30 Minutes

I'm in the middle of so many things I can hardly keep myself sane. I'm updating my Twitter and Facebook accounts, and redesigning my coaching website. I'm creating a brand for myself and my coaching company, Authentic Realities Coaching (actually, I'm having someone else create it and I'm just approving it). I'm working on a coaching workshop on coming out for the LGBTQ community (and friends and families of). I'm building my coaching practice (2 clients and counting). And I'm working on the book with a deadline of July 31st to finish draft #6 and have it ready to be edited.

I've barely been able to find the time to relax, which has taken its toll on me in the form of sleepless nights. I've been waking up at 1AM, 3AM and around 5:30AM just about every morning. This week my coach is working with me on self care. Self. Care. How do I care for myself when I'm spending so much time caring for...not even for people, but all these things? And it's not like these things aren't things I want, but they're taking so much time out of my day, I don't have time to just sit and relax and be...or do I?

I've planned on taking 30 minutes every day that's just for me. Which is something I've had posted in my calendar for some time. It shows up as "Dian Time" and when the reminder pops up, I've been promptly dismissing it and getting back to whatever I'm doing. So it's time to start honoring that schedule. And how do I do that?

For me, it's about making clear exactly what I plan to do in my 30 minutes of Dian Time. So on Monday it was "plant cactus," which meant that I spent 30 minutes planting cacti I bought over the weekend to replace several plants that Jackson decided were planted for him as midday snacks. It took me about 15 minutes, so I then allowed myself to sit in the sun in the back yard and just relax. What a notion.

Yesterday my Dian time was "meditation." Now I didn't meditate for 30 minutes, but I did meditate for 10 minutes. And then went outside and soaked up the sun again. And enjoyed my newly planted cacti (after putting up a fancy wire blockade around the edges so a certain puppy wouldn't have easy access).

And today my plan is to walk on the beach. I have a meeting in Manhattan Beach at noon and immediately thereafter, I will be putting my toes in the sand and breathing in the ocean air and letting the energy of the earth rise through my body from the warm sand and rejuvenate my soul.

I figure with all this life going on around me, the least I can do is to take a few minutes each day to really enjoy it and not get so caught up in living the good life that I miss it as it passes me by.

Having Fun

I tend to be pretty serious with the posts up in this joint, so I'm taking a detour this post. I went to Palm Springs for my birthday weekend a couple of weeks ago and here is a little of what happened:

And not necessarily in that order.

In other news, I've spent the last week without my computer, as previously reported, and it's created such a beautiful space for learning more and more about myself. It was nice to not be tied to my computer, opening up Word and typing and typing and typing and getting distracted by email and FaceBook and Blogger and IM and checking my account balance and then chastising myself for getting distracted.

I just wrote 3 paragraphs that were (while interesting, I'm sure) not fun at all. I really need practice at this fun thing. So here's what I propose:

Do five fun things this week. Try at least two from this list and then make up a couple of your own:

1. Laugh out loud in the middle of a crowded room
2. Dance in your living room with your dog or cat or an imaginary friend if you have no animals
3. Sit on your couch with your feet in the air
4. Stick your toes in the water on a sandy beach
5. Have your favorite dinner for breakfast
6. Roll down a grassy hill (unless you're allergic to grass like me!)
7. Send someone a silly card in the mail
8. Play with your food
9. Hula hoop in the park
10. Run like Phoebe around the block

My plan is to get to all of these in the next 7 days... and you??

Basic Strategy

My Mac was in the hospital this past week and she's finally home, having made a full recovery from a couple of replacement surgeries. They might seem minor, but even minor replacements and repairs, when it comes to electronics, are always a major event. Especially the part where I had to be without my laptop for a full seven days. 

When the man behind the Genius Bar asked if I had everything backed up, I quickly replied, "Yes." And then I remembered that the last time I really backed anything up was a few months ago. Prior to a lot of the progress I've made on the book in the past 6 weeks. So I took a few minutes and backed up my book on iDisk (a truly Genius bonus of being a [formerly known as] mac.com member), and signed my paperwork and went on my merry way.

And of course when I got home I realized that writing my book isn't the only thing I use my computer for. And it was too late. So for the entire week I went without my computer, no internet at my finger tips (having it at my thumb-tips is just not the same), and virtually no connection to the outside world. 

We subscribe to mlb.tv, which allows us to view all MLB games (that aren't based in the LA area), and then hook my computer up to the TV and voila, it's like we have cable. Only without my laptop, there were no MLB games to watch. Boo. And then there are the little things like these blogs that are impossible difficult to post from a Blackberry. 

But all that is in the past and the present is here and so here we go, forward into the present. Which means: get back to work and wait for the next post. I can just about guarantee it will be more interesting than this one.

Cheers.