This morning, I was singing along to one of my all-time favorite CDs, Tails, by Lisa Loeb and Nine Stories.

When I sing, mainly when I sing when I’m alone in the car, I tend to experiment with trills, harmonies, and various vocal varieties. At one point, I was grinning hugely, because I was really enjoying myself. I was playing with my voice and some of my favorite music, and I was having a huge lot of fun.

Then I realized that this is something new. I wouldn’t have done this a few months ago. I would have been singing along, sure. But I wouldn’t have been playing. I wouldn’t have been experimenting. And I wouldn’t have been having anywhere near as much fun.

I used to identify as a singer. I sing. I have a good voice. I was in choir for eight years, took private voice lessons for four. I’ve performed alone and as a group. I’ve won competitions and medals. I took it all very seriously. I wanted to be a professional singer, but was told that I’d never make a living that way; it wasn’t possible, it wasn’t easy. It was yet another in a series of things I was told I couldn’t do - and I didn’t believe otherwise. I was discouraged. I gave it up. Dropped out of classes, and, eventually, stopped singing.

And somewhere, I dropped the label. And the enjoyment faded along with the dream.

I took the label off - but I couldn’t get the song out of me.

After a while, alone in my car, I started singing. I started putting my voice out there for my ears to hear. I started humming in stores, whistling while I work. Music wound her way back into my heart. I was reminded of how much I enjoy singing, even if I’m not “serious” about it.

Now, today, I am a singer. I define myself. I am what I want to be, and I want to be a singer. I love singing! Even if no one else ever hears me, I am a singer for me. And when I opened up to that, when I let myself feel the possibility, when I stopped pushing myself down… that’s when I sing louder and happier and fuller, every note. That’s when I make myself laugh, when I sing with tears streaming down my face, when I hear myself and love myself and let myself shine.

I am a singer because I sing.

What do you want to be?

Pace and I have opposing money issues. She hoards, I spend. Mayhem often ensues.

I’m not a wild crazy stereotypical debt-accruing wife.

I’m the House Maintainer, the Logistical Manager, the Caretaker, and the Errand-Runner. I get groceries, make sure we all have clothes that fit and shoes that are comfy, keep track of eye exams and dental appointments, doctor and vet visits. I make sure Dru’s education needs are met, that he gets to take classes when he wants (when feasible), that he gets workbooks and videos. I make sure our entertainment needs are met, that we get to see a movie now and then and get to eat out on occasion, and that we’re spending quality time with our friends.

Also, my primary love language involves gift giving and receiving, so it’s important for me to be able to spend money on that from time to time as well.

But we were having major money issues. All the time.

Our biggest problem, the one thing we fought, argued, bickered, and discussed more than anything else in our lives was money. We made budgets, we made agreements, we made promises. We fell apart and reworked things and tried again and tried harder. We yelled, we cried, we struggled.

And then I solved it.

I solved it by admitting I couldn’t solve it.

One night, we had another major money battle. We were facing off; Pace was on one couch, arms crossed, eyebrows down, anger in her eyes. I was on the other, arms crossed, trembling, frustrated tears running down my face. We’d been at it for an hour at least, and I was getting weary and heartsick.

Then I took a deep breath and burst into tears. “I can’t do this alone. I’m addicted to money, I’m addicted to spending, and I’ve got all this responsibility but no power and am constantly feeling like I’m stealing from you!”

Immediately, Pace was on my couch, arms around me. We were on the same team, me and her against the problem. I cried for a good twenty minutes, and she simply held me. After I wept it all out, we started talking.

We talked until we came up with a plan.

We talked and talked and talked. We thought and thought. We discussed, we planned, we compromised, we discussed.

See what was missing? We didn’t argue. We didn’t bicker, we didn’t fight, no voices were raised. Not even for a moment, not even once.

As soon as we realized we were on the same team, we started acting like it. And it made all the difference. But we couldn’t have gotten there had I not admitted that I have a serious problem. I asked for Pace’s help, she promised to help me, and we went forward together.

I grew up in an environment where money was invisible.

We always had it. We ate out all the time, my brother and I never wanted for anything, and I never heard my parents discuss it or argue about it. The only thing missing was education; I had no idea how to manage money. I didn’t learn it when I moved out on my own, either. I would spend rent money on a trip to the movies and eating out, and then panic when I didn’t have rent money.

Over the past few years, I’ve gotten considerably better. But our budget had holes in it, and I wasn’t careful at times, and it all added up to constant strife between me (the spender) and Pace (the hoarder). It was difficult to see the problems because I’m responsible for the family spending, but we figured it out.

Our solution is cool. And annoying to the bank.

We switched to cash.

Now, every week, I go to the bank and withdraw the week’s spending money (groceries, gas, education, well-being, etc). I divvy it up and put each section in a compartment in my awesome accordion wallet.

This way, it’s impossible for me to overspend. When we’re out, we’re out. End of story. We wait til the next week for anything else. For myself, I opened my own checking account for my personal spending money, and I keep close track of that with the help of an app on my handy-dandy iPhone.

And I learned a cool thing.

Money isn’t real to me if it’s not cash.

When I’m paying for things in cash, I get it. I grok that I’m giving away our money, the money Pace works hard for in the mornings and we work hard for together in the afternoons. It’s real, and I really get it.

When I’m paying with a credit card, it’s all just numbers. Math. Invisible. Endless! We’ll never run out of numbers!

But we will run out of cash. All-too-soon, if I’m not careful. I can see it dwindle from my wallet. I can see the compartments get emptier every time I buy something.

And you know what? I haven’t run out of a single section yet.

Two weeks in, nearly three, and I’ve still got carry-overs from the previous weeks.

At first, I was accountable by giving Pace receipts for everything. But we quickly realized that wasn’t even necessary, because I can’t go over. I’ve made promises not to withdraw money without talking to Pace, and I won’t break those. I’ve given up all my credit cards. And I deal only in cash.

In the end, it was realizing that I had a problem that solved the problem. I can’t solve what I don’t acknowledge, no matter how hard I try - and I tried hard. Over and over and over. But as soon as I admitted it, when I owned up to it, I solved it.

And things are already huge lots better, and improving all the time.

I have major issues around obligation. I feel stressed out and burdened when I feel that I have lots of pending obligations.

I feel especially bogged down by to-do lists. I accumulate to-do items any time I think “Wouldn’t it be cool if”, and even though I put them low down on the list, the length of the list quickly begins to stress me out.

The Could-Do List

Oh! I can separate my to-do list into a to-do list and a could-do list. Could-do items are things that it might be a good idea to do, but nothing bad will happen if I don’t. I might miss an opportunity for something good, but I won’t bring about anything bad by letting it sit.

To-do items are obligations. Could-do items are opportunities.

So, Kyeli and I edited each of our project pages to have two lists on it, a to-do list and a could-do list. We like it a lot. (:

This one simple change has vastly increased my happiness and my productivity. Now I can knock my to-do items off quickly, then move on to the fun pile of awesome things that I could do.

P.S. Oh, hey, look at this. I’m not the first one to come up with the idea of a “could-do” list, but they suggest simply renaming all your “to-do” items to “could-do”. I’m all for reducing obligation, but that sounds like sticking your fingers in your ears to me. (:

Until last week, I used Remember The Milk to keep track of my to-do lists. We’ve posted before about how to get organized, but recently I realized that my system was stressing me out more than helping me, so I’ve switched.

What I noticed was that when planning a new project, I created a text file instead of putting it into Remember The Milk. Kyeli and I have a schedule of what types of tasks to do on each day, so I didn’t even look at Remember The Milk anymore. It had become stale and irrelevant. I had a schedule and a bunch of text files.

Observe, don’t judge.

When trying to be awesome, it helps to be descriptive rather than prescriptive.

This means to look objectively at what you’re doing rather than judging it. “Descriptive” means to describe what is actually happening, either out loud or in your head. “Prescriptive” means “telling what to do”, as in when a doctor prescribes medicine to you, she tells you what drugs to take, when, and how much.

I had been stuck in prescribing Remember The Milk to myself instead of describing what I was actually doing.

Ask why.

I looked at what I was doing, and I realized that I was avoiding Remember The Milk because it wasn’t easy to use for me. I couldn’t order the items in the list as I liked, I couldn’t cut and paste easily, I couldn’t edit and reorganize easily. Apparently that was important enough to me that I’d rather have ease of editing than all the other features of Remember The Milk.

One thing that I used to like about Remember The Milk back when I was using it was the email reminders. If there’s a time-sensitive task, I want to be reminded of it. If it’s sitting in a text file somewhere, I might forget about it.

Get to the root.

Kyeli and I talked about this, and eventually I figured out that what I need in a to-do system is:

• easy to edit
• easy to share
• easy to store and find information
• a way to keep on top of time-sensitive things

We decided to completely ditch Remember The Milk in favor of MediaWiki + a schedule.

What? A wiki?

A wiki (any wiki will do, I’m just partial to MediaWiki because I like Wikipedia) is easy to edit, easy to share (no more “but that file is on your laptop, I can’t get to it”), and easy to store and find information on. Far easier than a bunch of text files, because it has hyperlinks, which are even more flexible than nested folders.

To keep from getting overwhelmed with a huge pile of scattered to-do items, we created one main page on our wiki that lists our weekly schedule.

• Monday: current project
• Tuesday: conversion + tribe building + website
• Wednesday: learning + planning
• Thursday: blog + newsletter + coffee house
• Friday: misc + catch-up

Each of the daily items is a link to a “project page”: a wiki page with that project’s to-do items on it. All to-do items live on a project page; we don’t ever put to-do items on just any old random wiki page.

This is far better than having one huge honking to-do list, or even one huge honking to-do list separated by subheaders. The advantage is that each day, we only have to look at a to-do list of a manageable size, because we’re only thinking about one or two or three projects each day. The rest can wait until their day comes. Of course there are always urgent things that need to be done quickly, but most things can wait up to a week.

On each project page, we put the to-do items with deadlines at the top of the list, with the deadline in bold. At the beginning of the work day, we review the project to-lists for the day’s projects, and we make sure to complete all the tasks that are due within the next 7 days.

Any to-do list is useless if you never look at it.

Of course this system wouldn’t work if we didn’t stick to it, but it’s been pretty easy to stick to so far. We like the wiki, so we like to look at it and update it throughout the day. We use it for storing information as well as to-do items. And most importantly, we established a routine. Each day, we say to each other “What are we going to do today?” and we look at the wiki together. It’s working really well!

In fact, it’s working so well that I’ve gotten down to zero emails in my inbox for the first time in… EVER. I’ve had an email address for 14 years, and this is the first time I’ve had a to-do system so good that I didn’t need to store to-do items in my inbox as well.

How To Be Awesome

While I was working on all this to-do list stuff, I realized that the pattern I used to work through it was pretty much the same pattern I use for self-work, for relationship issues, for business decisions, and all sorts of other stuff.

1. Notice that something isn’t right or could be better.
2. Observe without judgement.
3. Keep asking why until you get to the root.
4. Come up with a solution to the root problem.
5. See how it goes!

Recently, I had a discussion with my friend Liz. Her brother Marc and his wife Tammy had adopted Tammy’s nephew after his mother died and his father wound up in prison. Tammy’s nephew, Paul, had been living with them for three years now, and had “come a long way”. Seems he’d been something of a bad seed in the beginning, but had straightened out and was pretty good now.

That was all fine and well, but then Liz complained about how awful Paul’s room always looked. Dirty and messy. She said, “He needs to be more grateful. Without my brother’s help, who knows where he would’ve wound up.”

I blew up.

Paul didn’t ask to be adopted. He didn’t want his mother to die. He didn’t help his father land in prison. He was 11 years old and lost both parents and his brother (his brother’s also in prison). Yes, it’s true that Marc and Tammy did a good thing by taking him in. But doing a good thing, even one that’s as substantial as to provide for someone for years, needs to be selfless… or at least obligation-free.

Our children don’t ask to be born. We choose to have them, and then heap gobs of crap and obligation and fear and issues on them from day one. Our children deserve better than most of them get, frankly. And then we sit around and blink and wonder why our teenagers rebel and hate us so much!

Kids aren’t possessions. They’re not pets or playthings. They’re not meant to be groomed in our image. They’re not meant to be trained or tormented. They’re not meant to spend their entire lives struggling to get out from under our thumbs. They’re not meant to follow in our footsteps or do what we never got to do when we were kids. They’re not meant to be taken for granted. They’re not meant to be punished, yelled at, bullied, or abused. They’re not meant to earn our love or prove themselves worthy to us.

They deserve unconditional love and support and freedom to be themselves. They’re meant to learn rapidly and grow like weeds. They’re meant to explore their world, to use their senses and push their edges and fall and get back up. They’re precious.

And eventually, they grow into parents. And the cycle starts over.

Your children are not obligated to repay you, but eventually, they will. You get to choose the method of payment, you get to influence that most vital of cycles.

What cycle do you want to encourage?

A few weeks ago, Naomi over at IttyBiz suggested we “clean up our email”. She meant, make sure your taglines don’t suck and you don’t say stupid shit, because “forward” is always an option to anyone you send anything to, so be sure you’re saying clever and nice things and ending on a good note.

I took that to heart. I also took it one step further, and started unsubscribing myself from email lists I don’t read anymore.

Then, I found that so refreshing I started filtering out emails I don’t read regularly but still need to get (gmail’s filter systems are awesome). I got to removing myself from forums I don’t actually use. Unsubscribing from blogs I’m no longer interested in. Unfollowing Twitter people I don’t actually know or want to read all the time. I started weeding out the eleventy billion unnecessary contacts from my email and my phone (a long process that I’m taking in steps).

Then I closed my computer and looked around. What could I do in the Real World™ to mirror my progress in Internet Land?

I hung a “no soliciting” sign on our front door (it even has a little businessman with a briefcase under a no symbol on it). I joined the National Do Not Call list. I started the process to stop getting junk mail.

Then I noticed the silence.

My phone now rarely interrupts me, and when it does, it’s someone I want to talk with. My email notifier rarely pings me - and when it does, it’s email I’m actually interested in reading. My feed reader isn’t overfull and stressing me out. My Twitter bird chirps, and I’m excited to see who said what. My doorbell hardly ever rings, and it’s a friend when it does. And my mailbox isn’t stuffed to the brim every day with recycle fodder.

At first, I felt lonely. I was so used to my notifiers pinging me every few minutes (seconds on a busy day). I was so used to my phone being a burden, used to the doorbell announcing an unwanted solicitor once a day or more, used to being swamped.

I’m not swamped now. I have long hours of uninterrupted quiet. I can focus on the big important things instead of being constantly distracted by the stale, now-unwanted crap with which I’d filled my life. There was an adjustment period, where I wondered what was missing.

But now I know it’s not something missing - it’s something wonderfully more. I haven’t lost anything. I’ve gained peace. Quiet. Time. And now, I make connections consciously and carefully, aware of what I’m doing instead of clicking on autopilot.

It’s wonderful.

For our final epiphany from Iron Pentacle class, we’re posting about a freakish hybrid of Iron Pentacle and Getting Things Done.

Class, please get out your day planners and your athames. (:

Getting Things Done

In David Allen’s book Getting Things Done, (which we’ve talked about before) he talks about the concept of open loops.

Open loops are things that keep popping up at inconvenient times and reminding you of their existence. “Remember the milk”, “Oh, I forgot to reply to that email”, or “I just had a brilliant idea, I’d better not forget it!”

They’re useful but distracting, and you can only hold so many of them in your head at one time. David Allen tells you to get them out of your head and into some trusted system. But that’s not what we’re talking about today. We’ll come back to open loops, but first, let’s take a little detour…

Witchcraft

The Feri tradition of neopaganism has a useful model of self called the Triple Soul.

The Primal Self, or Fetch, or Animal Self, consists of all our basic instincts, desires, and raw emotions. It’s like our inner child, but is also sexual. It’s kind of like the id in Freudian psychology.

The Talking Self, or Rational Self, or Human Self, is the part of us that thinks and reasons. It’s the part of ourselves that we’re conscious of being.

The Higher Self, or Divine Self, or Shining Dove, or Godself, is the part of us that’s larger than us. It’s our inspiration, our intuition, our spiritual connection to the universe and to others. In other words, our soul.

Now for the punchline.

Open loops happen at all levels.

Primal Self open loops are things like “I’m hungry”, “I’m lonely all the time”, or “I’m not getting enough physical touch”. They’re distracting to-do items that are physical, instinctual, emotional, or animal in nature.

Talking Self open loops are the kind that David Allen talks about, and we talked about earlier. “Remember the milk”, “Oh, I forgot to reply to that email”, or “I just had a brilliant idea, I’d better not forget it!”

Higher Self open loops are when you feel a vague unease in your soul. You can’t put your finger on it, but something is just wrong. Something is missing in your life, but you don’t know what. You blink, and when you open your eyes, just for an instant, you get the feeling that everything around you is wrong. Like you were dropped into the wrong movie, the wrong life.

Usually you just shrug it off as a passing fantasy or a random paranoia. But that’s not what it really is. It’s your soul’s way of telling you that you have something to do and you are not doing it.

You’re on the wrong path.

Something is not right.

Something is missing.

If you ignore that quiet voice in the stillness, you are ignoring your soul.

What would happen if — just once — you listened to it?

Last night, I woke up terrified from a nightmare. I lay in bed, heart racing, breathing in ragged gasps as I struggled to remember which reality I was in: my safe comfortable one or the horrid terrifying one I’d been dreaming. As safety and comfort began to seep in, as I heard the steady sleep-breathing of my darling wife and the loud rumbling purr as my cat realized I was awake, my own breath steadied and my heart settled.

I re-hashed my nightmare: the world was doomed by a giant comet and all life was going to die. All of it, not just humans. There was no way out, no one-in-a-million chance to save us all - we were all a few scant days from death. Fear and insanity had taken most people, and there were riots and chaos. My friends and I were banding together to spend our last days together, loving each other and trying to make the most of the end.

And then it hit me.

We’re afraid of death because we might not get all our to-dos done.

(note: There’s also the very real fear of the unknown, but that’s not my point here.)

It’s like going to bed at night: it’s hard to sleep with all those open loops in your head. Did you email the right people? Get back to the ones you said you’d get back to? Finish that important business thing? Forget anything? Is the water off, the dishes done, the cats fed?

Good gods, it’s a wonder any of us ever sleep.

And sleep is only a break. Can you imagine preparing every day to be the last one? Then it’d be even worse - did you say all the things that needed saying? Did you give all the hugs that needed giving? Smile all the right smiles, cry all the right tears? Tell everyone you love that you love them? Did you see all the places you wanted to see, do all the things you wanted to do? Finish everything? Is the water off? Are the dishes done, the cats fed? Is your underwear clean?

We’d never sleep! Who can sleep with so much to do?!

It’s terrifying. It sure scares me silly.

So I took several deep breaths. What did I forget to do today that I’d really regret if I didn’t wake up in the morning (considering I was able to have regrets)?

My list was surprisingly short: I didn’t tell my little boy that I love him today (he’s in Dallas with his grandmom and uncle, and I didn’t talk to him). I must fix that - it needs saying every day, even when he’s gone. I didn’t tell my best friends how incredibly fucking awesome they are - in fact, there are a slew of people I want to tell that to (so I’d best get on it). I didn’t remind my parents and my brother that I love them. I haven’t seen enough of the world yet, and I haven’t changed enough of the world yet. There are a few other things, but in general, if I didn’t make it through the night, I’d be pretty satisfied with what I got done while I was here.

If I had a long to-do list one day, I might not finish it before I needed to go to bed. We all have to sleep eventually.

If I have a long life to-do list, I might not finish it before I need to move on. We all have to die eventually.

The fear of dying stems from our fear of not getting things done. We can’t invest money if we’re dead. We can’t go shopping. We can’t conduct that all-important (or is it?) business meeting. We can’t watch our kids grow up. We can’t meet our grandkids. We can’t fall in love, can’t fight, can’t break up. Can’t hurt. Can’t heal. It’s the ultimate end to our ultimate day.

But if we live each day - not afraid - but aware that it could be our last, maybe we can shorten our ultimate to-do list. Figure out what your big rocks are and get them in your jar first. And, each night before you end your day, figure out what needs to be done (did you tell your partners or kids or friends you love them? are the cats fed?). Do it. Then sleep, and rest well.

Well, Kyeli made a brave, honest post about abuse, so I’ll do my best to make my own brave, honest post about abuse. This is based on yet another epiphany I had during Iron Pentacle class and now feels like a good time to share it.

I’ve been on both sides of abuse. I’ve been the abuser, and I’ve been abused. Not so much with the physical abuse, and not even so much with the verbal abuse either, but definitely with the emotional abuse. Pressuring, manipulation, pushing to see how much you can get away with, that sort of thing.

But in Iron Pentacle class, when we were talking about the point of Power, we split up into groups and formed stop-motion statues to illustrate words like “oppression” and “victim”. Then someone said something about gender roles, and it hit me — all my abuse-giving was when I was male, and all my abuse-receiving has been while I’ve been female.

What the hell does that mean?

That I’ve deeply internalized these gender roles, and when I transitioned to female, some part of me said, “Okay, time to start letting yourself be pushed around now”?

That it’s entirely coincidental, and just happens to coincide with when I did a lot of personal growth?

I don’t know.

But what I do know is that both sides of the coin suck. Abuse is gilded Power, and being abused is rusted Power. Either you’re taking someone else’s power away (not good) or you’re letting your own power be taken away (also not good.) The middle ground is fierceness and holding healthy boundaries. Standing firm in your own power while not infringing on others.

It’s like I’m going through the classic thesis / antithesis / synthesis steps. I abused others, overreacted when I realized what I had done and let myself be abused, and am now in a nice happy place with no abuse either way.

It’s hard to talk about abuse. If you say you’ve been abused, people look at you like you did something to deserve it. If you say you’ve been an abuser, people look at you like you’re a monster.

But if we can’t talk about it, how can we learn?

Another Friday, another epiphany from Iron Pentacle class.

Growth moves us. Growth keeps us from stagnation. Often, we fear it, but the alternative is far, far worse - a lack of growth is a lack of living.

I was sitting on the floor, learning absorbing taking in all this magick and light, and I could feel myself growing. I could feel my tendrils reaching out. I could feel my edges expanding into newness.

I was sitting on the floor, listening. The epiphany had planted seeds, but I wasn’t quite there yet. Suddenly, I got it - and I started drawing circles into the carpet with my fingertips.

We live in circles - we are circles. We have boundaries and edges, personal space and comfort zones. Growing feels safest in tiny pushes against those circles - I form little rings outside what is currently comfortable for me, and then I grow out. I grow into that slightly bigger circle til it’s comfortable, then start the process all over again. Sometimes I’ll have rapid growth - and my circles get bigger all lop-sidedly. Then it takes me a while to even out and adjust, but it can be just as awesome and fun as the little pushes.

Like tree rings!

It’s a process, growth. Expanding your edges, pushing just outside of your circle. Feeling it out, testing the waters.

Recently, I was trying on clothes. My favorite thing - the one that most delighted me - was a pale cream dress with pink flowers! If you looked in my closet, you’d know why that’s so odd. Most of my clothes are dark earthy colors: olive green, brown, some dark grey, some black. No dresses. Certainly no flowery things, and certainly no light or bright colors!

It seems minor, but it’s actually a reflection of major inner workings. Growth - I’ve been expanding my circles for over a year, and now my fashion sense is starting to reflect that. It pushes my boundaries a little to wear the light cream dress with pink flowers.

But it also makes me happy. It makes me feel new.

Expanding into newness is an excellent way to grow. Test things, try things, see what works and what fails. Try a shirt in a color you’ve never worn. Try that new dish at your old favorite restaurant. Try a new hairstyle - hair grows!

If you always stay inside those comfort zones, you’ll never feel that sense of newness - you’ll never grow.

I challenge you to try something new today. One new thing - it can be little or big. If you leave me a comment, I’ll even cheer you on - I’d love to hear what you’ll try!