Buy Soap, Accomplish Less...

Does reading other people's blog posts count as writing?

(Please don't answer that).

I am on a writing regiment. I have assigned myself a certain number of hours a day to write, and for the most part it has been swimmingly easy. On many days it goes by so quickly I think, well, shoot...I could double this.  But on other days, (today, for instance), the allotted time feels like a pitch-y cavern laid out in front of me. One that I desperately want to avoid. And so, as my designated start time approaches I will suddenly find myself accomplishing a whole list of very necessary tasks that, no, can not be done at any other moment except this one. Ordering that face wash I've run out of. Checking my spam email for stray job offers, giant checks, missives from long-lost friends. Putting laundry in. Taking laundry out. Making a list of all the other very necessary tasks that I ought to get done at least that day, if not right this very minute.

And the time ticks by.

Procrastination, I believe they call this. (Who me? No...I'm just being productive in other ways.)  In The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali he lists procrastination as one of the nine obstacles to practice. He doesn't call it procrastination, in the Sutras it's referred to as styana, or self-defeat. Self-defeat. As in, I have made an agreement with myself that I'm going to do this thing that I want to do, that's important to me, that makes me feel better in the doing of it, but I--the other I, the other half of this contracted pair--am going to go ahead and disobey that agreement, ruining the whole plan from the outset.

In the midst of procrastination, both of these I's are present. If they weren't, there would be no conflict, right? It wouldn't be an uncomfortable state. The problem with procrastination, this styana, this self-defeat, is that both the you who made the decision to take the action and the you who now doesn't want (for whatever reason) to take said action, are present. And they are duking it out. 

This to me seems to be at the heart of all personal conflict.  There is the you that wants what's best, and there is the you that doesn't want to comply, or doesn't think she's capable of complying, or doesn't think she's worthy of complying, and those two you's are at war. Even the term "self-defeat" implies that there is a SELF (a bigger self, a she-who-knows-best-eth) and then there is that which defeats the self. These two forces are not equal--there is truth, and then the destruction of it.  There is me, and then all the crap I do to get in my way.

And what I love about this, and the philosophies of yoga at a whole, is that the basis of understanding, the hypothesis is that what is underneath, what rises up when we stop doing all of the stuff we do to get in our own way--is good.  That the big Self, is good. And contains in her all of the truth that we're after and the growth we're seeking and all of it. And that there is not, then, some perfect action that we have to take, all we have to do is stop defeating her. Allow her to be. Stop procrastinating. And see what happens...

The Creative Act. Step One: Just F-ing Do It.

When I first got back from my honeymoon, I was so overwhelmed with the desire to DO something, that I promptly bought a bed, a desk, two rugs and some curtains and went right to work rearranging our entire apartment.  (It looks good, y'all).  And when I got done with THAT...I had a minor meltdown about my utter lack of additional things to do.  

For about a week I decided I was going to quit everything.  

I was going to quit teaching yoga, quit this blog, quit most of the things I am currently doing, and get myself a nice well-paid job producing movies....  I even went so far as to start sending resumes.  Overly earnest resumes with doubly-overly-earnest cover letters, warning the recipient of said letter not to be swayed by my long and storied past as an actress...that I was done with all of that!  That I had gotten real!  That I had wised up and settled on this very sensible path of climbing the ladder from assistant to studio head. 

Heh heh.

Luckily, following some very wise advice from my very wise husband, I held myself at bay.  I was not going to quit anything, not right away at least...I was just going to wait.  Because maybe the desire and the fear and the anxiety about what I was and was not supposed to be doing with my life, would pass.  Or calm.  Either way, I was not going to quit.  (Yet.)

Had I been 21, instead of 31, I would have--as soon as I'd felt that fiery itch, as soon as I'd gotten even a whiff of the terror that I might be In the Wrong Place...I would have taken a giant hammer to the vase of my life and smashed it.  I would have closed up shop and scrambled my way into some new (and eventually equally fear-provoking) situation.  Thank god for age.  

But, because I didn't do that...because I wasn't going to allow myself to do that, I found myself...well...stuck.  Stuck with the feeling.  Unable to relieve said feeling by just tossing my life up in the air and giving it a good swift shaking.  And so I had to utilize some other skills, ones I didn't even know I had.  The main one being the ability to just keep moving.  I made a promise to myself (after wasting a few days feeling terrible about everything) that I would not waste any days feeling terrible about everything...that I would just continue.  I would continue to teach and continue to write and continue to live my life and I would not, as is my wired way, try to run away or fix or drastically alter...anything.  

And as I began to do that, this crazy thing happened.  I began to realize how much room I actually had in my life.  Without spending so much time examining and reexamining how things are going (All. The Time.) I could actually start to feel the mysterious forward movement of things.  And it felt--spacious.  And full of possibility.  

Maybe some of you don't have this problem, but I am the kind of person who needs to clean the kitchen in my apartment, before I can sit down and do anything.  And I try, almost always unsuccessfully, to apply this same way of working to my entire life.  MEANING, if my proverbial "kitchen" isn't "clean", I don't do anything.  This means, because I'm talking about a mind and heart and thought-kitchen (instead of a physical one), that what I end up spending all my time doing...is constantly cleaning the kitchen.  And always in my head is this imaginary someday, when the kitchen will finally be clean, and then I, finally, will be able to get to work.  

But that someday, never comes.

And so what I discovered, because I made myself leave the f-ing kitchen alone for once...was that, the problem isn't the mess.  The mess is never going to be clean.  The mess, probably, doesn't even exist.  What matters is doing what you want or love or feel compelled to do, in spite of the mess.  What matters is taking action anyhow. 

And I feel this way on a micro level, even about something as small as a yoga class...you know, there's a million reasons in a day, not to make it to class.  Too busy, too tired, too grumpy, wrong timing, wrong teacher, wrong outfit...etc., etc..  But what happens is, if you can just take that FIRST step, if you can just put your yoga pants on and get in the car or get on the train...the rest of it takes care of itself.  The creative act has its own motor.  So, as soon as you start the thing a runnin', it will just take you with it.  And suddenly class is over, you're lying there in savasana, and you did it.  And usually, you're so grateful to yourself for having done it. 

All it takes is the will and the courage, to get your pants on, and get in the car...