During my year-end review in December, I asked myself: how to create more time and space in life for the important-but-not urgent activities like writing, reflecting, extended spiritual practice, play, and reading? One answer: declare one meeting-free week per month, starting with a pilot period from January to March. No client calls or F2Fs, no business development, etc.
Last week was the second one of the year. Several observations:
1. Not all important-but-not urgent activities fit into the "retreat-like" categories listed above. I spent quite a bit of time on finances, bathroom planning (not how to go, or even how to help Jacob go, but what the new one in our house will look like) and processing my inbox like a good GTD (Getting Things Done) practitioner.
2. Once aware of this, I found myself feeling frustrated, even angry. "I'm not doing anything I want to do!"
3. What was evoked was a familiar pattern of interpreting an event in a way that seeds self distrust. Ah, that familiar friend! Is it possible to give the superego the week off, too.
4. A second such seed: I backed Julie's car into a telephone pole, the first one I've hit in twenty years. I was alone in the car, and the bump exerted less force on my body than dumbbells do when I lower them to the ground behind my head. To honor my commitment, I didn't schedule my "meeting" with the body shop until the next Monday (today).
5. Now here lies the genius of the meeting-free week. I had and created (more than the usual amount of) time to feel my emotions, listen to the body sensations, and use meditation to unglue myself from the bodymind's constrictions.
6. Notably, I delved into Wilber, which reminded me of the developmental benefits of meditations other than the kath (my standard practice as part of being a Diamond Approach student) and of the distinction between "pathological" neurotic fear and the fear that all bodyminds have of death, of losing their sense of self. The latter insight relaxed me instantly by suggesting - yet again - that some of my everyday anxiety isn't "bad" but simply human and a subtle sign of Rocketship Amiel preparing to blast off into or beyond what Wilber calls vision-logic (which is transverbal but not transpersonal).
7. The week concluded last night with Julie and I doing inquiry (into our respective moment-to-moment experiences--another Diamond Approach practice). While listening, I did a third-eye meditation and felt more present to her and myself than usual. Remarkably few thoughts cluttered the mind. My inquiry ("monologue") that followed involved mostly exploring the meditative buzz and the visual and auditory sensations through which I felt its expression. Beautiful!
8. Guess what was the first email in my inbox this morning? Yes, a request from a client to schedule something during my meeting-free week in late March. Time for a counter-offer!
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