What We Can Learn from Lent

               Today is Fat Tuesday, more commonly known by its French name Mardi Gras. It is the last day before Lent – an observance in many Christian denominations in remembrance of the 40 days that Jesus fasted in the desert. If you aren’t Christian, don’t worry, His story is not the most important part of this post. In fact, I’m coming at this from quite the opposite direction. My belief is that we can all learn something from a Lenten “fast”. It doesn’t even have to be something religious or spiritual if you aren’t so inclined. Please read on.

            Mardi Gras is commonly a time of big celebrations. In New Orleans there are weeks of parades and the kind of overindulgence and decadence that most people rarely even dare to dream about on a normal day. In New Orleans, of course, Mardi Gras usually lasts from Epiphany (January 6^th) thru Ash Wednesday. For the rest of us it is usually only one day. In either case, it’s a celebration I have had a difficult time coming to terms with. From a Christian perspective, though I am not one, it doesn’t make sense to overindulge oneself before confessing your sins, begging forgiveness and taking a forty day fast to become closer to your deity. However, I have decided over the years to think of it from an American standpoint, and furthermore from a human standpoint. (Mardi Gras has quite a history in America, but that isn’t a story I want to get into here.)

I like to think of it as a time to remind myself why it’s a bad idea to overindulge, and also as one last hurrah before giving up something I have become dependent on and probably shouldn’t have. Naturally, no matter your religious affiliation or lack thereof, you can become closer to your deity/deities, own spirit and even nature herself by learning to live without something that you depend on more than you should. Mardi Gras is sort of like a New Year’s Eve where you celebrate all of the things you are about to say goodbye to in pursuit of a better Self. You begin to find that Self through Lent.

Lent, even for those of us who aren’t Christian, can be a very eye-opening event. Any sort of a fast will teach us about ourselves. Lent is a forty day fast, so we have a lot of time to learn. We rid ourselves of some of the clutter that we invite into our daily lives by writing it off for forty days. Normally this clutter takes up energy and time that could otherwise be diverted to spiritual or intellectual pursuits. Thus, when we choose to give some of this clutter up, we find that we become more grounded spiritually and intellectually. 

This year, for Lent, I’ve decided to give up sweets. Here’s why: food is great, good food is even better, but eating nutritionally void food because it tastes good is an abomination. Occasional indulgence is fine, but eating junk food regularly is disturbing. Why should one person be allowed to overindulge to such an extent while in the few minutes it takes them to eat it, someone else somewhere in the world has died of starvation? It should not be so, but the universe is seldom just. I have found myself guilty of eating junk food, some days almost exclusively, since I became a mother. The temptation to grab whatever quick snack is most readily available before rushing after a busy toddler has proven to be greater than I can handle. This has left me unhealthy and carries feelings of guilt, not to mention a few extra pounds. It also makes me wonder how much I truly know about myself if I am willing to grab junk food rather than make a meal when I feel so strongly about both eating healthily and not overindulging. (I believe that overindulging is a great sin in that excess, in theory, could be shared with someone in need). 

On a more personal level, I believe that I need a good kick-start toward achieving the goals I’ve set for myself in 2013. I have a lot that I want to accomplish this year, and I’m off to a slow start, but it is a start. I think that giving up refined sugars, at least for the most part, will help me to concentrate on my goals. I am also anxious to rid my body of the toxins associated with sugar consumption. Most people do better slowly removing something damning from their diet, I tend to be more successful by eliminating something all at once. I find that this allows me to forget about the thing rather than obsessing on it (am I eating too much of it, not enough of it, can I have more now?). Sort of like dumping a boyfriend all at once, rather than trying to be “just friends”. Who has that ever worked for?

If I can get myself to eat healthier in just 40 days, I will have more energy physically to accomplish my other goals. Also, not obsessing about my sugar intake, or feeling guilty about grabbing another handful of cookies instead of making stir-fry, will free my thoughts. 

Finally, I’d like to invite you to join me in dedicating the next forty days to improving yourself. Forty days isn’t all that long. By Easter, you could be a new you. You never know until you try. Choose something to give up. Anything, really; but especially something that you overindulge in. Do you spend too much time online, obsess on social networking, watch too much TV, eat out too often, snap at strangers, use foul language or profanity, fail to screen yourself when posting on forums, obsess on your partner or not pay attention to them ? ? ? What do you like least about your habits? If you don’t like the idea of giving up an obsession, you might rather give up some of your time to volunteer. Our time can become too precious to us just as anything else can. If you have ever snapped at a child for interrupting you while you read a book or watched TV, you should know how true this is. Choose to volunteer for Lent – if not every day, then once a week through Lent. Or even determine to spend at least 20 minutes of each day helping someone else out. You don’t even have to leave your house, you can find someone online in a forum or on a social networking sight who needs your expertise or comfort.

Keep a journal, too, just for forty days. You don’t have to write much, just enough so that you can reflect on your progress. You’ll want to be able to look back on your efforts and see how you’ve grown.

In Christiandom practitioners are meant to remember their Lenten fast throughout the year and reflect on it so that they can grow closer to God. We can learn from this practice as well. After all, if we do not reflect on our efforts, we really can’t hope to learn anything from them. 

And don't worry, if you are reading this and it is no longer  Fat Tuesday, you can begin a forty day fast anytime of the year, you don't have to follow our calendar. In fact, it's best to do something when you feel the time is right for you to do it, not only when the calendar says to. If you don't think you can manage forty days, you can always cut the time down. Or, if you feel you need  more time, you can dedicate yourself for more than forty days.

           

Growing with you always,

Madame Laree

When our Loved Ones Don't Believe in Us

                When someone we don’t know tells us that our goals and dreams are hopeless, it can be easy to discount them. We can still believe in ourselves when every stranger we meet or even our acquaintances have no faith in us. But when our friends and family don’t believe in our abilities, it can be difficult to overcome. In some cases, they may be right. After all, beside ourselves, no one knows us better than our friends and family. Other times we will find they are wrong and we must overcome their disbelief.

When we have loved ones who are against us going after our dream, we have two issues to overcome on our path. First, we must determine who is right: them or us. It is best if we can have an honest discussion with our loved ones about our plans. Even if you only mention your plan in passing, you should listen carefully to what your loved ones are saying to you. Chances are good that they will go a little further than just telling you that you are full of yourself. Generally a negative comment from a loved one will be accompanied by an explanation. 

For example, when you see an airline commercial, you might say to Grandpa, “I’m going to be an airline pilot someday.” Grandpa will probably say something like, “You know Johnny, you can’t really be a pilot. Pilots have to be able to walk.” Then, you can evaluate Grandpa’s comment. “Well, pilots do have to walk, and I am paraplegic. I don’t have any patented ideas for how to create a plane that paraplegics can safely fly. Grandpa is probably right.”

Conversely, you might say to Grandpa, “I want to be a singing waiter.” Grandpa might come back with, “You’ve never sung before in your life.” Well, perhaps you have sung before and you know it. Maybe you even believe you are a good singer. The next step would be to test out your hypothesis. You can sing for friends or in public, go to a karaoke and see how people react. Soon, you might find that Grandpa’s evaluation was wrong and go on to fulfill your dream of bringing food and entertainment simultaneously to the public.

The above are greatly oversimplified examples. But they demonstrate my basic point, which is this: there are times when our family and friends might be right to negatively evaluate our goals, but there are other times when they might be wrong. We have to find a way to determine for ourselves which it is. The reason we have to give their opinion a fighting chance is that we are only setting ourselves up for endless failure, heartache and isolation if we don’t at least openly listen to the people who love us. It is possible that, no matter how much you want to be a singing waiter, or an airline pilot, it just isn’t going to be possible for you. You don’t want to spend years or an entire lifetime fighting for the impossible. Our family and friends usually have a pretty decent understanding of our weaknesses. Furthermore, it is often more difficult for us to accept our own weaknesses than for our loved ones to accept our weaknesses. This sometimes means that they will evaluate us more fairly – with an opinion skewed toward the harshly realistic rather than toward the desirable.  

                There will also be times when our loved ones are wrong to be critical of our goals. When we have carefully considered our odds of success and determined that the risks are worth taking because they have the chance of resulting in the fulfillment of our desires, then it is time to learn how to stand up for ourselves even when our loved ones won’t. This is one of the most difficult things anyone can be asked to do.

                We are accustomed to depending on the opinions of our loved ones. We grow up always turning to our parents, awaiting their approval on every task that we complete. This is the way we learn to evaluate our progress. After all, Mom and Dad successfully made it to adulthood. If they think we are doing things the right way, we know that we will at least be as successful as they are. We learn to depend on those approving looks and the adoring compliments that come with earning the approval of our loved ones. When we dream beyond the ability of our loved ones to see or comprehend our vision, it makes it very difficult for us to continue seeing that vision and believing in it. But when we are right, it is important for us to at least give ourselves a chance to prove everyone wrong for not believing in us. It doesn’t have to mean that we spend our entire lives working toward something that fails time and again. But we do owe it to ourselves to give it at least one shot.

                I am luckier than some. I believe that there is something divine watching over me that desires my success. If nothing else, I believe that the Divine always believes in my abilities, and if I should fail, the Divine will be there to help me pick up the pieces. If you have any sort of spiritual or religious belief system, this can be a great boon to you in times when you are feeling hopeless or lost. If you don’t have, things might be a little harder on you than on the rest of us, but not impossible. If there is absolutely no one, not even someone or something unseen who believes in you, at least you believe in you. There will be times in life that this has to be enough.

We have to give our dreams a fighting chance even with no army behind us to support us when things seem to not go well. We are a lone warrior. We have to pick our own bloodied and beaten body up and keep trudging forward because there is no one beside us to help carry the load. 

                The only chance that we have at being successful is to refuse to give in to our own feelings of dread and despair. It is so tempting at times to give in; to crawl under the covers, close our eyes and hope that in the morning it will have all disappeared. This will not do. In order to be successful we must be able to overcome this temptation. Without the aid and support of loved ones this can be very difficult to do, but it isn’t impossible. 

                I could give you a list now of little activities you could do (“Keep a journal of all your successes!”) to help you keep going, but these sorts of activities only serve as a Band-Aid and once the Band-Aid falls off, the wound is left open again. Instead, I would rather take the opportunity to point out to you that the secret to succeeding is being able to ride through these moments of despair. 

                In surfing there is a maneuver called the “duckdive”. It is one of the most important things a surfer will learn to do. The duckdive goes like this: As a wave is coming at a surfer, the surfer swims hard toward it and pushes their board down into the water. As the wave is about to pass over them, the surfer follows their board into the water, nose first. Then they push the tail of their board under the wave and allow the wave to engulf them. The wave washes over them as they keep pushing their way through and they appear on the other side unharmed. If a surfer doesn’t know how to do this they can easily be washed away or pushed under by a wave. 

                I am of the opinion that a duckdive through our days of despair is a much more valid course than trying to encourage ourselves with a Band-Aid or a crutch. We can head nose first straight in to those desperate days. As a surfer holds tight to their board, we have to hold on to our own belief in ourselves, our stability. We can allow ourselves to feel the despair, to experience the guilt of our apparently imminent failure, maybe even crawl under the covers for one night. Most surfers will tell you, the deeper the duckdive the better. So, the more completely you allow yourself to experience the negative, the easier it will be to come through. But then we must keep pushing forward until we come out the other side of the wave. We cannot stop once we have come under the wave of despair and allow it to wash us off of our course. 

Of course there will be times when we feel like giving up, no matter how much we believe in ourselves. There will be times when we feel like admitting defeat no matter how much progress we’ve made. The important thing is to not fall apart in these moments. If we can make it through the moment, even if we do have to succumb and use a Band-Aid just for a day, we can find a way to keep moving forward.  You’ll be amazed at how much brighter the sun can be when you’ve duckdived all the way through a wave and come out on the other side.

Always yours,

Madame Laree

               

Exercising our Creativity

               I've been wanting to do a post like this for a while. I think it is so important to constantly exercise your creative thinking. If you can manage just ten or fifteen minutes a day even, this is better than spending an hour once a week. If you are consistently working creatively it sticks in your brain. It's sort of like taking a little vitamin C every day, instead of overdosing on it only on Saturdays. If you take all of your 'vitamin C-reativity all at once, the extra is just going to leave you.

             

               Entrepreneur.com has an article on "3 Ways to Think Outside the Box". It is geared toward businesses, but it is a short article and well worth the time it takes to read it. Way #2 in the article is "Search for Random Inspiration". This inspired me to start a new practice. I keep a little jar - an old peanut butter jar that I've cleaned up and decorated - full of little folded bits of paper. Each piece of paper has a random noun or verb on it, such as "forklift" or "running wildly". I find that any of these words or two to three word phrases creates an image in my mind. When I am trying to come up with a topic to write about, I pull out one of these slips of paper and allow myself to picture whatever is written on it. Then I consider how it makes me feel. I usually find that my reaction to whatever image is drawn into my mind tells me what I need to write about. Today I pulled out "yellow daffodils" and imagined myself in a field full of the flower. I felt inspired but I didn't know how to channel that inspiration. I realized that I needed to write a post about keeping our creativity in good shape so that we can always use it when we need it.

               Lifehack.org also has an article on the subject called "11Ways to Think Outside the Box". This is list of eleven activities with brief description that can help us to think more creatively. They are geared toward the individual and are especially good for those times when we are in the middle of a project and find we have a mental block.

               Personally, I try to randomly think of something I've never done before, or something that I don't do regularly that requires me to do things in an unorthodox way. It can be something as simple as writing with my left hand instead of my right or coloring in a coloring page. I like to pick a color randomly with my eyes closed and choose which part of the picture I will be coloring in before I look at the color of my crayon - you must use crayons. This usually results in a finished picture that can only be described as psychedelic and it reminds me of an incident in my second grade art and music class wherein I was apparently the only student to listen to the specifications of the instructor.

I also, sometimes get dressed up to do something mundane - in fact, I own a small wardrobe of second hand formal gowns - most appear to be old prom dresses or bridesmaids gowns. I buy them for around $5 to $10 each at my local thrift shop. When I need a little inspiration, I put one on and do the dishes,or make my husband take me to McDonald's. This sometimes has the added benefit of garnishing remarks such as, "on your way to the prom?" To which I usually reply, "yup". Of course, my own prom was more than ten years ago, but no one needs to know that but me. Not to mention that it is hard to feel bad when you look awesome! By the way, I'm still looking for some old wedding dresses to add to my collection, let me know if you have some ideas.

Even if you aren’t a writer you can use journal prompts to help you figure out whatever task you have at hand. You can begin by responding to the prompt and then figure out a way to relate it to whatever task is at hand. Take for instance this story: in an upcoming post “When our Loved-One’s Don’t Believe in Us” I needed an example to demonstrate how we should react to depression. I used the prompt “What did you do the summer that you were ten?” To be honest, I have no clue what I did the summer I was ten, so I created a story – you’re allowed to do that as long as you don’t try to pass it off as reality to anyone else. So, I decided that I must have gone to the beach with my aunt and uncle. They of course taught me to surf (I got interested in surfing only as an adult).  . .Then it occurred to me. The duckdive! It is a surfing maneuver that happens to be the perfect demonstration of what strong people do when they are facing a difficult time. (You can read that post tomorrow - Saturday. Follow me on Twitter or join me on Facebook or Goggle+ for a reminder to come back and read it.)

Anything that gets you out of your normal comfort zone will help you to think creatively. Even if you work with other people you can do something as simple as turning your necktie around backwards (as long as your coworkers aren’t in your cubicle or office), or writing with your non-dominant hand. You can seek out a more creative environment. Perhaps there is a secluded spot in your place of business where you can find some quiet space to work that isn’t your same-old office. On the other hand, in a high-traffic area you might see someone who sparks the answer you’ve needed. Even simply placing your chair on the other side of your desk, or turning it away from your desk if it is against a wall can help you to think differently.

Pleasant Daydreams,

Madame Laree