Becoming Spiritual

with Alicia Eichmann

Archives for April 2019

Finding time to get in the zone

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If you run a business or just a household, or both, but also have some creative work that you do regularly that requires getting in the ‘zone’ I think you’ll appreciate this Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule article by Paul Graham that I discovered this week (it was in Amy Lynn Andrew’s Useletter, which is one of the few newsletters I actually read most weeks). This puts into words something that I’ve been thinking about for a long time, and finally deciding recently to put into practice. As a manager I can have meetings or deal with small details, juggle, multi-task, etc. And those are all things that need to happen. But as a writer, which is my version of ‘making’ or creating, I need to find blocks of time when I get really get in the zone and get lost in thought and the creative process. That is where the magic happens.

In the above article the author talks about how the different schedules operate out of different mindsets. I would say they also operate with different energy. And it’s not good vs bad, it’s just significantly different.

I am prepared to argue at length about the incredible value of the maker’s schedule and the creative process, and the necessity for depth in our world today, on so many levels. But I’m currently reading Deep Work, by Cal Newport so I’ll leave that for an upcoming post about the topic.

My kids just interrupted me for help with something on their nintendo switch, so I just want to say that I know for us moms that finding time to go deep and be in the zone feels daunting, but I believe it is achievable without stress, although it will be a process to get there. More on that later too.

So anyway, my point for the moment, after re-reading to see where I was, is that to do the creative work on our plates, we need to block out some time and treat it differently than the rest of the time when we do all of the managing. I love that in the article, he says that makers ‘prefer to use time in units of half a day at least’ and that an hour is ‘barely enough time to get started’. I wanted to yell ‘thank you! yes!’ at the computer screen when I read this on Monday.

My personal conclusion is that I need to unapologetically block out 2-4 hours a few times a week and work my life around that. I’ve found that I end up pushing my life into that schedule sometimes because I feel deep down that I need it. “Yes, you can watch 3 more episodes and eat goldfish for lunch if I can just stay in the zone for another hour!” If you’re a mom you know what I’m talking about, and if you have found your creative expression you’ve done this in some area of life.

What I’m proposing is that we more intentionally prioritize, and just generally make room for, the maker’s flow in our life, the creative energy that requires time to take a bit of a back seat while we tap into that divine energy inside us that manifests every time we’re doing our life’s work, that feeling you get when you get in the flow, lose track of time, write something and re-read it and think ‘wow, this is great, who wrote that, did I just write that, this is sweet, exactly what I was feeling, and I finally got it out’, etc.

And I think that thinking in terms of the manager’s schedule and maker’s schedule is a good way to help us reassess how we budget our time and schedule our days.

Taking time to savor success, and express gratitude

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I hadn’t thought of an idea to write about yet today, because my mind is spinning from all the recent developments and all the potential that tomorrow holds. I’m feeling torn between amazement of all that’s happened, and all the ideas for where I want to go next.

And then I just had this great realization that I’ve been here before. This past Dec I was celebrating several wins from the early phase of my business, and eagerly – maybe a bit impatiently – anticipating all the things I wanted to accomplish next, and I had this distinct moment, a few days before Christmas, when it dawned on me that I should stop and take time to process and soak it in and just really be grateful for everything that had happened that year. I stopped and really thought about where I was a year prior, and it filled me with this overwhelming sense of gratitude for all the wonderful ways that my life had changed.

And I just had a parallel experience tonight. In the midst of a turmoil of thoughts about decisions and new paths, it dawned me that it’s time to stop and savor success for a bit.

We closed on our house last week, and were able to make substantial progress on some debt payoff and savings goals. And yesterday I went to check the mail and found our official letter of approval to homeschool from our new city. And my husband and I have both moved on from the company that a year ago I didn’t know if or when we’d ever manage to move on from, even though I knew in my heart that we needed to.

So yeah, homeschooling, selling the house, new job, new business. These are big dreams that have been on my heart, and behind everything I’ve done, since I started blogging and learning about online entrepreneurship two years ago.

I set out Jan 1 fully prepared for it to take all year to accomplish those goals, and it’s the middle of April.

So yeah I’m going to slow down for a moment and really savor the moment. Tonight and for the next few days I’m going to fill my mind with this incredible sense of gratitude until I feel it in every part of my being.

In reflecting back, one thing that stands out is that with each big goal I’ve accomplished, I set an intention, full of emotion, that I was going to accomplish it, in spite of having no idea of how I was going to do it. And then from that place I set out to figure out how it might turn out to be possible, with attitude of faith and gratitude that it was possible and it was my future and all I had to do was take the next step as best I could at each point.

If you’ve got some big dreams, I hope that encourages you to press on toward them, and if you don’t I want to encourage you to do some self discovery and self care, and figure out what your dreams are. We all have them, but sometimes they get forgotten in the midst of life. And that’s not where they belong, we are all meant to recover, pursue and live our dreams, the ones that make our souls sing, where we end up helping others and enjoying abundance while becoming our best selves. Pursue those dreams, and you’ll find life itself rallying to assist you.

The Unique American Temperament

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According to Peter C. Whybrow , in his book, American Mania, in the course of human history when terrible events caused part of population to migrate in search of better opportunity elsewhere, 2% left and 98% stayed behind ‘to accept what fate would bring’. (pg 53)

And he goes on to show that the characteristics of restlessness, impulsivity, curiosity and novelty- seeking are highly heritable. This means that those few who had it in the to leave home and explore distant lands passed this inclination onto their children, who became even more predisposed to follow their curiosity and to take risks.

After exploring this concept in depth, Whybrow brings this home and applies it to us as Americans. The core thesis of his book which he amply supports, is that America was founded and then populated by people who were migrants, and that as a nation we share the ‘restless, curiosity-driven emigre temperament’. The founding fathers and every generation since then has exhibited the same tendencies, both in continuing to migrate within our borders, as well as in other ways including, for better or for worse, innovation and consumption.

If all of this intrigues you, I definitely recommend the book. He has also written a follow up book to it, which is currently sitting in my stack of books-I’m-reading-next.

But the main thought I’d like to leave you with after this brief introduction is that as Americans, we have a novelty-seeking, risk-taking bent to our temperament; and it is of utmost importance that we recognize this and learn to harness and direct those inclinations. Otherwise we will find ourselves continuing the cycle of being manipulated by marketers and a consumer-driven society that is designed to exploit this tendency.

This is just one interesting facet of self-awareness, and exploring it can be as simple as asking yourself questions whenever you are considering buying something. Do you really need that sweater or is the color of it just speaking to you today? Do you need to replace your functional, yet boring [insert applicance, gadget, etc.] already, or are you just itching for something new?

I believe a key to success in today’s world is to teach yourself to redirect your desire for something new/interesting/risky toward a creative endeavor, rather than consumption. If you find something to create instead of consume, you will turn a negative cycle into a positive cycle, while embracing an important part of what makes you who you are.

Ego is the Enemy

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I have a great fear of my own pride. Or I should say I did until very recently. If you’re in any way an artist or a ‘creative’, you know what I’m talking about. It’s that feeling that you know deep down that you were meant to produce something amazing, something inspired. But you wrestle with the prospect of creating something wonderful, of being worthy of such a task.

Can you? Should you? Why not? Yet something holds us back.

We often refer to this as a fear of success. Ever since I set out to start my own business and make money on my own terms, I’ve been seeking the solution to this fear, this deep unsettling question. In a few broad strokes here, I want to share some pieces that came together to unlock this for me.

One of the earliest pieces was the core thesis of Gay Hendricks’ book, The Big Leap. He proposes that we each have a natural upper limit to our happiness. It is a kind of set point, a ceiling to our ability to be happy and successful. Until we dismantle it he says we will sabotage ourselves in some way every time we get close to it. Once I heard his theory, I was convinced not only by his many stories, but by all the evidence I saw of this in my own life and the stories of others.

He identifies four main forms that the upper limit takes, four main categories of limiting beliefs. And while he does give a great list of strategies for recognizing when you are ‘upper limiting’ yourself, and reducing its effect, I finished the book greatly impressed but still seeking answers as to how to truly remove the ‘hidden barriers’ as he calls these core limiting beliefs.

One was the belief of being fundamentally unworthy of incredible happiness and success. Another was a concern around outshining others. They all add up to the belief that somehow ‘I’ must not enjoy true success or ‘expand to my full potential’ or something bad will happen. And that belief becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

How do we truly dismantle these beliefs and find the freedom to realize our potential and pursue abundance unapologetically?

My next clue was found in the form of a book by one of my newest favorite authors, Ryan Holiday. In Ego is the Enemy he explores in depth the role of the ego and our relationship with it. There is so much to say about this, I won’t get into it at the moment but suffice it to say that ego is a very real part of your brain that you must learn to observe, understand, and manage from an outside perspective, in order to find both long term success and just in general, inner peace.

It was comforting to find that I am not my ego, and although I lived a large portion of my life being dominated by the ego, I don’t have to continue on that path any longer.

A contributing idea to which we will also return later is the concept of ‘resistance’ as Steven Pressfield lays it out in his series of non-fiction books, The War of Art, Turning Pro, Do the Work, and The Artist’s Journey. If you consider yourself a creative or an artist, or any any kind of soul journey, these are required reading. They are relatively short, and equal parts impactful and entertaining. For their target audience I would dare say they are positively captivating. I have read the greater part of them multiple times.

In short, you must accept and anticipate that the creative journey causes resistance to show up to oppose it. And what I see in his description of this struggle is the wrestling we do to turn away from the way of the ego and embrace instead the call of our soul, of our true self, to embrace our true voice, to do the real work we were put here to do.

The final piece came in the chapter of Wayne Dyer’s book, The Power of Intention, where he talks about self respect coming from viewing yourself as a divine creation, as a ‘piece of God’.

The working of the ego ultimately causes self-rejection. We must choose a better path. I like how Dyer puts it:

“Know that the universe is filled with abundance and prosperity and is available to everyone, and you come down on the side of having that abundance show up for you as well. Your level of self-regard must come from your knowing within yourself that you have a sacred connection. Let nothing shake that divine foundation….self respect is your personal choice. It has nothing to do with what others may think of you. Your self-respect comes from the self and the self alone.”

– Wayner Dyer, The Power of Intention, pg 139

The ego is preoccupied with the opinions of others. But we must reject that path and find our identity in a firmer foundation than our accomplishments or reputation.

I learned from Jen Sincero that I could take back ownership of my goals, my desires, and my dreams. I learned from Grant Cardone that I should go further, reject the victim mentality, and take ownership of everything in my life, regardless of the apparent source, and assume the attitude of full control over my circumstances.

Then I learned from Wayne Dyer, and a host of others, but he finally got through to me, that I can take control of my own view, opinion of, and attitude toward, myself. And that my regard for myself does not have to ebb and flow based on my most recent failure or success, but instead is rooted unwaveringly in my identity as a divine creation, intended to be here for a beautiful purpose.

Next time I’ll dive deeper into the concept of the ego, to explain how exposing its nature, and finding a right relationship with ourselves frees us from a fear of success.

The Artist’s Journey

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I’ve emerged from the Belly of the Beast. That’s what Steven Pressfield calls the heart of the creative journey, the part where you’ve gone too far to turn back, you’re past the honeymoon phase of your idea, and things seem to be falling down around you, you’re under pressure, but you still believe in the veracity, the power of your idea, and if you stick it through, you’ll be on the downhill coming out of it, toward a beautiful finished thing that you have created.

It’s intense, and scary, yet peaceful and still. Because you know, you’ve fought your demons, you’ve made mistakes, learned lessons, poured blood, sweat and tears into your idea. You’ve tested it, you know it’s good, it’s worth it. But now you have to earn your stripes, do your time, but you become part of a sisterhood who has been there. No one is with you now, in this space you’ve never felt so alone, and yet you’ve found peace with yourself. You’ve conquered the ego, you’ve lost the battle but won the war.

You’ve labored on behalf of your creative work and won the soul battle, now all is left is to manifest the final version in physical form.

How did you get here, and how do you truly know the way out?

You feel it.

I can feel it. I’ll teach you to feel it too. Your way in and out, following the creative process of your genius, past the dangers, through brilliance to find practicality and the final execution that produces something useful and beautiful, that satisfies both the artist and the customer.

How do you follow that road? You have to learn to feel it, to lean into the journey, to embrace its intensity, the passion, the loneliness, the ecstasy, the highs and lows, following the thread of purpose through discouragement, temptation, until you find your Way, your internal compass, the call of your soul to do your work as an artist.

Hi, I’m Alicia, I’m here to show you a better way to think about life. When you truly make the shift, it will be as eye opening as when Neo took the red pill in the Matrix, and I guarantee you these two things will be true: it will put you on the greatest journey of your life, and you will never be the same.

How do I know? Because I’ve been there. Join me as I retrace my steps through the journey of thought that brought me here.

For years I’ve studied the best, sought out the authors that were doing the work, paving the way to help us have a better life. I read their books, and then read their mentors’ books. I wrestled through implementing them in my own life, reconciling different ideas to create a new framework, finding the common patterns, uncovering big, scary questions about life and spending years searching for the answers, and finding them in unexpected places.

I’ve come through what Pressfield calls the Hero’s Journey:

“Our primary hero’s journey as artists is the passage we live out, in real life, before we find our calling.
The hero’s journey is the search for that calling.
It’s preparation.
It’s initiation (or; more precisely, self-initiation).
On our hero’s journey, we see, we experience, we suffer. We learn
On our hero’s journey, we acquire a history that is ours alone. It’s a secret history, a private history, a personal history. No one has it but us. No one knows it but us. This secret history is the most valuable possession we hold, or ever will hold. We will draw upon it for the rest of our lives.
The hero’s journey ends when, like Odysseus, we return home to Ithaca, to the place from which we started. We wash up on shore. We have survived. We have come home.
Now what?
The passage that comes next is the Artist’s Journey.
The artist’s journey comes after the hero’s journey.
Everything that has happened to us up to this point is rehearsal for us to act, now, as our true self and to find and speak in our true voice.
The artist’s journey is the process of self-discovery that follows.
It will last as long as we’re alive, and maybe longer.”

– Steven Pressfield, The Artist’s Journey, pg 6

I’ve finished my hero’s journey. I’m starting my artist’s journey. I’ve found my calling. And you know what it feels like? It feels like inner peace, that certainty of identity and purpose, that sense of having found something precious, something truly Yours, that no one can take away, and better yet, that has the promise of captivating you for the rest of your life. That creative mission that produces both internal fulfillment and outward service.

Pressfield says that you start the artist’s journey with a gift for the people, the hard-won result of your experiences from your hero’s journey, and that the gift is the work you will now produce as a result of your experiences.

That is what my writing will be from here on out. And I’m just going to dive in, because I’ve taken the red pill, I’ve flipped a switch, I’ve arrived home to Ithaca, I’ve found my calling, my voice and my true self. This journey has turned a corner, set my on my true path, and that is where I will be writing from now.

This current piece is my attempt to explain the difference you are going to see in my writing. It’s also an invitation to a few of you to work personally with me, as your coach.