attempts to re-balance.... yet again!

excerpt from a letter

Last weekend I found myself remembering a brief season in my life where I felt spacious, whole, complete, in touch with the spiritual grand scale & all the mundane day-to-day details... all at the same time. It was surprising how NOT intense it was. Rather, it was a subtle, peaceful, spacious, calm, mild, pleasant contentment that easily lent itself to a truly foreign experience: happiness... even (or, perhaps, especially?) due to no exterior reason at all.

I was remembering all that, how I wanted it back, and what elements were/ not in my life at that time.

That led to a list of what was in my life, what elements used to be in my life, and notes of what needed to increase, to decrease, or to stay the same.

Glaringly obvious was that 2 categories needed a massive reduction: Netflix DVDs and theater performances.

I eventually came up with a mini chart for how much of each item was the (1st draft) goal amount, but that may or may not (don't know yet) ever be the way to manage it. What I do know is that, right now, the next indicated step is to create the pain of reducing DVDs and theater attendance.

Did I mention it's painful?

However, there is no room for even better stuff (like variety & down time) while I continue to be over busy in those areas. I don't have good language to describe this, but the idea is that I'm holding on one hand the big picture (a visceral memory of that contented time) and what it takes to get there (of which creating some empty spots is just a beginning) and on the other hand the necessity to endure the pain of "kicking" that which fills up so much space in my life.

This is a method which is in sharp contrast to (what S programs call "acting in" and -Anon programs call "manage & control") that hyper, rigid, over-controlling taskmaster trying to force... to fully impose/ coerce a change on the rest of me (aka my old M.O.).

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AFTERWORDS:
I decided to try to tackle the DVDs first. Pondering the several times I've had to reduce my viewership, I remembered that coming from the over-attached place it can become even MORE difficult to do some than it is to do none with Netflix, given that another goal is to not live or die by whether or not I received a Netflix in the mail. I decided to suspend my subscription for a month. I can watch what I own, I can watch in theaters with my movie social group, but I'll step aside from Netflix. Think of it as ripping the Band-Aid off. That alone will create a huge gap of free time.

Concurrently, I'm eyeballing my pre-paid theater performances with an eye towards what to chop out (tonight I skipped out of tEEth, a White Bird dance production) to reduce it to 3 shows a week. After I run through the events I've already pre-paid (up to the 3rd week of Feb) I hope to tackle the EXTREME PAIN of limiting my shows to 2-3 a week. I'd like to say 2 a week, but I don't know if that's realistic, so 2-3 it is.

I really want better for myself than I've been having, and that won't happen without the pain of creating change. Once new habits are in place they won't be (very) painful to maintain anymore... and then, eventually, better results are likely to come. I want that.

Frenetically keeping myself busy all the time... even without desserts... isn't the worst way to live a life, but I think I can do -- and get -- better.