1. Stéfanie June 4, 2014 at 4:27 am

   Laurie, why the heck did you hesitate to air this ? (Said in a smiley gentle tone :)) Loved it. It gave me ‘Food for thought’. Isn’t this expression absolutely appropriate in every possible sense? Ok I’m getting metaphysical too!

   From another end of the spectrum, For me the neverending list of things to do brings anxiety, because it is forever neverending. That feeling of never seing the end puts me in a overwhemed thought process were I have a hard time to focus. It seems like it is getting worst as I get older. But I am also responsible for this as I take on too many projects. My letting go involves accepting that the items on the list will never all be checked off. My mom calls that the neverending domestic engineering list. That makes me smile. My idea of a perfect moment is when I am able to put the switch off and forget of that darn list for a little moment. I always joke about the fact that I can’t wait to retire lol.

   You are quite right when you say this is need for agenda is part of the controlling issue. I’ll be pondering some more on that.

   Thank you.

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   1. Laurie@CompulsiveOvereatingDiary Post authorJune 4, 2014 at 8:17 am

      Hi Stéfanie, what you write here is my USUAL feeling. This is expect:

      From another end of the spectrum, For me the neverending list of things to do brings anxiety, because it is forever neverending. That feeling of never seing the end puts me in a overwhemed thought process were I have a hard time to focus.

      I too have always had a list of things that “Need to be done”. or “Should be done”. I’m used to feeling overwhelmed and anxious about that. But between my current physical need to slow down and leave things undone, and my being retired I kind of had a meltdown. My actual “forced” downtime, showed ME that I have another issue I didn’t expect. I use the “busyness” as I do food. I didn’t like episode 51 at first, because it was so random. Probably, I didn’t like it, because it had a subconscious message for me. Not only do I benefit by mindfully eating food that I love in amounts that my body loves, but I benefit from selecting from my list true priorities and joys. If my chattering mind is hard, I need to find a way to quiet it that doesn’t cause me to be so frantic. Balance is so tricky for me. If one episode is great, than 20 are better! I need to get back to recording when I have something to say. To let my inner prompting do the prompting. Today I’m going to go back to water class to see if my back will take it. Thanks dear Stéfanie for your care and encouragement xo

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2. Cheryl June 5, 2014 at 3:46 pm

   I had to smile when you were talking about being on permanent vacation. I struggle with those same issues and I ran across a quote awhile back that I thought explained the phenomenon very well: It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. (Jerome K. Jerome) That is SO true. When I was working, I couldn’t wait for the weekend to come so I could find an hour for myself to sit and write uninterrupted. It was like gold for me. Then when I retired, suddenly I have all the time in the world to write and I can’t focus on anything. I think perhaps it has lost it shininess to me somehow because that time is no longer hard to come by.

   In fact I read that blog you posted about following your passion being bad advice, and I think it said something in there about the actual PURSUIT of the passion (finding out what it is?) is more fun than finding it.

   In some ways it’s a little like faith. In this country we take for granted that we can practice our particular faiths openly, freely, and we don’t seem to value that part of our lives nearly as much as a person in another country who practices their faith under penalty of prison or worse. Anyway, that’s the only thing I can think to compare it to.

   The other thing I pondered as I listened today about the “lull” was that I have a love/hate relationship with it. There are times that I am emotionally in a bad place and the idea of that “lull” scares me to death because I don’t want to get sucked into a further downward spiral by mulling over issues in my life when I have too much free time to think. Sometimes that makes me afraid of those quiet, empty times.

   Other times I really NEED that quiet to just enjoy myself, to give me a little space to be creative. It helps to screen out the life-noise pollution. I do practice meditation. Have for a number of years, though it’s not nearly as much of a discipline at the moment as it was for a long time. I do listen to soothing music when I meditate. I find it helps to distract the hyper pieces of my mind that keep sending the planes with the signs waving from their tales with the day’s agenda on them flying through my thoughts. It works better for me than the mindfulness-type meditation where you focus on and listen to the sounds around you, where you carefully focus on and feel the different parts of your body, etc. But to each his own. Whatever works.

   So yeah, I’m guessing a LOT of us have issues with the “lull.” It’s kind of cool, actually, that we now have a name for it! LOL

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   1. Laurie@CompulsiveOvereatingDiary Post authorJune 5, 2014 at 4:58 pm

      GF, you have summed up the matter perfectly!

      The other thing I pondered as I listened today about the “lull” was that I have a love/hate relationship with it. There are times that I am emotionally in a bad place and the idea of that “lull” scares me to death because I don’t want to get sucked into a further downward spiral by mulling over issues in my life when I have too much free time to think. Sometimes that makes me afraid of those quiet, empty times.

      I’m thinking I’m tired of thinking! Plus, I must say, that Project Runway is a lot of fun! (I never saw that show when it was on TV live, though I saw Tim Gunn on the Biggest Loser). I really love contest shows, though I usually like the cooking shows or room design shows. I’m not a fashionista, but I do love watching the designs and seeing first hand how the models are LITERALLY coat hangers – so much for glamorous model life!

      Anyway, I’m distracting myself to avoid the blue funk, and trying with ALL MY HEART to feel gratitude for all of the massive blessings I have. Your friendship being right at the top of the list!

      Hugs
      -L

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      1. Cheryl June 5, 2014 at 6:15 pm

         Gawd! I LOVE Project Runway and have been all over the internet trying to see if it didn’t get picked up for another season. It usually comes on about the same time as SYTYCD. I’ll be so disappointed if they’ve cancelled it. I flunked sewing in home ec, but I am always amazed at how freakin’ creative those folks are. I watched Tim Gunn’s series Under the Gunn. I didn’t like it.

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3. Cheryl June 7, 2014 at 10:30 am

   Just a belated note. I checked out the meditation website. I really liked it. His technique is sound. I can meditate without music if I want, or I do have some nature sound cds as well as some just calming instrumental stuff. In my head when I breathe in I think the word IN in green. When I breathe out, I think OUT in red. It’s almost a mantra. I’ve gotten so I’m pretty good at ignoring the little thought planes that fly by. I appreciated what he said about your exhalations need to be longer than your inhalations. That’s really true. You get rid of more toxins that way. And the 15-minute session, I find that to be true as well. You won’t hit a deeper level of relaxation until about the ten minute mark. I can always tell. So I thought this was an excellent resource, and I’ve bookmarked his blog.

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   1. Laurie@CompulsiveOvereatingDiary Post authorJune 7, 2014 at 11:32 am

      Thanks so much Cheryl, as I said in this episode I’m a total newbie, but in researching for a place to thought felt this seemed understandable and relatable. It’s great to have some validation from an experienced person 🙂 To be honest, right now, I’m lucky to hit the 2 minute mark. But baby steps. I think this is kind of like building a muscle.

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      1. Cheryl June 7, 2014 at 12:43 pm

         Yep. Just like that. I started meditating 25 years ago when I was having stress headaches. They did an ultrasound on the arteries in my neck, sent me to a psychologist to unload, and told me to go home and try meditation. Interestingly, I took to it immediately. But physically I would get really tired at first after just a few minutes, which I thought was odd. But it did help me understand that my body was full of stress all the time.

         The one advantage to doing it with quiet cd’s is that you don’t need a timer to tell you when you’re done. The music or sounds just fade away and you come to the surface, so to speak, naturally. When you do it with a guided meditation where the person is talking you through it, usually they shut up after a time and let you actually be quiet. But then when they begin speaking again to tell you it’s time to wind down, it always annoys me and almost undoes what I was trying to do. Same thing with using a timer. When it goes off, it’s such a disruption, and if I’m asleep, which I’ve had happen more than once, it scares the stinkin’ carp out of me! After a while I got so I could very nearly tell when it had been about 20 minutes so I didn’t have to set a timer. But it took me a long time to get there.

         Keep at it. You’ll love the little bitty vacation of it. (Kind of like going to Starbucks with a friend, but no where near the calories. LOL)

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