January 13th, 2009
by Anne Orfila
“A new year, a new you!” How many years in a row have you heard that one? Aplenty, I’m sure. As part of my new years resolution, I am looking within to improve my without. And by saying “without”, I am not talking about the physical, sure my hips and thighs could be tighter, however that is not what I mean. I am searching to calm my inner chatter, all those millions of thoughts that race through my head all day long, and in doing so, I hope to focus better, longer and be more present in the moment. Are you wondering why? What brought this on?
Let me reveal a teeny bit more about myself. While you may only know me as part of the group of superhero Wild Web Women, saving one website at a time, I have other alter egos known as “Mom” to a five-year old child and “Wife” to a 35-year old husband. And in the midst of being these three people, sometimes all at the same time, and sometimes separately, I had also adopted a fourth persona, “Scrabble-Girl”, playing Scrabble online through an application that shall remain nameless (hint: rhymes with spacehook). How did I manage to win 90% of my Scrabble games, be ranked in the top three amongst my ‘friends’ and continue to live my life? Well, I didn’t. Things slipped through. I forgot to pay the entire credit card bill. Oops. Dishes were in the sink. Oops. Work was left undone. Double oops. I had scrabble letters dancing in my head. Due to this, I was experiencing total imbalance. The clock seemed to run faster than me and I was always playing catch-up - with dishes, with bills, with work, with everything. And being in that position made me feel frantic which flooded me with feelings of inadequacy as I thought I couldn’t get it all done! Help, help, help! Something had to give. But what?
Meditation Soothes the Brain
So upon the new year, I embarked on a course of introspection, with guidance from a fellow professional in the Santa Barbara community, who is not a doctor of psychiatry, rather an expert from his own life experience, the best kind of teacher out there – in my humble opinion. From our first meeting, I was equipped with tools that, within one week, helped me better manage everything. Through guided meditation and other exercises, I was able to identify some major time-suckers in my life (Scrabble being first and foremost). The realization I had was that they not only wasted physical time, they sucked up part of my brain – my emotional time. So, for instance, although I would play Scrabble for only an hour (okay, I admit that is a moderate estimate), my brain would be overloaded with my Scrabble letters, with the conversations I was having with my Scrabble opponents, with their “status updates” and more. When I turned Scrabble “off” all those off-shoot thoughts I named above, would still linger in my head, adding to the countless other thoughts about work, home, relatives, friends, grocery shopping, and on and on.
From this awareness, the most reasonable remedy was to stop playing. Let it go. I, hesitantly at first, said my farewells to all my Scrabble buddies (and surprisingly I found that they seemed to have mulitiplied like rabbits in just a few months). Letting it go was tough, at first. As the momentum of life took over, with more physical time free, and even more emotional time free, I noticed a huge shift. I am no longer chasing time. Time is on my side. With less chatter in my brain, I am able to work more effectively, parent more effectively, live more effectively. And guess what? I am also able to workout more effectively, thereby tightening my hips and thighs as a by product. Who could ask for more?
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Pamela Sherman
(January 13th, 2009 at 9:19 pm)
Very nicely shared… Good inspiration for the new year.
(How did you ever even find the time for Scrabble?)
Emilia Doerr
(January 14th, 2009 at 3:30 pm)
Did you ever cheat and use online anagram tools?
Anne Orfila
(January 14th, 2009 at 4:02 pm)
no way jose! thats why it sucked so much of my time away!