Passing up fritters

Not this kind!

The more my brain sets an intention to increase my moment-to-moment productivity, the more it seems my heart sets a corresponding intention to NOT, defaulting to fritter, not to act.  I knew that, could experience that, but it made no sense.

Now, it does.  Learned last week that our heart drives our brain waaaay more than our brain effects our heart.  Yes, that's what it felt like, but didn't realize it is rooted in reality - our heart actually does send way more messages to the brain than the other way around.   We feel, then we think.  Which means that when experts say, "Change what you think to change what you feel," have it only partially right.  

Viktor Frankl was the first to explain that there is a brief moment between what stimulates our feelings & our thinking response, a priceless moment  where we can choose to have a different response.  The feelings still come first, except we USE it as a trigger to think differently, letting us respond differently. 

I absolutely adore my husband, am grateful to the gills to be married to him.  But one thing that drives me up a wall with John is that he CANNOT do this.  He is often not aware of what he is thinking, is clueless about what triggers a response, so he is incapable of wedging in that priceless moment allowing him to experience the emotion differently.  He wants to improve the few behaviors that rip me apart, but it's impossible because he can't insert that all-important different experience.  For me, it's easy.  For him - impossible.  It would be as impossible for me to stop being self-monitoring;  it came with my original operating instructions.  It's not in John's.  He can fervently wish & even want - just not in there.

But it is for me.  And now I know that my heart really & truly does more or less call the tune. Now that I know it's rooted in physiology, can see a path forward.

My nurture is fritter, my nature is not.  My nurture is procrastination.  It's where my heart goes to when given a task, whether it's grunt work or connected directly to accomplishing my dreams (seems to kick in strongest with dreams).  

But now I know.  I can see in John someone who would love to be able to step aside, experience whatever emotionally triggers an undesired response, and change his action.  Not in him.  It is in me.  There is no reason for me not to turn things around.  

In elementary school, I was notorious with both teachers & fellow students for not doing assignments.  It wasn't that they were late - didn't do them.  Naturally, the teachers identified me as beyond procrastination - lazy, willfully unproductive, duplicitous.  They didn't realize that, for whatever reason, my heart felt compelled to stop my brain from taking reasonable, rational next steps.  In many ways, at many times, it still does.


What I finally realized is that my wretched behaviors set out to serve me, in some warped but made-sense-at-the-time way.  Am sure they protected me somehow from the shock of Ian's death, when he was 11 & I was 7.  They served as a cushion around my heart.  This past week gave me the impetus to tip my hat, thank them for their efforts on my behalf, send them on their way with my gratitude for doing their best to keep me whole.  

In Living Juicy, SARK looks at procrastination, a mild form of held me back.  She notes that we CAN unlearn procrastination, just as we learned it; that learning to identify procrastination is an excellent first step, followed by accepting that if you procrastinate, it has served you; we should weigh the gifts & negative qualities of procrastination;  should study procrastination, begin to read & speak about it, because it thrives in isolation; finally, we need to release procrastination to fly through our very own dream sky.

Like SARK, I discovered that my version of extreme procrastination was a form of self-medication.  Like her, I needed to address & lift up my sense of low self-esteem before I could knuckle down to working on my persistent, pernicious frittering.  She labels herself a "recovering procrastinator" - her inclination didn't disappear, but she has in under control.  Am working to get there!

In order to better understand it, SARK advises we "weigh the gifts & negative qualities of procrastination.  Here are the negative qualities & the gifts, as she experiences them:

Negative qualities - not starting things, not finishing things, hiding, feeling self-anger, frustration & paralyzing inertia (sounds like me, on any given day)

Gifts:  continuing to have excuses, not feeling challenged, having a ready explanation for not living your dreams, having more time, basking in the glow of denial, all of which feed & foster areas of low self-esteem which flourish until WE believe in our own abilities to fly.

Once we can see procrastination in an illuminating light, then we are ready to bid it farewell, part ways.  I love SARK's description, "To release procrastination is to fly through your own dream sky.  Once I learned how to let go of procrastinating behaviors, my creativity soared to new places that seemed unreachable before.  Letting go happens in layers & increments & is definitely a process.  I am looking forward to the new places I'll travel as I continue to let go.  Releasing procrastination can produce euphoria."

After reading SARK's wisdom, was aware that my extreme procrastination never meant to still be with me in my 60s.  Its use was to help a little girl retain some semblance of something that resembled wholeness in the midst of her universe being ripped apart. It was meant to be temp help, but was kept on full time. I can think of no better way to show my gratitude for what it set out to do for me than to show off that I am the whole human it hoped to nurture. 

Last week, I learned that my heart sends significantly more messages to the brain than the brain does to the heart.  Up to now, it's felt safest with procrastinating.  I need to feel the first inklings of emotions that trigger procrastination & wedge a different, empowering message into that space.

On Monday, for the first time in over 15 years, I did a thorough review of Living Juicy, seeing it in a new, uplifting & empowering light.    

In this moment, from the bottom of my heart & the prefrontal cortex of my brain, I thank the sense of extreme procrastination that stepped up to the plate when no one else did to protect a little girl who was devastated by her brother's death, by the dissolution of her family.  Well done!  I release it, with gratitude.  And I pledge to pass up the fritters, to make it proud of what its efforts made possible.  Time for euphoria!

credits:
recipeshub.com
quotesgram.com
SARK, SARK & SARK