Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Blessed To Be Butterflies is a message from FlyLady in email, so there is no postable link. FlyLady offers a free service at www.flylady.net. I am a long-time FlyBaby. She helps us learn how to do things via routines, i.e. with routines you will never have to Spring Clean again, your house gets decluttered and stays clean and organized, you stay caught up on home and car maintenance, you drink your water, you exercise and eat right, etc., and you do all these things routinely. FlyLady understands for some people routines come naturally; for the rest of us they are something to be learned. And she has been there. She had trails of little paths through her home and rooms stacked to the ceiling before she decluttered, a crisis every day, and CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome). She used a variation of Pam & Peggy's Sidetracked Home Executives' system (SHE) to help herself, and then she taught it to the world. She had the largest Yahoo group in the world, and the first week she went on Twitter she blew the president out of the water. She has helped millions of people. FlyLady says FLYing means Finally Loving Yourself. She gives us wings to fly and then teaches us how to use them. Being a FlyBaby goes so well with Sparking that there are several FlyLady SparkTeams.
Blessed To Be Butterflies
Dear Friends,
My heart goes out to you! I know how you have been put down because of your imagination, creativity and sidetrackedness. We don't fit the mold our family wants us to fit. God knows how hard we have tried to be what they wanted us to be. Everybody just wants to be loved. The problem is they don't know how to love us and that is not their fault.
Our imagination and creativity is our gift. That gift, most of the time gets us sidetracked and at that point we are criticized for not finishing what we started. We flit from flower to flower making the world a beautiful place like the butterflies we watch in the yard.
Here is the most exciting part of our imagination and creativity; we are very intelligent. So much so that it might even scare our family. We were not "Born Organized" but we can learn how to be organized. But this organization cannot be stuffed down our throats. As children we were told to go clean our rooms. Our brains are so busy with creating that we don't know how to clean a room.
Now here is the funny part. A "Born Organized" person does not know how to teach us to do this either. They don't understand themselves how it is done because in the first place they have never allowed anything to get that messy. The other part of it is that they just do and don't think about it. I have watched "Born Organized" People and they are constantly puttering around the house doing things. They flit around with a purpose to put things back into the order they have set up. We flit because we don't know where to start and we are trying to do too many things at one time.
So how do we use our imagination and creativity to help us learn how to flit with a purpose! This is a big question that I am going to answer for you in due time. First I want to help you be able to hear what I am saying.
Let me start by saying, "I am not your mother demanding that you go clean your room!" Now here is the tough part. If you have heard your mother's voice when you have read my messages then we are going to work hard to remove that voice from your head. You are an adult and this is your home. I am not your mother, I am your dear friend who you have asked to help you. I am not critical of the way you keep your home, because I am just like you. I have lived in clutter and CHAOS too and I understand how the clutter becomes a cocoon to isolate you from your imagination and creativity.
We have been made to feel guilty because of our gift of imagination. Well I am here to tell you that our imagination if a powerful tool to help us out of our cocoon. If we can think it; we can do it. We can take our idea and turn it into whatever it is that we choose. We just need someone to teach us how to make this happen without the world falling apart around us.
Our homes are stifling our imagination. Our little creative minds have been stuffed into this cocoon because of the guilt that has been put on our little heads. We are blessed to have an imagination. We fight hard to keep from being stuffed into that cocoon. This is why we rebel against habits and routines. They look too much like the "Born Organized" people in our lives. They are a tool that helps us to emerge from our cocoon of guilt and suffocation to find our true joy in living.
Let me tell you a little story. My grandmother hated the fall when the leaves would cover the ground. All these leaves meant to her was work. For me they were fun. I loved to rake them into a pile and jump into them. I hated burning them. I disliked the smoke and soot because the fire was destroying my playground. I would sit and watch the fire and be so sad. My grandmother would fuss because I was not helping. I would try to come up with excuses to not burn them. All I would hear was that I was just lazy! That was not it at all. I guess I was an environmental scientist at heart because at eight years old I was trying to figure out what that black stuff was that ruined my leaves. It could not be good for my lungs or the sky. All I can say is I have never burned or raked a leaf as an adult! I love to see a path covered in leaves. It is the cycle of life; the breaking down and renewing of the old leaves to give nutrients to the soil to perpetuate life.
I am tired of my babies being put down for their imagination. I want your imagination to be set free from its cocoon and FLY; to soar high without fear of being knocked down. It is my desire to teach you how to take the babysteps to flit from flower to flower making this world a better place. Without our imagination and creativity this world would be a pretty dull place to live. After wiping a few tears I am now laughing out loud. We are so blessed! We can learn to be organized but a "Born Organized" person cannot learn to be imaginative or creative! Let me tell you a little secret. Our imagination is what makes the world go round! Without us there would not be any ideas. Our limitations are that we get bored with details because we want to go on to the next thing.
The reason this happens is because we hyper focus and ruin the creative process. I don't want you to do this with FlyLady. You have to take babysteps and enjoy the process. Let go of the perfectionism that has been stuffed down your throats and have some fun. The one thing your momma did say that is true is that once you get the homework done you can go out and play!
Here is the cute part about that statement. We can turn this around to mean what we want it to. We no longer have to hyper focus with our nose to the grindstone to get something done. We can make it fun while we are doing it. This is why we love a timer. It tells us when to start and then when it is time to stop. We have permission to stop and go on to something else. If you will; flitting with a purpose. You will get back to what you were doing but now you are going to take your creativity to another flower. All the while using your timer to help keep you focused on the thing you are doing now. You can do anything for 15 minutes! Then you get to stop!
Did you ever feel as if your head was about to explode with ideas? The ideas were coming so fast that you could not even see them in your mind's eye. We have to practice harnessing these ideas. This is why we have a hard time sleeping at night. Our minds are racing. If we can practice staying focused for just 15 minutes at a time. This will help us to slow down our minds so that we can think things through the babystep process. Everything has a beginning, a middle and an end. We want to jump right to the end.
We see something totally finished but we don't know how it got there in our mind's eye. When we slow down our brains we can actually figure this out for ourselves. Even if we have to go backwards to figure it out; this is called retracing our steps. When your mind is racing this is difficult to do. We have so many pictures and words coming into our consciousness that we can't hear what we need to do first. I want you to practice something for me.
Set your timer for five minutes. Sit down in a comfortable chair. Do not lay down because I don't want you to go to sleep. Now I want you to close your eyes after you finish reading this little imaginary journey we are going to take.
I want you to pretend that you are a security guard watching a TV screen. This screen is on the inside of your forehead. You are looking at a blank screen. As the pictures in your mind pop up onto that screen I want you to delete them. Just say delete. As you sit there you will find that this is difficult to do but we are not looking for perfection. We just want to slow the pictures down so you can see the details instead of a blur. Eventually you will be able to see everything you need to see. As a result of just practicing this you will find that your breathing will become slower and deeper. You may even become more relaxed too.
We have never known what it is we have wanted in life because we have so many things running through our heads at once. We can focus and be very creative with what our purpose is!
I love you like I love myself. I know you like I know me! I don't want you to be hurt another day! I want for you what I have found; PEACE. This peace came from finding out who I am and loving every bit of me because I am worthy and I can accomplish whatever I can think about. No one ever gave us the instruction manual to explain the tools we were born with. Let's take our tools/talents and use them to show the world that we can FLY. It all starts with finally loving yourself enough to take babysteps to release the negativity and perfectionism!
We can flit from flower to flower like the beautiful butterfly! We have the butterfly power within each of us. We can spread our wings and make our corner of the world just a little bit brighter with our colorful arms to hug us!
Are you ready to come out of your Cocoon and FLY?
FlyLady
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