Anatomy Of A Lab Explosion

The experiment is perking along.  The scientist is gathering data.  All is well in Labsville.

But then …

The monkey gets out of his cage and frees the rats and the mice.  The rats and the mice turn on all the Bunsen burners.  The animals break the glass and escape.  The flames ignite chemicals in glass vials all over the lab.  Ka-BLAM!  The lab explodes.

What does the scientist do?

She wails and moans (surely).  She cleans up (hopefully).  And she starts over (if she’s determined.

Welcome to my destroyed lab.

I’m somewhere between the wail and moan phase and the clean-up phase.

My lab isn’t a place full of monkeys and rats and mice.  It has no Bunsen burners or vials of chemicals (though certain chemicals could be helpful at this point J).

My lab is life.  And the experiment was:  make my top priority finding reasons to feel good to see if feeling good is the secret to creating the life you desire.

In order to test my hypothesis, one element must be in place.  I MUST feel good.

Yesterday, I stopped feeling good about noon.  I tried to find relief and get back to feeling good.  I stopped and wrote about Ducky.  I used the chi machine.  I had a healthy, yummy meal with Tim and we talked about things we want.

I still didn’t feel better.

I looked around the house at things I appreciate.  I cuddled with Ducky.  Tim and I watched a show that makes us feel good (Extreme Home Makeover).  I still didn’t feel good.

In fact, the more I tried to feel good, the worse I felt.

I was sucked back into the previous year, remembering how I felt at the start of last year, thinking that the year was so filled with promise.  We’d received this great insurance settlement.  We were fixing up the house.  I thought I had months of freedom and time ahead of me to do my writing without pressure.  I thought we were on the verge of something amazing.  Truly, I did.

Then in August, I discovered my sense of freedom was an illusion.  We had no money and all our credit cards were charged to the hilt.  I went from happy and focused to devastated and confused.

Now, we get 10 to 20 creditor calls a day.  They’re like little Red Alert sirens going off in the background, yanking me out of my everything’s-going-to-be-okay place.

The books and screenplays I’ve written are stalled on someone’s desk—no sales yet.

And yes, I know I’m telling it like it is, not like how I want it to be.  Which is why I feel so lousy.

I got hung up on the intentions, I think.  Abraham says to intend your way through your day—they call it segment intending:  decide what you want before you go into each part of your day.  I’ve tried this many times off and on through the last few years.  I’ve yet to have a day go the way I intended it to go.  So I get pissed off (I don’t think that’s part of the process).

Then there’s that placemat process—you put on one side of the page what you’ll absolutely do that day and on the other side of the page, you write down what you want the universe to do.  I’ve done that many times too, and I’ve yet to have the universe do anything on its list.

Still, I’m a determined woman.  So yesterday, I tried again.  I got up and intended that I’d easily find a freelance writing opportunity, one that paid well.  I’d apply and get the job and I’d be on track to make enough money to give us some security while Tim gets himself lined up with that lottery he keeps telling me he feels like he’s won.  I put getting me those jobs on the universe’s side of the to do list.

By late afternoon, I was slogging through 38 pages of how-to-use-Elance so I could take a stupid test on how to use their site, and I was NOT having a good time.  I was having a MISERABLE time.  It didn’t feel good at all.  I tried to find a new attitude.  All new attitudes were in hiding.

Everything came crashing down on me.  This is NOT the life I envisioned.  I’m on the verge of 50 years old.  I’ve worked for 20 years to be a successful writer.  I thought I had it made when I broke into the big publishing world.  I sold books and was sure my career was taking off.  I was wrong.  I threw every bit of my energy into building a business.  I failed.  I thought I understood how to attract what I wanted, and I attracted a freak accident that left me with a permanent limp and an ankle that hurts pretty much all the time.

I’m PISSED OFF!!!!!

Ka-BLAM!  That’s when the lab exploded.

So much for feeling good.

I cried off and on all evening.  Even Ducky’s sweet attempts to comfort me (head on my shoulder, little tail wags, a nose to my neck that said, “I’m here; it’s okay.”) didn’t help.

Abraham and many spiritual writers talk about what Abraham calls “the path of least resistance.”  This means that for all you do, you find the path that feels the best.  Trust your gut, your instinct.  You know when a course of action feels good and when it doesn’t.

But what if neither course of action feels good?  What if you can’t find one that feels good?

There’s where I am.  That’s the monkey that started all the mischief in my lab.

Scrabbling for these writing jobs doesn’t feel good.  Call me a writing snob, but I’ve worked too hard for too long and developed a skill set that is too valuable to be jumping through hoops so I can bid on projects that don’t compensate me well enough.  I HATE the idea.  I HATE the process.  It makes me feel yucky and very, very small.  It makes me feel like a failure.

And yes, I know that nothing can MAKE me feel anything.  So, I’ll rephrase that.  I am allowing myself to feel small and like a failure.

So my other choice is to keep churning out book proposals because I enjoy doing that, even though I know none of these can lead to a sale within the time I need such a sale.  I need money coming in before April to stave off disaster.  The book industry doesn’t move that fast unless you’re a celebrity in the middle of a scandal or a criminal who’s done something heinous and gotten away with it.

So that path doesn’t feel right.

Do I just enjoy myself—return to my drawing and piano playing and walking my dog and taking long baths and trust that Tim won’t let me down?  Believe that he’ll win that lottery?

But I don’t believe that he’ll win in the next two months.  I know it’s POSSIBLE—but do I feel like I can count on it?  No way.  He’s been telling me he’s going to win for over two years.  Why would he finally do it now?

So that path doesn’t feel right.

Are there other paths?  Probably, but I don’t see them now.

Sell the house, move to another place and get a job.  HATE that idea.

I love my house and where I live.  I had this place built to my specifications.  I created this lifestyle.  When I think about leaving it, I feel like I’m going to throw up.  That’s not a feel good path, obviously.

So what is my path of least resistance?  I thought I had it figured out.  Get freelance work.

Yesterday I found out that the path to freelance work doesn’t feel good either.

So I’m stuck.

And that’s why my lab exploded.

My goal was to feel good for 30 days and see what that brought me.  I didn’t even last 11 days.  Experiment tainted.  Data in ashes.

What do I do?

Start over.

I must.

But what’s the path that leads me to that feel good place?

I don’t know yet.

So for right now, I’m moaning and cleaning up.

Turning My Boat

A couple weeks ago, I had this idea to look for freelance writing and editing work online.  I did a preliminary search of the opportunities in this area and found a couple sites that looked worth signing up for.  I decided to get my Puppies Interrupted proposal done before I went further.

So yesterday, Tim and I had an incredible day celebrating the 9^th anniversary of the day he arrived in my town and moved in with me.  I had no trouble feeling good all day—it was a pure feel-great day!

I got up this morning feeling energized and upbeat.  Ducky and I had a great walk by the bay (more on that in a second).  I came home and went to work signing up for the sites.

I’ve been signing up for sites and looking for jobs for three hours now, and I don’t feel good at all.

I’m trying to find a way to feel good about this, but at the moment, having an oh-boy-I’m-a-published-author-who-has-worked-her-tail-off-to-create-financial-and-creative-success-and-now-I-have-to-scrounge-for-a-job-woo-hoo feeling is basically beyond me.

Today’s Abraham quote included this:

“We would never move forward in the face of negative emotion.”

I have a container-ship-load of negative emotion right now.  Moving forward with my job search, therefore, is counterproductive.

I started this freelance search with enthusiasm for the idea of bringing in some regular income working at home doing what I love to do and am good at (i.e., writing).  But the more I’ve searched, the worse I’ve felt.  Most of the work I’ve found isn’t work I feel excited about.  The process of applying for it is lengthy and time-consuming.

I want to write my own books.

I want to sell the ones I’ve written.

I want to be free to choose my projects.

Wah, wah, wah.

NI, NI, NI.

I feel discouraged, frustrated, angry, and sad.  Yuck

I feel ashamed and embarrassed that after all I’ve accomplished in my field, I’m going after work I don’t even want just to survive financially.

I KNOW there’s a better way to look at this.

Abraham has this upstream/downstream analogy about life:  when you let go of the oars and flow downstream (i.e. feel good, thereby aligning with your inner self), you easily float to all you desire; when you row hard upstream (work, struggle and feel bad in the process), you’re moving away from what you desire.

My boat is definitely headed upstream right now.

So, because the negative emotion isn’t helping me with the process of applying for these jobs, and because the negative emotion DEFINITELY goes against the spirit of my feel-good experiment, I stopped what I was doing so I could write this post.

I stopped to think about something that feels good.

Enter my tried and true heroine of all-that-feels-good:  Ducky.

This morning, the wind was blowing about 20 m.p.h. on the beach.  It was cold and foggy, and the tide was coming in.  Ducky had a blast chasing sandpipers, seagulls, and crows.  She also went after whatever was blowing across the sand.

Today’s offerings included bits of seaweed, pieces of crab shell, and chunks of Styrofoam (from floats).  All were equally fascinating to Miss Ducky.

Watching her chase that stuff is a riot.  She races after it and pounces on it.  Most of the time, the wind whisks away her prize before she can claim it.  She sees it continuing on its mad journey down the beach and she races after it again.  Run.  Pounce.  Wag tail.  Run.  Pounce.  Wag tail.  From time to time, she captures what she wants.  She usually eats it (no matter what it is), then wags her tail and starts the process again.

Ducky is my feel-good guru.  Not only does she make me smile, she shows me the process of going after what I want.

Following Ducky’s method is a good idea:  You go after it (align with it), feeling good along the way.  If it gets away, you go after it some more, still feeling good.  When you get it, you feel good.  When you’re trying to get it, you feel good.  It’s all about feeling good.

Ducky isn’t as interested in the capture as she is the chase.

That’s the secret of feeling good.  If we can feel good along the way to what we want, more of what we want will come.

I know this.  So feeling bad about these jobs isn’t an option.

I have to see it as a game or a challenge or not do it at all.

What I really want (the lottery, the book sales, the freedom to do what I want) is coming—BUT it will only come if I line up with it.  Feeling lousy while applying for writing jobs is not helping me.

So I choose to feel better.  And I do.

Thanks, Ducky.  You did it again.

Life Is Good

An ordinary day—making bean soup, dusting, cleaning the kitchen, talking to my mom, working, sticking to my new eating plan.  Nothing to get excited about.

But I’ve found many reasons to feel good today.

The cereal I discovered at Amazon, organic cornflakes sweetened with fruit juice instead of sugar are SO good—crunchy and yummy.

Watching the stove go from greasy to sparkling is so satisfying.

Seeing Ducky curl into a ball to rest after her romp in the woods makes me smile.

Did you know brown rice cakes can actually be tasty?  Spread them with a little garlicky hummus, and they’re a savory treat.

I have clean sheets on the bed.  The taut coolness is like a spa treatment for my skin.

The house is orderly and fresh.  It’s fun living in rooms you’ve redone to suit you.

I love red.

When Tim leaves to run an errand with Ducky, he kisses me and says, “love you.”  He does the same when he gets home.

When he calls me from another room, he says, “Hey, beautiful?”

Life is good.

I can even ignore the relentless creditor’s phone calls.  Oops.  NI!

I may be getting the hang of this “find ways to feel good” thing.

We didn’t win the lottery last night.  NI!

But how do I know it’s not growing bigger just for us?  I don’t know.  So I’ll decide that’s what’s going on.  It makes me feel good.

I don’t have a specific number to focus on like Cynthia Stafford did.  I just want enough to be gloriously free.  I want to leave 50 percent tips for great service in restaurants.  I want to send my friends big checks just because I love them.  I want to give to animal sanctuaries.  Have you heard of the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee?  A very cool place.  I want to donate to it and visit it someday.

This is where my thoughts are today.

Oh, and it took me only 8 days to write a 63 page proposal/outline plus 70 pages of sample chapters for my book, the memoir, Puppies Interrupted—The Story of Muggins, Me, and Our Unfinished Work. Woo hoo!  It’s done.  Tim will be submitting it for me next week.

Like I said, life is good.

Facebook … Bah Humbug

Yesterday, a friend sent me an e-mail telling me to check out her Facebook page.  She’d added a bunch of pictures to it.

I don’t do Facebook.  So I asked her how to do that.  She sent me an invitation to be her friend on Facebook.

Turns out I have an account.  I’d totally forgotten that I signed up about 2 ½ years ago when I was doing everything I could think of to promote websites.  I never finished setting it up.  Never wrote a profile or added pictures.  Truth was my heart wasn’t in it.

I don’t like Facebook.

There, I said it.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the FBI comes knocking on my door.  I think it might be anti-American to dislike Facebook.  Even more radical to refuse to look at anyone’s Twitters.

I just don’t like people that much.

Well, okay, that’s not true.  I mean, I like people, but I don’t want to know what everyone else is doing.  It messes with my head.

Too many people are doing negative things.  Or they’re doing positive things I think I should be doing and I’m not so I feel guilty that I’m not.  Or they’re doing things I just plain don’t care about one way or the other.

Facebook is too exposed for me.

Yeah, me.  A book author who has been on national TV to promote her book.

Or maybe it’s not that.  Maybe it’s the group-think involved with it.  The sheep aspect of it.  Everyone’s doing it.  I prefer to do things that not everyone is doing.

So I went to Facebook and accepted my friend’s request.  I discovered one of my dear friends had made a friend request months ago.  I accepted it then sent her an e-mail that said I hadn’t been ignoring her—I’d just not been following up with Facebook.

All authors should be on Facebook, the experts say.   That thought makes my stomach clench up.  I don’t like it.

A few days ago, this was Abraham’s daily quote:

“We would never do anything that didn’t make our heart sing! … And so you say, ‘But that choice doesn’t seem to be there. There’s this choice that doesn’t make my heart sing, or sort of staying where I am. So what should I do?’ And we say, we’d hang around and wait for something that makes our heart sing—and then we’d jump in with all four feet.”

I have SO much evidence that doing what other people say is a good idea doesn’t often work out.  I want to do what makes my heart sing.

I’m working on a book proposal right now for a book about my 17-year relationship with Muggins, my dog that died in October last year.  THAT makes my heart sing.

Facebook doesn’t make me sing.  So my page is going to stay the mess it is.  Thirty unanswered friend requests.  No pictures.  No information about me.

I don’t want to join that crowd.

And since I’m choosing to make feeling good my top priority, I don’t have to.