shedding.
I'm participating in a 31-day blogging challenge called reverb10, responding to writing prompts that are designed to elicit reflections on 2010, and hopes for 2011. You can find out more about it here. I am challenging myself to respond to each prompt in 15 minutes or less.
Today's challenge:What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life?
Shedding.
Weight. Physical, mental, emotional, directional. 2011 will be a year of shedding, of spaciousness.
1. File cabinets: I am feeling smothered by the past. File cabinets contain papers about work I used to do, but will never do again. They need to go away, to make space for an art table.
2. Boxes: We moved here eight years ago, and there are still boxes unpacked. They need to go away, to make space for an art table.
3. Books: I love books. I love the physicality of them. I resist Kindle. My husband loves books. We are surrounded by thousands of books in our home. Perhaps some of them can be passed on to others this year, to make space for an art table.
4. Clothing: I only wear solid colored clothes now. And clothes that don't itch. I wear blue jeans and my red cowgirl boots to make speeches. I no longer have a need for those power suits and heels I used to wear, no matter what I paid for them. They need to go away, to make space for more boots that I can wear at my art table.
5. Weight: Sigh. This year of health challenges has put me in a new, important place regarding my weight. Going to a school event with Tess and being unable to run with her has put me in a new place regarding my weight. 2011 will be a year of sweat, meditation, and yes, yoga. I need to reclaim bendy and fit. 2011 will be the year of wellness so I'll be around longer to use that art table.
6. Blocks: I'm letting go of false comparisons with others, false expectations of myself, and false investments in stories that don't serve me.
7. Excuses: I told my business partner, David, one day as we drove up Merrimon Avenue on one of his visits to Asheville that I had just realized I had never done my best work because I always wanted an excuse to fall back on if someone didn't like it. "Oh, that? I didn't have a chance to edit that because I was nursing a sick dwarf hamster back to life from a heart attack." No excuses in 2011. None.
8. Apologies: I apologize too much because I over promise. I'm excited about so many projects and try to do too much and then I can't because my schedule is insane and I end up apologizing. No apologizing in 2011, just the word "no."
9. Airplanes: 2011 needs to be lived more on the ground. At the art table.
10. Work: It is too easy to say yes to work that makes money but doesn't move me in the direction I long to go. This will be the year of giving up that work, of saying no to it so I (and we) can create what we most long to say. This will likely involve the art table.
11. Toxic people: There are people who make me feel less than, to whom I feel I must explain and rationalize, who try to sell me things to make me more fulfilled or rich or thinner. I'm giving them all up so I can spend more time at my art table.
12. I am the art table.
