Today’s page was week six’s part 3 (and final) homework for the Soul Restoration class.

This assignment was all about differentiating between things I want to spend less time on and things I want focus more on. The thing that struck me a bit with this assignment was more about what I did not include on my page as opposed to what ended up there. The things that are on the “no more” and on the “focus on” list are both relatively authentic to me and they seem obvious to me. They are things I really need to be more cognizant of when I am living each moment.

here are some things that didn’t make it on the “no more” list

• Abusing: Even though I’ve abused diet coke before and I do drink a little more coffee than I’d like at the moment, I am in better shape on this than I’ve been in the past. I still remember the days of 12 diet cokes.
• Greed: This is another area where I don’t focus too much on anymore. I don’t need promotions and raises. Money is nice to have but I only need enough to send my kids to good schools, have us live comfortably and not be in deep need. Anything else is extra and nice to have but it’s not worth dedicating all my free time to. My family and soul work is where I want the free time to go to, not trying to make a few extra bucks.
• Over-eating: Another area where things are more in control than they’ve been in the past. No devouring chocolate bars. I haven’t had chips or burgers or impulsive eating in a long time. I still don’t eat as well as I should but this is a definite sign of progress.
• Hoarding: I have made tangible progress in this area, too. With the help of digital books, I am not buying books anymore. I have also stopped buying just about any scrapbooking stuff with the exception of punches and white cardstock. I do need to find a good way to donate some of my existing stash but at least I am working on not growing it.
• Overworking: This is similar to “greed” where I am trying to focus on doing a good job at work and focusing hard and then spending the rest of my time doing things I love for myself or for my family. This is something that’s particularly hard for me but I didn’t include it because I think that compared to the 100-hour weeks I was working on Wall Street, I am really doing better on this item.

and here are some of the items that didn’t make it to the “focus on” list:

• Clutter: This is something I feel like I have more under control than usual. I do have a few areas of clutter that keep piling up again and again but in general I think the house is organized and we’re keeping things orderly so I am happy with it and feel at peace.
• Cooking: I have decided that I am not cooking. I might, one day, decide otherwise. But for now, this is not an area I want to spend my precious time on and as long as we all eat whole foods and not processed ones, we’re ok. We will stick to fruits, frozen veggies, yogurt, honey and nuts.
• Meditation: Another area where I often pressure myself to do better and I finally decided enough is enough. No meditation for me. I can focus on the journaling instead. It works well, makes me feel peaceful and allows me to work things out. This is good enough for now.
• Pretty Things/Clothes: While I am fully determined to lose weight and finally look the way I’ve always wanted to, I am not bent on having pretty things or clothes. I am happy with my one item a month rule and even if I didn’t have that, it’s ok. The focus is the weight/size loss here. Everything else is extra.
• Homemaking: Not my area of strength or interest. I like my house to be open, clean, and orderly. I am not spending hours decorating and redecorating it. And I am officially not feeling bad about it. There we go.
• Dancing: This is another area of major guilt for me. I don’t dance. I feel too awkward, self-conscious, etc. People always seem to feel sad for me when they hear this and I keep telling myself I need to work on it. Well seeing here on paper, I decided to let myself off the hook. I don’t need to dance. I do many other things that make me happy and allow me to share my joy. It’s ok not to do this.
• Vacations/Travel: My kids are still pretty young. Vacation for us is more torture than fun. A lot of planning, a lot of being off-schedule and cranky and disorganized. I’d rather just stay at home or take short trips where everyone comes back home to sleep in their own bed. This will change with time but for now, it’s totally ok to not go anywhere and just enjoy our home.

There you go. So many of the lessons I learned this week. And I let myself off the hook on many items. I think that was almost as important as coming up with my lists of “no more” and “focus on.”

With this, my classwork is over. I have some truth cards to make but that will come later this year. I have love love love loved this course and cannot recommend it enough.

Weekly Art Journal is a weekly project for 2011. You can read more about it here.

Today’s page was week five’s homework for the Soul Restoration class.

This week’s theme is about knowing what your definitions for happy and sad feelings are. As usual, I don’t want to go into detail since it’s Melody’s content but I will talk some about what came up for me. I struggled more than usual this week because there was a lot of journaling to do and I am one of those people who likes to do her homework before I do the art. I wrote for a while but then put off writing anything for many days. This was a sign to me that the way things were structured wasn’t working for me so after postponing it all week, I finally changed it around. I still plan on doing the work, but I think it was too much for me to focus on at once.

So instead of focusing on each definition, I made a list of things that give me positive feelings and a list of things that give me negative feelings. Here’s what’s on each list:

The good
finishing a task
coffee & graham crackers
quiet time
doing art
scrapbooking
family time
hugs from my boys
Jake’s hugs
practicing gratitude
completing my exercise
helping someone
getting positive feedback
schedules
good books
learning new things
journaling
honest compliments
choice
holding hands
going to the movies
bubble baths
tulips
puppies
taking photos
sunsets over the sea
picnics
my kids laughing
feeling free
being forgiven
letting go
unexpected kindness
chocolate

The not-so-good
saying yes to something i don’t want to do
disappointing people
not enough sleep
yelling
the unknown
failing
having to quit
going back on my word
comparing myself to others
not being able to measure up
sarcasm
not doing my best
wasting time
when what’s on my mind doesn’t match my artistic abilities
lack of planning
dropping the ball
piles
empty gas tank
driving somewhere new
putting myself down
feeling alone
holding on to a mistake
holding a grudge
shame
reacting without thinking
making a mistake

Each list can easily be 10 times longer. But I just wrote in five minutes and told myself it was ok for now. I then printed the words and made this two-page spread. Blue for the happy and brown for the not-so-much. This is a guide for me to remember what makes me sad, upset, disappointed, etc. It’s also a reminder of things that make me feel good so that I can do more of them, especially when I am feeling blue.

Here are some other observations from this week:

1. One of the things I noticed was that “completing a task” came up in several of my lists. This is not very surprising considering how much I like getting things done. But it did make me realize that I can change the way I start and end my days so that I wake up and get something done immediately. Which will start my day with a great positive feeling. I can also end my day with a completed task or at least set it up for the next morning’s task completion. Help myself since I know the joy this accomplishment brings into my life.

2. If I can start each day with the task to complete and then do exercise and art, I am already in a good mood. Then when I start work, I can do the same. Instead of reading mail, I can just complete a task first. Then the good mood from that will help me go through my mailbox more quickly and efficiently.

3. I need the take the time to hug my kids daily. I do this a lot already but I need to do it more. I need to slow down and smell them and hug them and laugh with them. The joy this gives me is unparalleled and I need to make sure to do it each day.

4. I would like to plan my meals and the kids’ meals more. I’ve been saying this for months but not actually doing it. Let’s set it as a goal for getting organized on this before February is over so I can have a plan in place for March. (if not sooner.)

5. I need to journal more. What a gift it’s been to rediscover journaling this year. I am so thankful to Stephanie and Misty and Melody. They reminded me how amazing, anchoring, soul-lifting journaling is for me. I need to make the time to do it daily. It feeds my soul like nothing else.

6. Overall I need to look at these lists each day. And make sure to do at least 5 of the “good” items and focus hard on not doing the yucky ones. To make myself more aware daily. Start the day and end the day with a review of my lists. So they are always forefront on my mind.

There we go. I am so sorry that this Tuesday will be the last class for Soul Restoration. I can’t remember the last time I took such a powerful class (and online!). I have simultaneously been working on other art journaling pages too so if you’re sick of these, there are different ones coming I promise.

Another look at each page:

Weekly Art Journal is a weekly project for 2011. You can read more about it here.

Today’s page was week four’s homework for the Soul Restoration class.

This week’s theme is about doing things despite the hardship to one’s soul, heart, life, body, etc. As each time, I’ll just talk some about my personal thoughts and things that came up for me.

I am the queen of “doing it anyway.” I have a deep lack of self-confidence with most things in life. However I just plow through. If there’s one sentence that is common across all the reviews I’ve gotten in my professional life, it’s “Karen gets things done.” I just like to do it. I might feel scared, weak, sad, worried, not good enough but I still do it. I am not entirely sure where the will/drive/power comes from. I think it’s mostly because I really really like getting things done. It makes me feel better than anything else does. So when I listened to this week’s content, I wasn’t sure it was going to apply to me. After all, I am the queen.

And yet.

As each time, I find out more and more things and dig deeper and deeper. This time, as I read the sheets of sentences Melody had written, certain themes stood out to me, so I focused on those particular cases where I felt weak/wronged/sad/lonely/scared/insecure but I did it anyway.

Here are my personal areas:

1. Childhood. For a period of my life when I was in my early teens, I had really terrible friends. They kept treating me very badly. They made fun of me, told me I was ugly, left me out of things, ignored me, ridiculed me, etc. This broke a lot of me and is likely one of the biggest roots of some of my abandonment and loneliness issues. And alas, for this one, I couldn’t really think of something good I did in return. So I picked “She survived it anyway.” And I did. I moved on to make wonderful friends, caring relationships, and more. This is an area that I still do continual work in and will likely keep doing so for a while. I also labeled it “She kept going anyway.” Because I did. I found new friends and a new life.

2. Bad relationship. Many many many years ago, I was in a relationship with someone who was suffering and had problems too big for me to solve. He was angry and he hurt me both emotionally and physically. He loved me deeply and yet it was never going to work out. He had too much anger. But while I left him and I know it was the right thing to do, I marked this one as “She saw goodness anyway.” because he was good. He had survived so much and even thrived in his own way. I bear no ill will. And I know he is well now and wish him nothing but the best.

3. Impatience with my Kids. This is a current issue. I find myself getting impatient more often than I’d like. Yelling. Being crabby. Overwhelmed. I am often not proud of the way I behave. I am working on this though. Every single day. Every single time. I try and try and try. So I labeled this one “She did her best anyway.” All I can do is do my best each time. I mess up, I get up and try all over again.

4. Exercise. I wrote about this at length last week but here’s an area where I try every day. I push myself. I am scared, tired, terrified. I have failed at this before. I know it’s going to be a long long long time. I have no idea if it will work. If it will all be for nothing. I am truly scared daily. And so I picked “She stayed on her path anyway.” Because I do. Every single day. I get up and I do it. Despite fear and tiredness and the difficulty.

5. Friendship/Art. I’ve always had the notion that I am too different and weird. As a kid, most of my friends were nothing like me. And I still feel the same way often. My programmer friends think my scrappy side is a bit odd. My arty friends do not relate to my super-orderly, very scheduled, organized personality. I often feel like an outsider and like the weird one. I feel like I am not creative enough. Not interesting enough. I don’t have that “thing” all the artsy people have. The idea-oriented personality. I am more fact and schedule driven. I often feel odd and outside. So for this one, I labeled “She kept creating anyway.” That’s what I am doing with all these art journals and drawing classes and everything else. Trying to become more of the artsy I guess.

6. Misc. And then I just took a bunch of the others that really spoke to me, like having too much on my todo list, too many emails, domestically challenged, comparing others’ best parts to my worst ones, feeling under qualified, etc. etc. I labeled that section with “She was happy anyway.” Because I am. Happier than I have ever been in my life up until this moment. I feel content and peaceful most days. Even on my crazy days, I have a bottom layer of contentment. So I am grateful. Thankful and happy.

There we go. Another amazing week. I cannot tell you how powerful this class has been for me. If you can take it when it’s offered again in April, I highly highly encourage you to do so.

Weekly Art Journal is a weekly project for 2011. You can read more about it here.