Simply Authentic...Your Soul Voice is Calling. On Governing Your Own Clock

On Governing Your Own Clock I have been following Diane DeGiorgio’s “The Everything Yoga Blog” (http://www.itsallaboutyoga.com/) since we were both in Barbara Stanny’s Sacred Success retreat the fall of 2012. Here are a couple of excerpts from Diane’s Ye Olde Procrastination Cure post: Unrolling that yoga mat and getting on it is the practice. Some days I just get on my mat and raise my arms up from the sides overhead, hands meeting at the top of the breath, and exhale the arms back down to my sides. I do this a bunch of times and then call it a day. I don't berate myself for not doing Sun Salutations and a full complement of poses and counterposes. I do what I can do for that day and then I move on. As shocking as this may sound (and perhaps very unyoga-like for a yoga teacher such as myself), it doesn't always have to be an elaborate 60-90 minute practice. I rarely practice for that long. I usually end up at 30 minutes, but I don't get judgmental if it only goes for 5-10 minutes. I suppose that's my secret for having a regular practice for over 12 years. Diane wrote that after completing a task she had pushed back for weeks, and then wondered why she had waited so long…because it was so easy! We’ve all done that. For a year and a half, I worked a full time day job while completing a voice teacher apprenticeship program, and had virtually no spare time. And if I think I was busy, I worked with a full time employee who was a single mother completing her college degree. Yikes! Priorities present themselves in a no-brainer manner when every hour is mapped out to a T. (Or you’re in prison or such.) Personally, I stopped dating and getting together with friends (although I always briefly responded to phone messages, e-mails and the like) for about eighteen months. I was lucky I had friends left after graduation! Then, a couple years later, after falling in love and finding a home to move into with my partner, I worked on my “future” work in the evenings after my job with Matrix. When I finally decided to resign, I took a six week respite! I had saved enough money to do this. I did some work regarding the website, newsletter and blog functions, and I wrote…but mainly I got a lot of sleep, snuggled with my cat, took regular Godwalks, read a lot, and started cooking more, even writing down my favorite recipes for a cookbook. And I never once set an alarm. Heaven! Yet I have to be honest here…after the respite was over and I started working solely on my own goals and not those of a company who had hired me…being able to work from home and take my Godwalk at 10:30 in the morning rather than over my business lunch break, or make love at 2:00 in the afternoon on a Wednesday, felt so luxurious I couldn’t imagine this could possibly be okay, and I started to feel guilty! It’s a different kind of pressure, but nonetheless…always one we create in our own minds. It can’t be this easy, right? Oh, yes; it can. The key is simply to take small, consistent steps…more about that in the next post. I must govern the clock, not be governed by it. –Golda Meir Authentically Yours, Laura