Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Fall Check-In

It must have been thinking about expectation management at the start of this week that got me going on doing another check-in on my New Year's Intentions . . .

Presence
Simplicity
Embodiment



Presence: Holding good on making space, keeping my mind clear on my morning walks, really being with the moment and the folks in it, feeling this within dance.

Simplicity: Keeping it simple - only taking in and putting out what will best help me live my values and accomplish my goals.

Embodiment: Putting the above into practice in all my actions, and directing all of that toward "living my best life" and contributing to others living theirs.

In action (revised):

creation every day
contribution every day
inspiration every day

Actions that fit under "creation every day":

Movement every day: I have made pretty good on this, be it a walk or my circuit workout or a yoga or dance class or rehearsal or a performance. Opening up my perception of what qualifies has made a huge impact on my feeling successful in this area. Occasionally I have a day where I don't experience movement as I define it, but it IS occasional, and I'm proud of that. 

Cooking every day: Again, opening myself up on how I define this has been really helpful. Most days I cook breakfast, many days I cook at least two meals, and on most days, I'm likely to have listened to a food-related podcast or read a food-related article, which I deem to fall into this. Keeping with this expectation, and feeling really good about it being reasonable. I'm also realizing as I type this that both this and "movement every day" seem like nourishment - for the body. I see my morning walk as nourishment for the soul and my morning writing as nourishment for the mind, and I do these things every weekday . . . I think what I'm getting at is just recognizing this idea of nourishment.

Social dancing: This one has been challenging, as the ways I visualize wanting to practice this action are often late at night, and that just doesn't jive with how I tend to work best as a human. I keep putting things on my calendar and not going, which sets me up to disappoint myself. What I know I need to do is re-think how I wish to involve myself, and I've already gotten some leads since starting to think this way! First, Kairos events. Second, Dance Church (on my calendar for this week!). Third, accountability partner and buddy! Kristina Anderson randomly texted me about going out dancing, and I was so grateful! I GO by myself, but it's a lot more likely and a lot more fun when you have an accountability partner/ buddy! It also helps to know that she, like me, enjoys ALL social dance, so she is a potential friend for pretty much anything I wish to attend! 

Artistic and organizational development: My actions in creating new choreography, developing better organizational systems for my projects (and life in general) and upping development efforts to support them are all examples of this.

Dance classes more suited to my interests: Creating movement. I am still a bit delinquent on this action, as ballet and modern are often the classes offered when I am most able to take. I am trying to be diligent about getting to classes like tap and African styles, though I've been doing the same thing as with social dancing - adding items to my calendar like that will make them happen, even though they are at times like Saturday afternoons that don't feel super-conducive to the activity. Right now, I super-enjoy that a great deal of my weekend time is free/ unstructured, and I've tended to think that my sheer desire to attend classes like this would win out, and it often doesn't. One work-around I'm trying is to consider other times I can conveniently take class (like when I am already at the Cowles) and try to take advantage of those scenarios. This one may be a balance of clever work-arounds and continuing to try and put my head down and "just do it," even when conditions aren't completely perfect (like Saturday afternoons).

Profession-reflective writing: I'm in and out of feeling success with this. I continue to keep the NDEO presentation-into-article and Improv articles on a (highly organized, segmented and dated) project list, though continue to push them back with little progress made to make time for things that feel more pressing. On the front half of the year, I was a lot better with writing reactions here to the shows I saw. This is definitely an area of opportunity: I continue to see shows regularly, so I want to continue to hold myself accountable to sitting down the next morning and writing something up. Another thing worth mentioning here: I've folded my category of writing (also recently titled "thought") into my "education" category, which helps with simplifying the way I think about these things, but keeps me from seeing the "writing" word, for better or worse. Perhaps having reached out to Jill about whether or not we'll actually go for that article will work to clarify that I should set my sights on the NDEO presentation-into-article project when it comes to writing, and in that, it seems logical to me to consider the time in mid-December before the holidays, when I'm off from teaching, as a high-point for really getting some work done on it. Right now, I'm in a high-point of working on admin for RS, so by then I'll have made progress on that and will hopefully feel more space to put some focus to writing. I'm grateful that I'm coming to recognize and understand this flow of mine and to work with it!

Actions that fit under "contribution every day":

Movement every day: Technique teaching and rehearsal and performance all work for me as sources of contribution, as they bring movement to others, and that's how I work within my profession to contribute!

Social dancing: Dancing socially provides joy not only to me, but contributes joy to the experiences of others! 

Artistic and organizational development: Many of these actions also create opportunities for dancers and choreographers :)

Profession-reflective writing: Something really cool that came out of the practice of writing about the shows I saw this year was producing writing that helped two artists I addressed. I hope this affect of my writing being useful to others (that's often the point) continues in these small ways next to the bigger ways.

AND . . . actions that don't really fit either of those . . . so I added "inspiration every day":

Movement every day
Cooking every day
Social dancing
Artistic and organizational development
Dance classes more suited to my interests

Experiencing live music: Turns out this really only fit under this category - though I suppose there is a case to be made for "creativity," as not output comes without input. That said, it's important to me. And this is another one where much is to be desired in how I'm handling it. Perhaps I need to 1) take a little time at the end of each month to consider when and where I DID hear live music, and 2) take time at the beginning of each month to add ONE live music event to my calendar. Hearing live music at least once a month would feel like a success to me, at least now.

So, all the actions I desire to take to fulfill my value-driven outlook fit under this category. Seems like it's worthwhile to add this way of thinking :)

Reflection on what's working and what isn't
Affirmation for what is
Ideas for making what isn't actually work

Check-in.

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