Thursday
Feb112010
Podcast: Bursts and Discernment
Brooklyn Larder, Diana+
Today's podcast is about the sudden burst of ideas that often follows a quiet spell. If your head is swimming with should do's, could do's, and wanna do's like mine, let us know in the comments what is your best strategy for keeping your sanity and navigating your way through.
Mentioned and quoted from in this podcast:
The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship by David Whyte
Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 8:49AM | Share Article 12 Comments | Email Article Print Article | Permalink | in creative work, podcasts
Reader Comments (12)
The question "what is the courageous conversation you're not having?" is reverberating in my mind after listening to your podcast. Thanks for sharing that. I don't know what it is for me yet, but I have a feeling that question is going to stay with me today.
I am in a bursting phase right now, and only my experience of knowing how I get wrapped up in it all - in all those RIGHT NOWS, is helping to slow me down and hold back just a little. One thing that I think is helping is that I've mapped out a weekly schedule. Mondays I work on A and B, Tuesdays and Thursdays it's C and D, and wed and fridays are more flexible. I am able to make myself wait to work on THAT THING THAT MUST BE DONE until it's scheduled time during the week. I can't say it's working perfectly, but adding the structure feels like I have permission to work on those things, and sometimes permission to work on something else without the guilt weighing in quite so heavily. Great podcast. Thank you.
I write things down and leave them all over (ideally in my journal but occasionally tucked in books, at the bottom of laundry baskets, in kitchen drawers, etc.). Then at some point in the future when they find me again, I decide if it is still an idea or was just a fleeting dream. I also have a wishes and wants book to curb impulsive purchases.
I am a list maker! Though these days I have streamlined it, as I felt I had my ideas and wants etc in too many places.. I have a notebook , and a site that I go to to capture my ideas, spewings, things I wanna do , creative ideas and so on.. I try not to do the should thing, as my father said, Don't Should on yourself! I know easier said then done... I then will see what really makes me smile when I am looking at the ideas, and I then work with that one, break it down in to bit size pieces and go for it.. That is more recent though.. I have had many , and still do have stuck times.. All I can say is be gentle with yourself and remember that it doesn't have to be all figured out right now..
www.toliveinspired.wordpress.com
My system is very similar to Karyn's ... a weekly schedule with specific things on specific days rather than one super long (and overwhelming) to do list. I also give myself three non-negotiable (within reason, of course) tasks each day. Once they are accomplished, I feel like I can relax a smidge about the rest. Last but not least, I make good use of the calendar and alarms on my cell phone. Setting an appointment with myself and then the timer for a specific morsel of time (say, 10-20 minutes with the option to extend) for the purpose of assessing or taking the next step with an idea/project has thwarted my tendency to procrastinate. I used to think I needed huge blocks of time to make things happen. Not true. It's amazing what can be accomplished in these little micro appointments.
These are so great everyone! I'm taking notes over here.
Hi, I feel on the verge of an overwhelming burst also after a period of absorbing and I know if I let it it will overwhelm me and I will scatter off in a zillion directions without a clear direction. Despite the seductive temptation to do this, it will merely deplete my energy. When following the inspiration, the muses, you have to be careful to guard your energy and stay centered. So, for me, I am trying something new this time and that is to play a "game", as you would call it, of "Finishing" things. Focusing on finishing whatever I can find a finish for, tidying up both work, projects and my space. I think that focusing on this will force the new ideas to develop a bit further in my subconscious, and maybe even weed each other out a bit, maybe kind of like survival of the fittest. I jot the ideas down in the journal so they're not lost if I need to find them, but I am letting them brew further. Otherwise I will start more than I can finish, as I have in the past and hence the pile I'm working on. Sometimes you have to leave things and wait until the right piece to the puzzle to finish something, other times you just have to show up. So I am showing up to old pieces and hopefully removing a few of those balls in the air that I'm juggling to make space for new balls.
Gxx
PS your question is very much like the ones raised by Dawna Markova in "I will not live an unlived life."
always
i appreciate
so much
hearing
your voice
xo
Thank you all for sharing your ways of sorting through and making sanity more real in the sea of things. I have started using a schedule of chores to do - some weekly, some every two weeks, some one time monthly, some daily. It has been working to just show up and do those things. However, this week it hasn't been getting done as effectively because it is much more important for me to take care of my sweet little girl who is sick and that is acting as a catalyst to help me scale back and reconsider what works. Love the idea about keeping a wishes and wants book to curb spending. I think I will try that over time to put those ideas out there and let them rest and check on them later. So, I am contemplating the things I must accomplish and what I want to accomplish and see how a general schedule for fun things (instead of just the chores) can help me. Thank you, again!
So..I have to just say your voice is so soothing, I really enjoy listening to it. To help prompt me to write anything, something.. I listened to your podcast today and just wrote what came to me.. here it is.
Quite Space, no bursts yet, I have been in quite space for too long, reacting only, waiting.
I have experienced words coming is bursts at times and my minds turns them into poems, rhymes soothe me, for me only... they word won't go till I let them flow...I wish I could have a more even space between burts and quite time...
Thanks for the space jen.
Karen
i've been listening to the audiobook of that recently (over and over) and realising that there are conversations i have been avoiding having with myself for years. and now it's time, finally time...
sending you love
xox
I SO appreciated you bringing up the manic "bubble" that can build when in a quiet time, and then feeling the need to be busy, sometimes I have felt like I waste so much time being BUSY, and much of the stuff that I am doing when first out of the quiet spell, is really just doing, with no real purpose, just doing. BUT I have come to know that sometimes the just doing is important, like running out of the house on those first beautiful warm, dry days of spring with just a skirt and a t-shirt and flip flops, and flitting hither and thither, just because I can. Sometimes movement after stillness, is just about the movement, and so I have come to a place with myself where that is OK, in measured doses. If I let myself reel out and out and out, then I just fall down, so it's all in the measuring, it's all in the medium dose, it's all in the balance. OH, and, I make lists, long and copious lists that are reviewed and re-assessed all the time.
Loved that David Whyte book too, have you read his other one about work, I think I loved his first one even more: Crossing the Unknown Sea. http://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Sea-David-Whyte/dp/1573229148/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266352989&sr=8-3