Visualization and Dreaming "What Could Be"

In my last post I wrote that I was in the "dreaming what could be" phase of planning for the coming year.  It may sound funny to say that I take this "dreaming" very seriously. 

close up of swirly blue glass

Dreaming and day-dreaming have a  carefree lazy-day image and it is exactly this state of mind that is so condusive to conjuring up an image of the way I want to be and the life I long to create. I try to reduce the inner chatter of my logical, responsible self by telling her, "Relax, I'm just day-dreaming.  I just want to play with this image in my head for a little while, to play make-believe, to wonder what if?". 

My grown-up responsible side is resistant.  She has seen how powerful this exercise is; how ideas, images and desires that I have visualized, cherished and focused on have been reproduced in my life.  Of course my logical self supports my healthy eating and gym routine but she gets nervous when the images become bohemian beach cottages and summers spent in artist retreats playing with paint and words with no schedules or responsibilities to keep me hemmed in.  I hear her stern voice saying, "Sandra, get back to your senses this instant!"



day dreaming helps to unlock your secret longings

We probably all have a life time of "voices" telling us to:

• grow-up
• get your head out of the clouds
• do the responsible thing or the safe thing

These voices may say that:

• life isn't fair
• we don't get to do what we want
• we owe it to them to stay stuck (okay the never say "stuck" but that's what they mean)
• they are depending on us to help them cope
• counting on us to keep them happy
• a good friend (wife, mother) would never ________________ (fill in the blank with your dream)
• that is a waste of money, time.

Whisper to that stern voice, "Go away, I'm just playing. I will come back when I am ready to."

Record your mental wanderings.  Draw a little sketch to remind you of what you saw.  Jot down key words, phrases, titles of movies or books, or the names of people that embody the qualities, lifestyle or activities  and ideas that have come to you. 

Next week I will be putting together a new vision board to help support my mental musings.  Check in with me then to see what my dreams are up to for the new year.

Thank you so very much for stopping by and visiting My Turquoise Kettle Life.

Wishing you a new year full of dreams, joy, health and love,

Sandra

Planning for a New Year - Review, Redo, Renew

I absolutely LOVE the week between Christmas and New Years. The main fireworks (Christmas) are over and there is this wonderful quiet week-long lull before the last little firecracker (New Year's).

Frost on a window

It is also the time when my husband and I individually and collectively review the past year, re-establish what our priorities and goals are and renew our commitment to them. If you have read my post October Review & Renew you are already familiar with the format I use to record and track my progress through the year concerning various areas of my life.

Individually we review the year. I look through the journal where I have set aside one or two pages for each of the following categories: Finances, Health and Fitness, Spirituality, Marriage, Family, Creativity, Work, Home and Community Service. During the year I have been recording progress made or the lack thereof in each category.

For instance in January I have recorded anything that has contributed to the above categories which included meeting with our financial wizard to review retirement planning (Financial), having my annual check-up (Health), and making cookies for an elderly woman who is shut-in (Community Service). In May I began my blog (Creativity) and we paid off our mortgage (Financial). In August we moved my mother-in-law from Ottawa to our town and spent the rest of the year helping her to get settled, (Family). Every month has many entries both big and small. This allows me to have an honest and more complete assessment of the year. It is so easy to forget all the small achievements and gestures and to feel that nothing of any worth was accomplished.

Winter Berry

The next step is to really feel the emotions associated with the review. Do I feel sad, frustrated or excited over any lack of accomplishment or area of my life? For instance I feel a little sad that I didn't do a very good job of protecting my creative time. I left myself vulnerable to other people's wants/needs sometimes at the expense of maintaining a positive environment for creativity. I need to listen to the emotions to know where to make adjustments.

Maybe the emotion is indifference. Something that felt important in January may no longer hold my interest or circumstances may have changed so that it is no longer a factor (I had planned on working 2 - 3 days a week at the high school but by September I decided to leave the job entirely).

Next I let myself dream, what would I like to have accomplished in the next 12 months? Where do I want to be? What do I want to be doing? What can I get excited about? What established habits have I grooved that I need to maintain that allow me to function at my peak? (My spiritual, eating and exercise routines help to keep me physically, mentally and spiritually healthy and therefore able to dream about what might be next.)

When my husband and I have our reviews in place we meet to go over everything together. We look at the good, the bad and the ugly. We share our achievements and our failures. We ask "What went right? What went wrong? and Why?" This can take a while as we both like to talk and while we sometimes get off topic it often produces interesting insights.

Finally we record our dreams, desires and plans for the new year asking "How can we encourage and support one another? What can we accomplish together?"

Some people would consider this entire exercise sheer agony. I agree it sounds intense but the reality is that it works for us and when something works the rewards outweigh the effort. For example, years ago with kids at home and working, I was happy to make it to the gym twice a week. Now I see that hauling my butt out of bed and going to the gym every weekday morning has given me a level of fitness that exceeds what I had ten years ago. Yes it takes effort and requires establishing a routine and protecting the routine from being sabotaged either by myself or others. That is why going at 6:30 am works, I'm on autopilot and the rest of the world is sleeping.

It's December 28 and I'm still in the "dreaming, what could be" stage of the exercise. I'm feeling the emotions and letting them lead me to form routines that will allow me to be truer to myself and to more joyfully do the work that I'm called to do in my corner of the world. 

Thank you for stopping by My Turquoise Kettle Life today.

Wishing you a new year full of wonderful accomplishments and above all, love,

Sandra

How to wrap up Christmas in 6 days

There are six days left until Christmas. Maybe you're fretting over not having enough time, energy or money to do everything that you would have loved to have done for the holidays. Today would be a good time to reassess your priorities and if necessary cut yourself a little slack.

I was looking at my last post How To Enjoy Christmas and had to congratulate myself (and my husband) for actually managing to wriggle out of that one social gathering that we had felt obliged to attend. And you know what? It was quite painless, a phone call and explanation that we were planning on sticking close to home and relaxing a little (versus driving for six hours for a second turkey dinner within a 24 hour period and only arriving back home at 1:00 a.m. barring snow or freezing rain). Maybe you too feel the pressure to participate, to shop, to travel, and to visit people whom ... (Don’t get me started..!.) Yes, sometimes you just have to suck it up and visit. If that is the case be thankful they're not staying with you. And if they are landing on your doorstep with suitcases in hand promise yourself that next year you will do things differently - we all have choices.

As for wrapping up the rest of your to-do list; itemize all the food items that have to be made and the ingredients that need to be purchased. Can anything be made ahead of time and frozen? It may not be too late to delegate or get another family member involved in the shopping or preparing.

Do you have gifts left to purchase? Again my first recommendation is delegate however if you are a martyr or a control freak and insist on doing it yourself, try to do the shopping in as few locations and as few outings as possible. At this point there is no point in browsing. If you find a suitable item within your budget buy it now, avoid saying I'll come back Friday and get this one if I don't find something I like better. That is just self-punishing.

Also if you are working this week it may be too late to begin making anything unless it is a super-quick craft idea and preferably something that you've made before and know that you can do it again quickly. This is not the time to try Martha's Lusterware craft or to begin to sew a quilt.

Are you hosting? Don't spend hours house cleaning. My advice is sweep and spritz. That's it, only sweep and spritz. Sweep the floors and spritz the bathroom and kitchen surfaces. If your house is messy from crafting or you've had no time to pick-up after the kids get a couple of laundry baskets and walk through each room and load up the basket with whatever will take too long to deal with properly. Find a place in a closet or basement and just leave it all there until next week. When your family come whining that they can't find their black leggings or their i-pod point them to the hidden laundry basket(s) and let them dig through it.

Caleche in Old Montreal

While it may sound counter-intuitive, do schedule yourself a massage or take a leisurely lunch time walk out of doors (not the mall!). Meet with a friend for a cup of tea but choose someone who is upbeat and positive so that you leave feeling encouraged and happy.

If you are able drop a few coins in the cup of a street person or give a little something to a charity do so. It helps them and reminds us to be thankful for the abundance and blessings in our lives.
Try to streamline this week as much as possible. Few of us will manage to have a picture-perfect Christmas but with a change of attitude we can all have a perfectly wonderful Christmas.

Thank you for visiting My Turquoise Kettle Life today.

Wishing you and your loved ones a most precious Christmas,
Sandra

How to Enjoy Christmas (for a change)

For years my husband and I have been trying to be authentic about Christmas and not get caught up with other people's ideas of what Christmas has to be. This year I think we have managed to do it! Here is what we did step by step:

1. Entertaining and Socializing

Decided which parties, dinners, outings we enjoy participating in.

Decided on any entertaining we wanted to host.

Decided which get togethers we are obliged to attend (thank goodness there's only one in that category!)

Decided which invitations we can politely decline.

Keep in mind that when you wish to decline you don't have to give a reason, but you can have excuses ready if you feel you need to.

2. Gifts

We made a list of who we will give a gift to.

Decided that everyone will be getting a hand-made gift and what it would be.

We didn't want the simplest easiest Christmas; we want a meaningful, authentic one. (We give a few financial gifts and those are the easiest -we write a cheque).

Decided to no longer fill a stocking for our (now adult) children. This one step alone feels liberating.

The last few weeks we've been working on our gifts, sometimes abandoning original plans and doing something else.

3. Christmas Cards

I bought blank craft store cards 5 x 7 inches and put one of my photos on the cover and wrote the inside messages. It’s simple to do and personal.

4. Baking/Food

I decided on 3 recipes for sweets that I will make. Two are already made and frozen and I'll do the last one next week.

5. Christmas Dinner

Our family does a large Christmas dinner (20 - 25 people) but each family brings part of the meal from buns to veggies and everyone contributes dessert .  We are very big on dessert, you can forget to bring your vegetable casserole, you can even forget to bring wine but you had better bring dessert!

6. The Christmas Tree

We don't have a Christmas tree. Well actually we had a little 3 ft tall house plant that really looked like a Christmas tree and I used to decorate it but I over-watered it in October and probably November too and I finally threw it away today, it was beyond hope - even Charlie Brown would have agreed.

About not having a Christmas tree - I really don't feel sentimental about the tree. I don't want an artificial one and I don't want to be sweeping up needles until next March. I now I'm in the minority but there you have it.

7. Why Christmas??

We remember that Christmas is about Jesus' arrival into our world, the miracle of his birth and the gift he offers each of us.

8. Generosity

My husband and I don't exchange gifts but find a person or family, either in our community or an organization that is in need and make a donation.

I think that's it. As I said, it has taken years to eliminate the expensive, draining, boring parts of the season and to be able to embrace what we enjoy, plus it changes from year to year. Some years I'm inspired to light up the front of our home in white lights. So far this year I have one tiny little evergreen in lights.

Your authentic Christmas will look completely different than mine. What matters is that if you are fortunate enough to have people around that you love and who love you, spend some time with them and let them know how you feel. Look out for those who have no one and if they don't have a place to be on Christmas, squeeze an extra chair around the dinner table.

Thanks for stopping by My Turquoise Kettle Life today.

Wishing you an authentic day,

Sandra