I am working on changing a habit.

It’s hard.

I like sleeping on my stomach. It’s something I’ve done most of my life, even after a C-Section!

My back hates it. I mean really hates it.

Sleeping on my stomach is a sure way to give my sciatica free reign.

I need to change the habit.

Problem is, I often roll over in my sleep only to wake up when the familiar deep ache in my lower back gets so painful, it wakes me up.

Rolling back over isn’t easy. I need to move with care to ensure I don’t A) scream out in pain and awaken C.C., Beaumont and Marley the Great Cat.  B) my lower back doesn’t lock up.

So, I’ve devised a method to keep myself from rolling onto my stomach while conscious and asleep.

First, as I get ready for bed, I tell myself how much benefit there is sleeping on my back or side. I do this for a long time. Every time the critter sneaks in and whispers, “But you can’t go to sleep if you’re not lying on your stomach”, I face him square on and say gently, “It’s okay. You’re just afraid of change. I can do this.” And then I do it. (Yeah my team!)

Second, as I get into bed, I turn on the heating pad and place it behind my back — the warmth keeps me in place and helps me fall asleep. (My heating pad shuts off after half an hour. It’s the perfect gateway to falling asleep.)

Third, when I wake up during the night, and find myself still on my back or side, I turn the heating pad back on. It’s preventative.

So, why am I telling you all this?  Because changing a habit in one area opens the door for other changes too.

And if you’re like me, there are areas of your life where some of your habits don’t really add up to a whole lot of positive influence on your happiness and well-being.

Like, playing Spider Solitaire every night when I get into bed. I’d much rather be reading a book, but I’ve acquired this habit of reaching for my IPad…

Time to apply some habit changing karma to my night time routine. Because, quite frankly, if I can change a lifelong habit of sleeping on my stomach, some piddly little thing like Spider Solitaire is a piece a cake.

Eons ago, Socrates wrote, “The soul, like the body, accepts by practice whatever habit one wishes it to contact.”

And that’s the thing about changing a habit. Our minds, bodies and souls are engaged in keeping the good, and the unhealthy ones, in place.

To change one, we must begin with putting it in contact with something different — like my heating pad for my back.

For me, beginning with a habit where the stakes are high (I dislike being in my body when my back is out) has given me the momentum and the courage to start looking at other habits that, while perhaps not as debilitating as my stomach sleeping habit, are not having a positive effect on my life and well-being.

In shifting my stomach sleeping habit, I have proven to myself, I CAN do it. I can take on a hard task and make change happen for the better.

I’ve also shown myself that changing a habit from ‘bad’ to ‘good’ reaps benefits — my back is not as sore in the mornings and it’s much easier to get out of bed too!

Do you have a habit you need/want to change? What’s your secret to making it happen?

Richard Rohr writes in his daily column today that psychologists have determined that there is no such thing as ‘an infant’. That in essence, it is an infant/caregiver. For the first several months of life, the infant only sees the world as mirrored through their caregivers eyes. They are one and the same.

Rohr, quotes historian, Morris Berman, who writes in Coming to Our Senses, that our first experience of life is not merely a visual or audio one of knowing ourselves through other people’s facial and verbal responses; it is primarily felt in the body. He calls this feeling kinesthetic knowing. We know ourselves in the security of those who hold us, skin to skin. This early knowing is not so much heard, seen, or thought. It’s felt.

Last night, my beloved and I shared some Facetime with our grandson, Thurlow. At almost two months of age, he has grown considerably (almost double his birth weight) and is much more alert and active as he moves further from being a preemie to infant state. When he was born, my daughter and son-in-love spent lots of skin to skin time with him, reassuring him of his connection, imprinting his belonging into his body knowing.

I am in awe of my daughter as she moves with such grace into this place called, being a mother.  I am also in awe of the transformative power of love. It isn’t just that Thurlow sees the world through the eyes of infant/caregiver, it is that my daughter is seeing her son through the same eyes and they are one. In their oneness is the magnificence of our human condition shimmering in the divine essence of our human nature and its natural affinity to Love.

No one human on this earth is born separate. We are all born of our mother’s bodies. Yet, many are deprived of experiencing the mystical power of oneness of those first few months of life on earth.

A host of human afflictions can circumvent the infant/caregiver bond. Poverty, war, abuse, trauma, the turmoils of life in a divisive world, all of this can play a role in our not experiencing the body knowing of oneness that is foundational to our feeling the truth of our identity: We are beloved. Cast adrift too soon, separated from our oneness with the one who carried us into this world, we flounder, bereft, searching for a way to heal the brokenness we cannot name because we never experienced what it meant to not be separate in those first foundational months of life on earth.

I watch my daughter and son-in-love express their love and oneness with my grandson last night. I am in awe. I am grateful. No matter what turmoil, hardship, roadblocks, or strife life may put on his path, he will always know, deep within his body, the truth of his identify; he is beloved. And while his journey will include necessary separateness from his parents, the deep knowing of his oneness will always sustain him, always bring him home to the truth.

What a beautiful gift of life.

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I unpacked some more this weekend.

I didn’t want to. I want it done. Finished.

The only way to get to ‘done’ is to do the work.

So I unpacked.

My studio space downstairs became the repository for the movers to put all the boxes not marked ‘living room, master bedroom, kitchen, or dining room’.

There were a lot of boxes that fit that bill.

Since moving into our new home on March 12th, I have continually entered the soon to be studio space in search of mis-labelled boxes that might contain things I wanted. Like my Cappuccino machine, frying pans and other kitchen items. In the process, the boxes got moved about, partially unpacked, somewhat dishevelled looking.

This weekend, I decided to tackle the job.

It is a big job, which I kept putting off every time I entered the back room.

Ugh. My mind whispered. This room is overwhelming.

And I’d turn and walk away.

Not only does the room contain all the not yet unpacked boxes and pieces of furniture for which we have not yet found a home, it also contains some of the contractor’s tools, the old kitchen cabinets which I’ll use in the studio and extra wood from the renovation. As this room has a finished concrete floor, he used it for cutting and sanding wood, painting doors and other building activities.

Which means, though the contractor did sweep it out before the movers came, there is still lots of dust on the floor and pieces of wood lying about.

Yesterday, after completing everything I could upstairs and spending some time reading, walking Beaumont, and walking Beaumont again, I had no more excuses. I had to tackle the job.

I have begun. After working on it for six hours yesterday, the room looks a little less overwhelming and a lot more manageable.

In the days leading up to finally getting to work on the room, I let the size of the job overwhelm me. I looked at it in its entirety and didn’t see the possibility of tackling it in small, chewable steps.

Yesterday, though I worked on it for six hours total, I did it in three trenches of time, taking mini-breaks in-between each segment. In fact, my first stint at working on it was for an hour and a half. When a girlfriend came over for tea at 10 am, I took a break.

When she left at 11:30, I worked until 1:30 when Beaumont and I had a walk date with a neighbour.

By the time I returned to the room an hour and a half later, I felt refreshed and re-energized to tackle the job. I’d already made some headway and could see progress. It felt less daunting and I felt less overwhelmed. I counted the boxes I’d emptied, took out the garbage and packed up ‘the giveaways’ and reminded myself that organizing this room is a process of creating my studio space, a space in which I love to spend time.

And therein lies the secret of cleaning up the basement — it’s not about tackling an ugly job. It’s about creating a space for my creativity to have its voice. It’s about stepping into the task with an open heart and mind, knowing that it is all part of the process of creating my soon to be studio space.

I have begun to create the space for my studio. It is an exciting process. A process where I get to be part of designing the space that will be home to my creative expressions.

I am letting go of the angst of ‘cleaning up the basement’ and diving into the joy of building a space where I will feel free to explore my creativity and express myself.

I am loving the shift in attitude and perspective.

Which just goes to show, if you’ve got a big job to undertake, changing your glasses can give you a whole new outlook on getting it done!

No matter how much I forgive myself for the things I’ve done that have hurt the one’s I love, the thing I struggle with the most is forgiving myself for not being perfect.

It’s a not so subtle force, this desire to be perfect and to make the world around me perfect. Its constant yammering to do better, be better, make better of myself and everything I create in the world leaves me feeling dissatisfied and sometimes defeated by myself. Its constant wailing pounds away at my peace of mind, upsetting my sense of being at ease in the world.

In its strident calling out for justice, in its insistence that ‘this’ or ‘that’ do not belong in the world, in its labelling of human suffering and misdeeds as ‘wrong’, in its endless battling against one foe versus another, it denies the inescapable truth — everything belongs. It is all part of our human journey.

I cannot change the world. I can change my world by letting go of anger, fear, denial of what is, through acceptance of all that is when I accept, it all belongs.

Acceptance doesn’t mean I give up working towards change, towards justice and truth. It just means I stop railing against things I label as unjust and stand instead in all the imperfections knowing we are all perfectly human in all our human imperfections, and it’s all okay.

There are many ways to quieten my need for perfection; meditation, exercise, dance, creative endeavours, being in nature, yet still, it raises its persistent voice whenever I fall into the belief that I am separate from the world around me.

Fact is, my need for perfection keeps me separate through criticizing, condemning and blaming myself and others for what I have deemed ‘not belonging’ in the world.

It is in those moments that I must stop, breathe deeply, relax and forgive myself for my imperfections so that I can accept, it all belongs in my world, it is all okay.

It is in forgiveness I find peace within a deep sense of belonging.

What about you?  Are you continually judging yourself and the world around you, creating separation through striving to find perfection in our perfectly imperfect humanity?

Have you tried forgiving yourself in the beauty of your human imperfections?

“Perhaps you should just give the stuff away,” I tell my friend JD. “If I haven’t missed what you’ve got, I don’t need to know what you’ve got.”

JD and her husband AJ had dropped by on their way home from a weekend at Mount Assiniboine Lodge. We’d had an impromptu dinner and as they were leaving JD had mentioned she had some dishes and things that belong to me. “I’ll bring them over” she said.

Having spent the past two weeks unpacking boxes and organizing ‘stuff’, I am convinced, we have too much stuff.

“How is this possible,” I ask my beloved C.C. as I unpack yet another box of dishes. “I know we love to entertain, but this is getting ridiculous.”

I have two sets of white everyday dishes. A set of summer plates. Formal dinnerware. A dinner set for 16. Plus a couple of other sets of informal plateware, just for those fun occasions when I feel like changing it up.

Too much stuff is cluttering up my life, and filling my cupboards!  It’s time to get serious about unloosening the stuff of life that is keeping me stuck in believing I need it to feel ‘good, or happy, or complete — not sure what the seed of the reason is for all my stuff – I do know that all my stuff is acting like a grit of sand in an oyster shell. Except, chewing on it is not going to create a pearl of beauty. It will only create unease.

Robert Brault wrote, “I am never five minutes into stripping the clutter from my life before I start running into the clutter that is my life.”

In essence, the clutter is our lives.

As I unpack, and make choices as to what to keep and what to divest myself of, I ask myself, “Do I want this [object] to be a reflection of my life?”

It makes it easier to choose between holding onto something or letting it go, to think of it as a ‘thing’ that reflects my life.

Sometimes, I might hold an object and remember good times spent with it or the person who gave it to me, but then, I must ask… “Are the memories of this object overriding the truth? Do I need this?”

It also makes it easier if I ask myself whether or not the [object] brings me joy. It is in those moments I transcend the clutter of my life to realize, objects don’t bring me joy. Joy is found in the living of life. In the decluttering, in the unpacking, in the moving furniture around, when I focus on the joy of doing versus the pain, I find myself feeling at home, no matter where I am or how much stuff surrounds me.

I am unpacking and into decluttering right now (I can feel my daughters dancing as they read this — they have long held that I have too much ‘clutter’ in my life and need to invest time in ‘Swedish Death Cleaning’!). Swedish Death Cleaning isn’t about getting rid of things I do not need. It’s about creating beauty in my life where the things I do possess have room to breathe and be appreciate. It’s about acknowledging that one day, if I don’t do this now, my daughters will have to do it for me. Why would I put that burden on them?

Margareta Magnusson writes in The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning:

“Old people seem to think that time goes so quickly, but in fact it is we who have become slower.”

I am not ‘old’ but I’m getting there! No matter my age, or speed of ageing, what I need is a simpler, more clean-lined way of living. Decluttering is the first step. And now is the perfect time before ‘the stuff’ takes up residence and space in our new home.

Namaste.