The 100s List

Many years ago I was introduced a new years practice called the 100s List. The 100s list is a list of 100 desires you want to manifest in your life in the next year.

Though I've gotten away from writing the list, in years past I've taken the time to think through and list 100 things I wanted in my life. Then, I put the list away. At the end of the year, I reviewed the list. I had approximately a 70 percent manifest rate. Without thinking about the list, without trying to manifest anything, or make anything happen, I brought 70 percent of my desires into my life.

The list takes time to write. Days actually. It takes some thought to write down a hundred things you want in your life. The items can be physical things: I want a new navy blue Toyota Camry, or a practice: I want to write for an hour every day. Over time I developed my own way of writing the list. I divided the list into catagories such as: financial, personal growth, relationships, career, etc. The process has evolved to where I had 10 catagories with 10 specifics in each, but you can do it anyway you want. There's no right way to write the list.

The list is yours. You can't manifest anything for anyone else: I want my son to find the love of his life, get married and make me a grandmother. You can't use the list to control other people; it doesn't work. The list is 100 desires you are taking on for your life.

This year I'm writing a list. I've even given it a theme: integrity. I will manifest the quality of integrity in every aspect of my life this year. I will manifest the habit of being my word--when I say something, everyone in my life can count on my word being true. I will manifest financial integrity--to make progress in paying all my debts. And that's as far as I've gotten. Oh, I have some specific steps towards those manifestations, but you get the idea.

I'm looking forward to this time next year when I review this list. I'm looking forward to checking off the things I created for myself.

I invite you to take the time this season to write a 100s list. Not a list of resolutions, but a list of everything you invite into your life. It can't hurt.

Oprah's Weight, Part 2

Since my last post on Oprah's article in the January "O" about her food addiction, her thyroid disease and her 40 lb. weight gain, I've been bothered by something. She says (in a bold, blue lettered title) "I'm mad at myself. I'm embarrassed. I can't believe that after all these years, I'm still talking about my weight."

I'm mad at myself. I'm embarrassed. Huh. My first reaction to her confession is that Oprah is really hard on herself. On the other hand, she takes total responsibility for where she finds herself. Total responsibility. And yes, in a way she is hard on herself, but then, look who she is and what this amazing woman accomplishes in her life.

I'm often tempted to be mad at other people, or the circumstances I delude myself into thinking are holding me back. In reality, though, if I take full responsibility for my life, the only person to be mad at is me. Is it OK to be mad at myself? If I choose not to wallow it is. If I use 'mad at myself' to motivate myself to do something differently. If I use 'mad at myself' to take responsibility. If, like Oprah, I use 'mad at me' to start again.

Later in the article she writes: "If you're looking for an excuse to fall off the wagon, the universe will provide one. That's what I've learned. It's not enough to claim to care about yourself; when you believe that you're worthy of the space you occupy on the planet, you demonstrate that by insisting that every last one of your choices--from the food you put in your mouth to the commitments you put on your calendar--moves you toward the life you want..."

What a standard--every last one of your choices... moves you toward the life you want. What would my life look like if I was constantly aware that every last one of my choices moves me, either towards the life I want, or keeps me in the life I have? Every last one.

That is self-love. A high standard, honest, don't let yourself off the hook, tough love self-love.

I've got to think about this some. I want to create the life I envision for myself. For the new year I'm committing to 'every one of my choices' and the 'mad at myself' motivation to get it done.

Oprah's Weight

I love Oprah. I love that she is a powerful woman who uses her influence to make this world a better place. I love the spiritual seeking Oprah--the one who is visibly delighted when Skyp-ing readers of her book club pick, "A New Earth" with Ekhart Tolle last summer. I love her magazine and I know if I had the time to watch her show regularly, I would love her show. I love that Oprah makes people: Dr. Phil, Suze Orman, countless authors whose books she recommends, Bob Greene, etc. etc. etc.

And I love that she is still talking about her weight, though she is not. In the January issue of "O" she is on the cover juxtaposed with a picture of herself at 160 fit-and-trim pounds. She weighs 200 now. In the article she admits to all the head-shot covers of the last year of issues because, as she said, "I didn't want to be seen."

I love her because she is just so honest. I love her because she is just so courageous.

I wouldn't have done that cover.

I'm not addicted to food; I'm addicted to looking good. Weight for me isn't about health, it's about how I look. I'm 53, post menopausal with all the body changes that go with my age and hormone levels. I've had liposuction. I've been on no sugar, low-carb diets. I've gone from a size 6 five years ago to a size 10 now. And I have worked on accepting myself, loving myself just as I am. I know the talk as well as Oprah. And, like Oprah, I feel like a fat cow. There I said it. Oprah gave me permission. That's why I love her.

What Oprah says in the article is what she was hungry for was balance.

"What I've learned this year is that my wieght issue isn't about eating less or working out harder, or even about a malfunctioning thyroid. It's about my life being out of balance, with too much work and not enough play, not enough time to calm down. I let the well run dry," she said.

What am I hungry for? Work I love. I'm hungry to do good in this world. I'm hungry to write regularly on topics that reach other women. And I'm hungry to be a woman who is her word and doesn't hide. I'm not hungry for looking good; I'm hungry for being good.

I love Oprah's closing words.

"In 2009, dare I, dare all of us give ourselves all the love and care we need to be healthy, to be well, and to be whole? I know for sure that for each moment of this brand-new year, I'm gonna try."

I'm on it.

What are you hungry for?

What to do with sick

I have been sick this week. Not just sick but fever, can't-lift-my-head-off-the-pillow, sleep-around-the-clock sick. For a week. On Thursday, day five, I was afraid I didn't have the strength to walk my Bichon around the block and once I started, I counted the houses I had to pass until I returned to my front door. Three more houses, two more, one.

Yesterday, Saturday, I taught my Nia class. I walked through the routine and I still gasped for breath. And I thought I was much better. Last night, I ran another fever.

What I noticed, besides the obvious symptoms, is how my boss and my professor reacted to me not showing up to work or class. And then, what I made that mean.

First though, I do have to say that in my past I have made a moral imperative out of going to work, no matter what. I have taught Nia classes with pneumonia. For the majority of my life, I appointed myself Martyr of the Perfect Attendance Award. And as a public school teacher, I always had to weigh the time and effort of preparing for a sub with "can I just get through the day?" My principal wasn't one to condone giving a sub a video for the kids to watch; he expected "learning to continue." So, 99 percent of the time, I went in, put on the video that wasn't OK for a sub to show and rested my head on my desk.

This illness though, I wouldn't have made it to school. And I didn't make it to work. My boss, on the second day I called in, instructed me to go to Urgent Care and get antibiotics. Now, I don't have health insurance and was pretty sure, from my research on the current circulating respiratory infection, that I had a virus. I didn't go. On the third day, he didn't answer his phone or return my call.

My professor seemed to assume I was lying.

Now, I know it is inconvenient when an employee is sick and there's no sub to fill in. And I'm sure my professor has heard every excuse from students, so both their reactions are understandable. But no one died. The publication didn't collapse because of the three days I didn't write articles. Wayne State University busied itself with bomb threats and didn't notice my absence. But what I'm most pleased about is that I don't feel guilty. Nor responsible. I was sick. I took care of myself before I took care of other people.

This isn't an easy lesson for me but it's one I'm learning. To resist other's judgements and do what is right for me and for my health. To respect my body's messages when it needs sleep and care. To not override my instincts about what is best for me.

I feel better today. I can think. And I have some catching up to do. But I'll go to school tomorrow and the paper on Tuesday and life will continue.

Shopping Guernica

In today's (Nov. 30, 2008) New York Times is an article titled, "A Shopping Guernica Captures the Moment," by Peter Goodman. Goodman calls the Wal-Mart temp trampled to death in the early morning hours of Black Friday by 200 frantic shoppers a tragedy. A man dying in the entry of a Wal-Mart the day after Thanksgiving is a tragedy and a powerful symbol.

I've never been a shopper in general and I've never been a Black Friday shopper, so I don't know shopping as a contact sport first hand. Having worked as a public school teacher for 22 years, I've never had much discretionary income to shop or to go into debt. And I've never been drawn to getting up at 4:30 a.m. for any reason, let alone to go shopping. But I've been told repeatedly that the economy doesn't need too many like me.

Money, like blood in the body, must circulate for the economy to be healthy. In the nation's current circumstances, money is stagnant. Wages, in real terms, have fallen over the last eight years. Pensions, turned into 401K plans, have relinquished over half their value in the Wall Street meltdown. Jobs have been outsourced to countries with much cheaper labor and lower standards of living. Personally, I just left the workforce and with my savings hemorrhaging and 12 years until I can collect my state pension (which probably won't be there in 12 years anyway), I'm really worried. How do I start again? And where can I get a job, or create a job, that will earn me a living and can't be outsourced to India?

But I'd like to know more about that Valley Stream Wal-Mart temp. Who was he? How old was he?What were the circumstances that placed him at 5 a.m. trying to "police an unruly crowd worried about missing out," as Goodman says. Was he recently retired? Was he laid off? Outsourced? What was the state of his retirement savings?

And to be trampled by shoppers. Who were the people that walked on his back and legs as he fell to the tiled floor? Were they laid off? Had they been outsourced? What were the circumstances that placed them at 5 a.m. stepping on a human being's neck and shoulders to get 50 percent off an MP3 player? Were they like me?

I think that where we find ourselves this holiday season-as consumers, as workers, and as people who traditionally acknowledge our loved ones with gifts--is faced with an opportunity to wake up and transform what it means to express our best selves in a country that is in financial cardiac arrest. Surely there is another way to express our love than a frantic storming of the doors at 5 a.m.

The kind of desperation that drove those shoppers through the Wal-Mart doors to grind their heels through a temporary worker's blue vest needs to be confronted for the monster that it is. Year after year people have paid lip-service to dismay at the commercialization of Christmas. The death of the Wal-Mart temp is a powerful message that it is time to do things differently--during this Christmas season and going forward.

I had to look up the word 'guernica' from the title of the article. Guernica is a painting by Picasso that depicts the devastation of war on citizens. Shopping as a war with devastating effects on citizens. Huh.

Welcome

I'm 53 years old and I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. A dilemma. I'm pulled between wanting and needing a job and my fear of and pull to create a Living. Oh so Baby Boomer, eh?

Welcome to Dancing Through Life!

I've joined the 12 million bloggers on the Web because I've been writing in school--a master's degree in writing and journalism courses post masters--for years now and I still haven't been able to write what I want to write about. Here I will give myself assignments. Right now I envision this as being a place for reviewing books, reporting on women's health issues, Nia, music, inspiration, and whatever else comes up. A column of sorts.

We'll see. Thanks for reading.