! So now that I’m aware of what’s going on, I’m determined to break the cycle. I have my list of 10 tiny changes on a notecard, and I’m challenging myself to finish them before the end of the year. (I’ve already got the hallway taped up and ready to be painted!)
*** What about you? Have you learned anything from the exercises? Were you freaked out by seeing how you REALLY spend your time? Confess! ***
This is major for me…I want to do things creatively like practice music, read books on my art – but I get SUCKED into the tech world and it’s hypnotic and I lose my evenings doing nothing but Twitter and Facebook.
Your post hit me like a bullet – I am the exact same way and I need to go on a tech diet for sure –
where do you find the exercises?
I thought I had no Poisonous Playmates or Crazymakers in my life. And as I started cruising into week three, I noticed where my time was going…researching pregnancy advice. That’s not in my top five activities.
Now I’m not pregnant and that was not in the plan when I started TAW, but guess what came up in week 2?
My husband casually mentions that he’s ready to start a family and the ball is in my court as to when we start.
One thing I had considered doing but didn’t do before starting TAW was discuss with my husband our plans for starting a family. See I knew it would have an impact on my creative endeavors, but I chose not to bring up the conversation. I thought we were going to wait another year or two and feared that talking about it would influence him to want to start sooner.
So I was a little surprised when he brought up the subject, but not really.
Notice my husband didn’t put a date on it and even emphasized that “the when” was my choice. However, my inner crazymaker decided the sooner the better. I’m turning 35 next year and feel anxious because of all the stories I’ve heard about how much harder it is to conceive and the increased risk of birth defects and blah, blah, blah.
So I set the soonest appointment with my doctor to remove my IUD and even calculated when I’d be ovulating.
I also see how I’ve setup my life so it seems to parallel my Mother’s. I remember watching her draw when I was little and she was very good. I can’t tell you how many times I heard her say, “If I hadn’t had you children, I could have…” so I made up the story that she never pursued art because she had us children.
This week, I’ve put in time to study and practice for my drawing class, but nowhere near the amount of time I had imagined and I feel disappointed.
A huge chunk of my time has been spent researching how to conceive a boy or girl, chinese birth prediction charts (!), how long it takes to conceive, what to expect during pregnancy, even safe co-sleeping methods!!! Again, I am NOT even pregnant.
I allowed myself to distract myself from my goals.
Luckily the soonest appointment was in November so I called and changed it. I’ll feel more ready after completing TAW and my art class in December. Then we can focus on starting our family.
And I’ve been having strange dreams…two involving buglaries, one in my childhood home and one in my current home, both times the thieves went for my wedding ring. Last night, I dreamed about snakes for the first time. I spent time googling their meanings and I’m sure they are all related to what surfaced in week 2.
I confess that I had the most trouble with the 10 tiny changes. At first I thought this would be easy–until I read that we should pick one of the changes and either do it or work toward it this week. That is when resistance kicked in! So it makes me think about whether I really want the changes that I say I want. I read somewhere that sometimes we want everything to change without changing anything–I think that is where I am! I finally did make my list–now I need to look it over again and actually do something on it. Maybe take a baby step or two.
I did the exercise about listing 5 traits I had as a child that I admire. Doing that brought up so many hurtful feelings from childhood that I got really emotional when I was doing it. I didn’t expect that at all. It made me realize how far I’ve come and it gave me some motivation to use those old hurts I’m still holding on to and do something creative with it.
I did not do the list of ten things yet – but I do know that health/nutrition and career will be on there…I do spend too time – playing on the computer. Sometimes I watch too much tv too – although I have watched a lot of movies the last few months! I also need to be more creative at home – I could draw at home, but tend to watch tv – with my husband and play with the computer…I did buy an adult coloring book on mosaics – and did some of that one night…I take art lessons once a week, but tend not to do art when I am not involved in a class. For me, art lessons give me structure to be creative – and I have gone to two different art studio classes that are long-term…..I have a room that I want to make into an art studio room – a spare bedroom that I have started to make into a studio room – but graduate school. switching jobs and life have made it into a storage/junk room!!
On the positive, I have been listening to music CD’s in the car again!
Oh, an art studio room…can you hear me purring?
I managed to paint from 11 this morning to 19hoo this evening. In between I did fetch the kids from school, make them lunch and dinner for the family. OK so I admit I made spaghetti with left over meat balls and pesto!! Yes thats all no veg or salad!! BUT no one complained (I have 2 boys + a husband so they really are not fussy) Really it makes me realise that I fuss too much about THEM and not enough about me. No one said a thing. They are all busy with their thing so why am I not busy with mine. I feel great cos for the first time I did as little as possible for my family and as much as possible for ME !! THank you TAW.
Thithu dont stress re the family / babies it can only happen when it is meant to everything of the best. Hey maybe we’ll have an Artists Way Baby!! Keep us posted! xx
My 10 things I need to change are always the same things I want to change and have been writing about for years, infact so long that I am bored of hearing myself think about it.
I am the queen of filling my time with everything else I NEED to do. Well organised I would have plenty of time. I am always trying to create the perfect home for the family all being boys they dont even notice.!? I have to learn to let this go and get back to my painting.
Thats all for now.
xx
Like Chanda, I too fill by time with things I need to do. Also, I underestimate the time it takes to run some of those grocery and Target errands. So, some days I don’t get to my creative plans but other days I push the errands aside and draw a sketch or go for a long walk. I guess it just depends what needs to happen first.
I did the 10 changes. In the middle of the activity my tiny changes became huge. I just looked over my list this morning since this activity was mentioned in the post and I realized that I did do one of the changes…I started drinking more water as I had listed. The big changes still wait there probably waiting to be broken down into smaller, bite sized changes.
I also chose the write 3 affirmations daily for a week activity. One of the affirmations, Taking the next step works, has helped me lately when I feel like life throws me little curves balls messing up my plans.