Butterfly Balance Wellness Center

Do Nothing

Feeling bombarded by messages to continually multi-task and do everything at once? I can relate to this at times.

I found this fascinating website which encourages you to do absolutely nothing for 2 minutes except listen to the waves. I clicked on it and closed my eyes, listening to the waves as a countdown timer on the screen counted down 2 minutes. I spent most of those 2 minutes with my mind racing, thinking about other things I "should" be doing, or would be doing as soon as my 2 minutes were up, and I managed to open my eyes at least 3 times to look at the clock before my 2 minutes were up.

Wow. That was eye-opening. And I'll bet I'm not alone.

Try it out for yourself at Do Nothing for 2 Minutes and then come back and tell me how it went for you.

I'm going to bookmark this site and practice doing nothing for a change. How about you?

 

 

Rules to Live By

Live with intention.
Walk to the edge.
Listen hard.
Practice wellness.
Play with abandon.
Laugh.
Choose with no regret.
Appreciate your friends.
Continue to learn.
Do what you love.
Live as if this is all there is.

Mary Anne Radmacher

 

I saw this inspirational message on a framed wall hanging in a catalog I just got in the mail from Femail Creations. It really jumped out at me, not as something to necessarily buy, but because of how each line touched me. It's almost like a blueprint to life - rules to live by - if one wants to live a life of joy and integrity and wellness.

I recommend meditating on each line and thinking about one step you can take to bring each one into your life, more so than you may already be doing. It may sound cliched, but I think the world would be a happier place. At least you would be.  :)

 

 

Simplifying: Far From Simple, Isn't it?

It seems that the more that I want to "simplify" my life, the less simple it gets. My home is a cluttered mess. I've been paying so much attention to taking care of myself personally through diet and exercise that I kinda forgot about the squalor surrounding me.

Clutter, while bad for many reasons, is also not good for energy purposes - it just bogs down the flow of good life energy through your home and through your life. Makes sense to say that you don't have the energy to clean sometimes. I think that to get rid of clutter also makes room for more good (non-material) stuff in our lives.

I found it interesting that as I sat here contemplating where to begin with this mess, that several friends started talking about decluttering and then I got two interesting emails (notification of new blog posts) that related to it as well. I think the Universe is trying to tell me something!  :)

Zen Habits is a blog that I try to read somewhat regularly. Look at this great description on its "About" page:

"Zen Habits is about finding simplicity in the daily chaos of our lives. It’s about clearing the clutter so we can focus on what’s important, create something amazing, find happiness."

I try to read this regularly, but ironically, the emails get caught in the clutter of my inbox.  Cleaning 1,000+ emails from my inbox let me focus on these gems I wanted to share with you.

In the recent post How to Simplify When You Love Your Stuff, I love this section:

"But let’s be real here. In spite of embracing the concept of simplicity, most people really love their stuff, and they love acquiring more stuff. Like our attitudes about a healthy diet, our feelings about material things are complicated. We know what’s good for us, but we just don’t want to give up what we like. Our stuff makes us feel good.

Is it possible to live a simple life and still love stuff? How much letting go of stuff really counts toward simplifying anyway?"

You can read the answers to that here.

This post on The Clean-Slate Guide to Simplicity scared me! I am uncomfortable with the concept of feeling like I'm missing something, even if I'm not actually missing it. Probably has more to do with being somewhat of a control freak. :) I bet there's a Health Kinesiology correction I should do for that!

"Simplifying Backwards is Easier

If you’re having trouble deciding when to hold on to something and when to let it go, try doing things backward. Learn to add responsibly instead of subtracting."

He then shares several steps which, essentially, tell you to take all your clutter, get rid of it, and then as you find yourself missing something, go get it. You can read the post here.

If that makes absolute sense, why do I feel like I want to hyperventilate when I read that? :)

Do you deal with clutter/lack of simplicity in your life? Do either of these posts help at all? I'd love to hear your methods for simplifying in your own life.

Story of Bottled Water (and Stuff)

You may have seen the popular YouTube video a while back called The Story of Stuff. Here's a new, similar video about bottled water, how it allegedly differs from tap water, and the hazards of the plastic bottle industry on our health and environment. Don't let the cartoon look fool you - the message is very poignant.

 

If you missed the original Story of Stuff video, I highly recommend it:

 

I've been carrying my own non-plastic water bottles for quite some time now. If you're not, please consider it - both to help the environment and your own health. Not to mention all the money I've saved on buying bottled water!

 

Survivor's Guilt

I had no idea that one could have survivor's guilt for owning an air conditioner. But yes, it's possible. :)

Seattle is recovering from record high temperatures. It had never been over 100 degrees before last week, when it hit 103 (or 104, depending on who you ask) last Wednesday. And the temps were between 80 and 100 for a long period of time. That doesn't sound very bad, except for the fact that I read that 85% of Seattle residents don't own air conditioners. And most of our public transportation does not have it as well. That was driven home when I got stuck in afternoon Mariner game traffic for an hour on a bus with no a/c, the temp outside being over 100 degrees, and no breeze in the bus because it wasn't moving due to traffic. Not fun.

I would come into work each day, and all my coworkers were getting kinda crazy as the week went on. Nobody was sleeping, and were sharing war stories about what high temperature it was in their house, what tricks they had to staying cool (my favorite was the wet t-shirt in the freezer), and how sleep-deprived and miserable they were all. Then they'd turn to me and say "so, how are you holding up." That's when I would look down, as if ashamed, and admit that we have air conditioning. We were lucky that the house we rent happened to come with one unit in the livingroom and one in the bedroom. It's been a godsend, let me tell you. I didn't want to gloat about having a/c, and I tried to keep it to myself, because I felt so incredibly guilty.

It was funny, actually, how guilty one could make themselves feel for having an air conditioner while the rest of the city suffered. It was interesting to live such a simple life that week, though. Since so many restaurants didn't even have a/c, we became hermits. It was really too hot to go wandering the streets any long distance, so we stayed at home. Cancelled plans. Decided to actually eat food we had in the house instead of going out to eat or buying something more *fun*. And I realized that I liked living this slowed-down, simple life.

I want to incorporate more of that in my day-to-day living. Today I'm enjoying some below-normal temperatures. It's overcast and 66 right now and I'm loving every minute of it. Time to stop feeling guilty and get outside and seize the day!

Choices, Assumptions, Realizations and Goals

I mentioned in a previous post that I had been in the East West Bookshop in Bothell and bought some used books. One of them was deeply discounted because it was highlighted, so it cost me $2 instead of the $12 list price; in fact, the cashier said they weren't even supposed to take the book to resell because of the highlighting, but the book was in such good condition otherwise that she took a chance. Apparently it had been on the table for an hour when I came by and snatched it.

The book is Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. I'd heard of this book a few times, most recently during our church Simplicity Circle, and a personal friend (also involved in that circle) had recommended it. Seems fitting that I'd get a book on "financial independence" for a $10 discount. :)

This book has been really amazing. I've done a lot of work on finances and debt and spending and simplicity, so some of this was preaching to the choir and/or reinforcing what I've already known and done. But some of it was such an entirely different way of thinking of money and energy and really got me thinking. And excited about some of the things that were coming up as I got in touch with my thoughts about finances and working and life.

I've spent a lot of my life in debt. I'm still in debt, and for a significant amount still. Like half my annual salary (if we exclude the new car loan). The good news is that I'm now living within my means, and have been for the past two years - I have not incurred any new debt in that time that I have not paid off at the end of the month. And I'm paying more than minimums for my debt. Not much more, but more. And all my debt is at very low interest (6.9% or less), so I am grateful for that.

So, here's the thing. While it's really fantastic that I don't go deeper into debt, I could be doing a much better job of getting out of it. I spend way too much money still. Doesn't matter that I can afford to pay it all off. I've still got that albatross of debt hanging over my head. Some of the things I spend money on monthly are truly necessities - like rent and utilities - but there are things I don't need and/or could cut down on. Eating out, for instance. We spent WAY too much money eating out. Most of it is for boredom's sake, or laziness. Convenience, I guess. Hey, that's fine from time to time. But it's become way too much of the norm.

A friend and I were talking this morning about this, and she was saying how eating out became less "special" when it became routine. She's right! There's no excitement to a meal out anymore (other than the excitement that I don't have to cook it or clean up after it). And you can't say that I don't fill my house with convenience foods - our freezer is full of quick-to-heat things from Trader Joe's, for instance. So I really could have dinner on the table in less than 20 minutes, even if I had to boil water for a pasta side dish. Part of me feels like if I don't eat out, I will feel deprived. But I started to reframe that today, and realized that every dollar I spend eating out is one less dollar I can't pay to my debt. And every month that I do not get out of debt is one more month I have this debt haunting me, reminding me of past problems and issues. So what if I start making the choice to not eat out as often because I am making the choice to pay my bills faster?

Take lattes, for example. I never drank coffee, ever, back in New York. But for some reason I am a latte junkie here. I have one at least 5 days a week. It costs me $4.30 and I usually leave the $0.70 as a tip. So that's $5 a day. Times 5 days a week. Times 52 times a year. That's $1,300 a year, not counting any snacks I might also buy along with the latte, or any lattes I might have on weekends. Wow. So part of me justified that because Antoinette, the barista at the coffee shop in our atrium at work, is one of the most positive, sweetest people I've ever met. She remembers everyone, and everything about them. I go to see her and she is just beaming. Not too many people do that when I see them. It's nice to be welcomed and fawned over and given this steaming hot cup of rice milk and espresso. But then I realized that if I walk down to the atrium to read a book at lunch (like I did today), and pass Antoinette, she still calls my name and waves and smiles and wishes me a good day. No purchase required. Hmmm . . . So I decided this week that I was going to stop having lattes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That simple act of skipping 2 days would save over $500 a year!! So rather than look at it as deprivation that I didn't get a latte today, I decided to look at it as financial freedom - it's $5 closer to getting out of debt.

I'm in this line of work that just sucks the life out of me. I am not happy. As this book referred to it, I'm "making a dying" as opposed to "making a living." Very true. If I hit the lottery, I'd quit in a nanosecond. What would I rather be doing? Health Kinesiology (I've taken 3 levels now and just scheduled level 4 for September) and Reiki (I'm already attuned for level 2 of that and can practice it) and other alternative health pursuits. When I'm working with a client, I stop looking at the clock, and I'm filled with joy. But my assumption has always been that I "can't" quit my "day job" (the one that's not a joy) because "I can't afford it." Well, that got me to thinking about how much a year I pay to pay off debt. I pulled out my PDA and used the calculator, and the amount was staggering. If I didn't have the debt, I could easily earn half my salary, and I could live quite well on it. It was really quite the revelation. Then I figured out, if I charged $X a session and had X clients, how much would I make. And it pretty much came out to around the same figure as what I have left when I ignore the money I paid to debt!! This was a huge realization for me. And got me very excited. Because suddenly, I realized that I mostly likely could support myself with my passion, not what I'm doing now. My current line of work would be able to be done through a temporary agency too, if I ever wanted to supplement my income from other things. But, to get to this point, I need to get out of debt.

I will be 50 in 4 short years. I have decided that my goal is that all my debt will be paid by then, if not far sooner. I am going to reevaluate what I spend, and what value I get from it. I can probably pay it in 2 years, but I want to have a realistic goal. Your Money or Your Life talks about how money is energy, and how our life is energy, and we're trading our life energy when we make these financial decisions. Is that latte worth how long it takes me to work for the money for it? When I think of the alternatives, it really isn't. I'm not going to slash my budget insanely and go into deep deprivation mode. I'm going to take baby steps, keeping my eye on the prize - my financial independence from this job. And a time when I can walk away and do what I'm passionate about. Naturally, I'll have to work on that new career simultaneously, but it can be done. I'm already doing some work with that.

Interestingly, in my HK1 class, my teacher used me as a demonstration for something called Adjunctive: Work. This is asking the body questions (using muscle testing) about a particular thing (Work, Play, Sleep and/or Rest, in this case), and when we worked up the Work category, she said that my body's energy wanted to work part time. I balked at that at the time, it simply couldn't be done. But I'm starting to open myself up to the possibilities. Right now, no, it's not possible. Well, I guess it is, but I'm choosing not to because I want money to pay these debts down quickly. But it's nice to have options. And it's nice to know that my body was telling me all along the things that my brain is starting to catch up to. :) This is a work in progress; I don't have all the answers. It also won't resolve itself overnight. But I'm feeling optimistic now. I have choices I can make. I am realizing that my assumptions were incorrect. I've got some goals. I feel good about all of that!