Great Name for a Band, Right?

I have been enjoying Jen Louden’s Freedom from Self-Improvement Week.  And the takes on it from Victoria Brouhard and Hiro Boga.

The idea essentially is this- You’re fine.  You are not a self-improvement project.  You are a spiritual being being all you need to be.

And while you’re at it, sleep some and be kind to all aspects of yourself.

I love all of this!

Noodling

I call this thing Noodling.

Noodling is when you do things that are entirely unrelated to your goals, but somewhat related to your well-being.

Noodling is driving the long way home through a park.

Noodling is laying in a hammock and letting your mind float.

Noodling is knitting or embroidering.

Making a pie. Even a Noodle Pie.

Noodling is coming back to yourself through a quiet, happy, non-focused way.

Noodling is awesomeness.

Do you noodle?

Horseback riding is noodling. Golfing is noodling, if you do it right.  Ditto arranging your sock drawer.

Some of us find noodling to be a natural outcropping of our day-to-day experience.

Others of us find it hard. We ask ourselves, What are We DOING? WE HAVE WORK TO DO. IMPORTANT WORK!

My best ideas come when I am not thinking about them. My worst ideas come when I grind on them.

It’s hard to learn this, sometimes.

Clocksuckers

Clocksucking happens whenever you feel anxiety about something and it’s not delicious anxiety.

Delicious Anxiety is that feeling when you are excited about the outcome and you want to sweat the details.

Then there’s the other kind. The kind that’s not delicious. The kind that sucks. And that takes your time with it.

The anxiety that you feel when things shift sideways. The disconcertedness that comes when the path isn’t quite clear.

If the direction isn’t clear and instead of stopping and playing the piano, you try and frustrate yourself in a million different ways,  you are clocksucking.

Clocksucking spends time, but worse than anything, it erodes your well-being.

From Here to Clocksuckternity

Clock-sucking happens in other ways as well. In fact, I think we’ll talk about this Clock-suckiness all week.

Here’s another way I sometimes clocksuck.  I get stuck on something and then I drift off to twitter or I watch something like this…

Dog playing with tennis ball

Or this…

Bride falls into pool

See…

That’s fun. But that’s not Noodling.  It’s a kind of clocksucking called The Anti-Noodle (in that it looks like Noodling, but it is indeed, NOT NOODLING).

What does Noodling do?

Noodling attunes the body, spirit and mind, which leads to inspired thought and easy living.  Noodling integrates your energy, the same way that sleep does.  You feel really good after even just 20 minutes of noodling.

Watching Videos on Youtube has too much ocular activity. It causes energetic disparity.  Too much of it and you feel wiped out. Which doesn’t lead to inspired thought, which doesn’t help your project.

We call that the Anti-Noodle.

Say NO to the Anti-Noodle.

Don’t drift into things you don’t really care about. If you can’t do your project, get up, and walk away from your project.  Go make brownies, for Pete’s sake! (or for my sake! because Yum! brownies).

Okay, so you got that…when you feel stuck on your project…

You NOODLE.

You don’t grind on your project and CLOCKSUCK!

You don’t ANTI-NOODLE!

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about other clocksuckers, because there are quite a few, my friends.

Buttons, my pretties… buttons!