MEADOW MUFFIN MOMENT Week 4 January 22 - January 28

Meditations For Women Who Do Too Much

January 22

"In the upper echelons of the corporate world, it helps to be good-looking...but only if you're a man. If you're a woman, attractiveness can be a handicap."
Diane Crenshaw

A childhood lesson that is usually traumatic enough to remember for a lifetime is when we learned that life just isn't fair. We are taught the Golden Rule which states to 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you', however in the doggy dog world, it doesn't always work that way. There are still many double standards in the world in the treatment between men and women and what often works for men may not work for women in the same situation. We have to see these obstacles for what they are and move on; to not take it personally but as a means of gaining strength.

January 23

"When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around her."
Adrienne Rich

Another childhood lesson learned is that to be dishonest usually just snowballs into a tangle of untruths which in the end often backfire. However, to be called naive and "too honest" can be the start of convincing oneself that to survive in the world, one must learn just how much information to reveal and perhaps even lower our standards of what is "right" or "acceptable". We may convince ourselves that everyone lies anyway so it's no big deal. But it is a big deal. Truth is the path to being free, and until we start getting honest with ourselves and others again, we may lose touch with who we really are.

January 24

"...just a tender sense of my own inner process, that holds something of my connection with the divine."
Shelley

Shelley is talking about intimacy. Filling up our lives to the point there is no quiet time or time to tune into ourselves results in a loss of connection not only with our own selves, but with other people as well. To connect with the divine, something greater than ourselves, can only occur when we have the time and energy to just "be".

January 25

"When I am all hassled about something, I always stop and ask myself what difference it will make in the evolution of the human species in the next ten million years, and that question always helps me to get back my perspective."
Anne Wilson Schaef

To rehash past events, disturbing thoughts, or what to do's, over and over in our minds is a sure path to what they call "thinking yourself to death". To go over and over something in our minds results in our losing perspective on the importance of the problem. We often need to step back and detach in order to see the whole picture and realize how we make our lives insane with such obsessive, crazy thinking. We have to learn to trust a higher power, to just let go, to turn our problems over to "what will be will be".

January 26

"Humans must breath, but corporations must make money."
Alice Embee

We live in a society where money addiction is so rampant that we forget that money isn't really real. It is illusionary to think that financial security is a some thing to attain. Of course we need money to live and there is nothing wrong with that. The problem lies when we become so addicted to the process of making money that it becomes more real than our health, relationships and very lives. We never seem to have enough because we have this notion that more is better.

January 27

"It is very easy to forgive others their mistakes. It takes more gut and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own."
Jessamyn West

This shows how powerful pride can be and lead to one's own downfall. They say the best defense is a good offense. What that means is that is is very noble to be able to forgive others their mistakes when we feel wronged, but to feel the shame of having someone witness or know the truth about us can be hard to swallow. We tend to find fault with them in order to divert the guilt we feel with ourselves. But to claim one's own mistakes and own them can be very freeing. To be honest with oneself is a true gift to recognize.

January 28

"When I was sixteen, my mother told me that I was expendable and if I didn't work hard, companies could just get rid of me. I work sixty to seventy hours a week, never take time off, and my husband and I haven't had a vacation in twelve years. I'm a workaholic, and I love it."
Anonymous

To try to make ourselves indispensable is asking for a rude awakening. To work out of fear is no way to live. Obsessive working is different from  passion for our work. We may convince ourselves that we love what we do but what a crashing jolt should a company downsize and you find yourself let go. Not because you didn't perform well, but because business is business and you've become too expensive to keep on. Don't sacrifice your health and personal relationships only to find later that the one thing that shouldn't be expendable is oneself.

To read the previous weeks' posts:
Week 1 January 1 - January 7
Week 2 January 8 - January 14
Week 3 January 15 - January 21

MEADOW MUFFIN MOMENT 1/7/15

Being every New Year usually starts with our good intentions for change in hopes for a better year ahead, our best bet for that to happen is to start with ourselves.


My thoughtful daughter-in-law gave me a little gem of a book,
Meditations For Women Who Do Too Much by Anne Wilson Schaef

Not wanting it to sit on the shelf with so many others I collect with every good intention of reading, I aim to gather these daily meditations and weekly get a post written about these daily thoughts.

January 1
Anne begins the year by reminding us to avoid the temptation to think we have to "get caught up" and "close out" the old year. In doing so, we're already setting ourselves up for unrealistic expectations in how much we can cram into a day. We have to stop trying to always "get it right" and learn that it's ok to give ourselves a break and just live, one day at a time.

January 2
"We are powerless over our workaholism and our busyness, and our lives have become unmanageable."
This isn't saying we are weak or powerless as a person. It is saying perhaps we need to be willing to realize we can be powerless over our busyness and something has got to give.

January 3
"So at an early age I witnessed the fact that work was of the first importance, and that it justified rather inhuman behavior."  Mary Sarton

Many of us have such trouble having power over our busyness because that work attitude has been ingrained into us since childhood. We value ourselves by how much we can get done, as if we need to convince ourselves and others that we are worth our very existence. Work before play has been the model many of us followed by witnessing how our families lived their lives. The problem is that the work never gets done, we get tired, we get older, and we get bitter.

January 4
"Time heals all heels."  Jane Ace

People who work too much tend to lose the ability to laugh at themselves and with others. They tend to feel so pressured with all that is going on that they take things personally and view a little poking as a put down. Good humor is very healing for both ourselves and for others. We need to be healers rather than heels. We all have it, it doesn't die, it just gets buried.

January 5
"The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"  Chicken Little

Crisis, deadlines and pressure can become so "normal" that we can actually become a little bored when life settles down. To live any other way than with the "this too shall pass" attitude is too exhausting for our mental and physical health. Adrenaline isn't meant to be coursing through our bodies all the time. It is ok to multitask, it is not ok to feel drained all the time.

January 6
"We live in a system built on illusions and when we put forth our own perceptions, we're told we don't understand reality. When reality is illusion and illusion is reality, it's no wonder we feel crazy.
 Anne Wilson Schaef

We live in a society where there is an illusion of control, an illusion of perfectionism, and an illusion of objectivity. When we participate in any of these illusions, we are deceiving ourselves, and when we deceive ourselves, we lose ourselves. Denial is very strong in our society and the "truth speakers" out there are usually not very supported. Perhaps that is why those who shy away from the norm so often feel out of sync and just don't feel they fit in.

January 7
"Changes (in life) are not only possible and predictable, but to deny them is to be an accomplice to one's own unnecessary vegetation."  Gail Sheehy

Change can be a bit scary. Many people put forth a lot of energy trying to keep things from changing. The attitude that "it has always been this way therefore there is no need for things to be any different" is not going to help us grow as human beings. Having order and control in one's life is fine, but to become so rigid about anything different is to become stagnant. Lillian Smith says, "When you stop learning, stop listening, stop looking and asking questions, then it is time to die." Life is like a stream. To resist going with the flow either saps a lot of your energy or has you standing on the bank watching it pass you by.

Happy New Year and Thank You

                                  HAPPY NEW YEAR!!


A sincere thank you to all of you who showed interest in Meadow Muffin Gardens, from the blog posts to the Facebook page to your support of my shops. I sincerely appreciate all the feedback, which has not only given me confidence in why I'm doing this, but has planted the seeds for new ideas and direction.

Please let me know of any areas of interests you would enjoy reading about with the blog posts. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram and Blogger are all intertwined as a wonderful and powerful means of branching out to people, like tendrils on a vine reaching in every direction. Thank you for your part in my gaining exposure, either by word of mouth or sources such as these.

Enjoy whatever plans you may have for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.
Wishing 2016 to be an exciting year full of opportunity, fulfillment and good health.

Have a blessed 2016



Stacy
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