Taking time for yourself

It's easy for me to start to feel overwhelmed.  I'll probably talk about some of the reasons why I choose to feel overwhelmed in a future post, but let's just cut to the chase: I choose to feel overwhelmed.  Now I want to differentiate between a busy schedule and feeling overwhelmed.  A busy schedule is something that the vast majority of us deal with in almost all of the developed world and a large part of the developing world as well.  Now it would be easy to start keeping score and play the oneupsmanship game of "see who's busiest" as if that's some kind of badge of honor.  Just thinking about that makes me want to write a post about that game.  So let's just say that you have a busy schedule, when does it start to feel like it's too much?  When do you feel like you just can't take it anymore?  When are you feeling like you're ready to walk away from your troubles for a time?

I've noticed though that it's not about how much I do, it's much more about my judgment about my schedule that changes how I feel and react negatively to it.  It's easy to get resentful like this, "Why do we have an autistic child?" or "why don't they pay me more? I do very good work."  Or perhaps after a brief look at a very full day I see I'm scheduled from 7-7 and then after the kids are in bed I need to take care of paperwork or help clean the house or take care of something.  At that point even putting a date on the schedule can start to feel like one more thing that I need to do.

So if a friend came to me and told me that they were feeling like this I would say, "Take some time for yourself!"  I've told this to my wife before, and asked her to take time for activities that she enjoys.  I've been so proud of her this week for taking time to practice singing again. We all love hearing it in the house and she feels better doing it.  Of course when the tables are turned I've said, "I don't feel like I can take time for myself right now, it's just too busy of a time."  Of course it's busy, I'm doing a PhD for goodness sake!  I have a study to finish planning, and start running, I've got a paper to write, I've got well I could keep going and going.  When someone says, "Take some time off" I say, quite correctly, "I can't take any time right now because the work will just pile up higher and higher."  I've envisioned in my mind taking a week or two off, totally unplugging, forgetting all the things I need to do.   Of course I rebel against that, taking a week or two off is not something I can necessarily do on a whim.  I have obligations to my colleagues, my advisors who take time out of their schedules to help my with my PhD project.   If I totally forgot about all the things I need to do then I'd be a bad person, and maybe I'd like being away from all my duties and never want to do them again.  So if I took time off I'd need to not totally unplug.  I'd need to stay connected to email and other things.  I'd need to try and sneak in some work in the evenings and take some of those important calls.  Here's another good one, I need to save my time off because I'll need to take on some contract work so I can make up the difference for what we fall short every month. I have my duties at church to take care of, I have my children and wife to consider.  I can't do that.

Or can I?  What is to stop me from doing it?  My sense of the fact that "hard workers don't need big breaks and time off." Or here's another judgement I didn't know I had until I started really going into it, "I want to be do good work quickly, because I want to prove I'm smart."  I think that anyone can do good work, well I know I can do, but doing it quickly and apparently with not a lot of effort, I can thereby prove I'm smart.  Here's a good one, "Those who lose their lives for my sake, shall find it."  I.e. those who spend their time in the service of others.  I can't take time for me because that would be selfish.  I can't take time because you should give as much as you can give.  I can't take time I can't take time because the, "the Lord never said to take breaks." (my words)  Did he?  I can't take time because that would mean I'm a bad dad.  I can't take time because I need to make up for when my addictions, compulsions, or other bad choices have taken me away from my family or helping others, or progressing in my education or my career.  I even used the words of the living prophets to prove my point.  From President Eyring's talk of April.  Here's the passage he quoted from D&C 

“Wherefore, now let every man learn his duty, and to act in the office in which he is appointed, in all diligence. He that is slothful shall not be counted worthy to stand, and he that learns not his duty and shows himself not approved shall not be counted worthy to stand. Even so. Amen."

This part came to my mind in the talk:

Sitting down to rest can be more attractive than making appointments to visit those who need our priesthood service.  When I find myself drawn away from my priesthood duties by other interests and when my body begs for rest, I give to myself this rallying cry: “Remember Him.” 

I was using all of this as a reason why I can't give myself a break.

I'm NOT making all of this up.  When I really looked at the reasons why I couldn't take time I came up with all of these pretty ridiculous things.  So in this way of thinking, if I take a break, then I'm a bad person.  If I take a break and enjoy the time away I'm a bad person.  I don't take a break and resent all the stuff I have to do I'm a bad person.  I need to just work and like it.  It's totally ridiculous, but in some shape or another I believed all of these things.

Just to clarify on a few points it does say in scripture that you, "can't run faster than you are able" and while God does expect our very best, he doesn't expect us to do more than we are able to.  If I were to take a whole month off I'm sure I would take steps to make sure my vital duties are taken care of at church and at work.  If I took that long off I'd do it with my family so there's no problem there.  If I took the time off and found myself so happy to be away from all of the other things even after a few weeks I'd question my motivations for doing them.

All the arguments I've given Vanessa and others who are too focused on work come flooding back.  I'll be a better researcher, dad, priesthood holder, friend etc if I take time off.  I'll come back with more energy, I'll come with new fresh ideas on how to improve whatever it is.  I'll come back with appreciation for the routine that my work provides (I like routines pretty well).

Here's a novel question though, why can't I just take a whole day to myself?  No taking care of the kids, no work, no church stuff, no cleaning.  Would that set me back an irreparable distance from my work goals and hard deadlines?

I thought....
and I thought....
and I thought....

There is no good reason for not taking a whole day.

And so I did.  Today is that day.

What is good?

It's interesting to see what people's definitions of good are.  We use this word or one of it's many synonyms  on a regular basis and I don't think we stop to think about what it means.
Without getting very philosophical I'm going to offer up two definitions which I think are two ways of saying the same thing.
Definition one
Good is what we call the things that lead to the outcomes we want.  You may read that and think, "huh?"  Here's an example, I want to have a brightly colored room.  I go shopping for paints, and I see a very dark, rich green color, and say, "That's a bad color."  I see a bright cheery yellow and say, "that's a good color." That yellow is good because it leads to the outcome you want.
Definition two

From the Bible in Matthew chapter 7 we read:

  11 If ye then, ^abeing evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

  12 Therefore all things ^awhatsoever ye would that ^bmen should ^cdo to you, ^ddo ye even so to them: for this is the ^elaw and the prophets.

  13 ¶ Enter ye in at the ^astrait ^bgate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to ^cdestruction, and many there be which go in thereat:

  14 Because ^astrait is the ^bgate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto ^clife, and few there be that find it.

  15 ¶ Beware of ^afalse prophets, which come to you in ^bsheep’s clothing, but ^cinwardly they are ravening ^dwolves.

  16 Ye shall ^aknow them by their ^bfruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

  17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth ^agood ^bfruit; but a ^ccorrupt tree bringeth forth ^devil fruit.

  18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

  19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good ^afruit is ^bhewn down, and cast into the fire.

From the Book of Moroni (in the Book of Mormon) chapter 7 verse 13 we read:

12 Wherefore, all things which are ^agood cometh of God; and that which is ^bevil cometh of the devil; for the devil is an enemy unto God, and fighteth against him continually, and inviteth and enticeth to ^csin, and to do that which is evil continually.

  13 But behold, that which is of God inviteth and enticeth to do ^agood continually; wherefore, every thing which inviteth and ^benticeth to do ^cgood, and to love God, and to serve him, is ^dinspired of God.

  14 Wherefore, take heed, my beloved brethren, that ye do not judge that which is ^aevil to be of God, or that which is good and of God to be of the devil.

  15 For behold, my brethren, it is given unto you to ^ajudge, that ye may know good from evil; and the way to judge is as plain, that ye may know with a perfect knowledge, as the daylight is from the dark night.

  16 For behold, the ^aSpirit of Christ is given to every ^bman, that he may ^cknow good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God.

  17 But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do ^aevil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil; for after this manner doth the devil work, for he persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one; neither do his angels; neither do they who subject themselves unto him.

Boiled down to it's core both of these passages say the same thing: what is good is what takes you toward God, what is bad takes you away from Him.

I find these two things very compatible, or more precisely I'm saying that for me, good is what leads to God.  So when someone says something is good, ask yourself, what does that mean?  What is good for? Or more literally what does it lead to?

One of the most important skills we can gain and refine in this life is the ability to tell which of our many small actions, attitudes, choices, values, and activities will lead us to what we want.  What do you want? What are you moving toward in your life?

Today I made some bad choices because they led me away from God, because they led me away from what I wanted to achieve, and of course I made some good choices too.  It is rare indeed when we can say that all of one choice or activity is purely good or bad.  Now given this way of understanding good or bad, can anyone be a "bad person" in this definition?  No, instead you have to say what you mean by good, and then say that a persons actions were either good or bad.  You can say that perhaps that person sets a bad example for what you want  in your life, but to say that person is bad, just doesn't make sense.

So I ask you again: what do you want in your life and are the things you do each day leading towards them?  I am not evangelizing here, though if that is a side effect, I'm happy for it.  Decide what you want.  Not what someone told you that you should want, not what you grew up thinking you want, what do you really want?  If you're not sure, examine your heart.  If you've ever prayed or currently do pray, then pray and ask for guidance, and listen for the answer in your heart.  Decide what it is you want and then you know what is good for you.  Then you can begin to gain mastery in that skill, seeing how what we do each day is either good or bad.  You will be surprised though that with reflection you can turn something that is bad into something that is good, usually because you've then learned something about what that thing led you to, and in the future you can make different choices.

The home as a laboratory of love and service

This morning on my very rainy bike ride to work I listened to a talk from general conference (which is a twice yearly meeting for everyone in our church, broadcast via internet and satellite, called “Salvation and Exaltation” by Elder Russel M. Nelson who is an apostle. Salvation, what is often called being saved, which I understand to mean the triumph over death and resurrection is general, universal, but exaltation is personal and family-oriented. Exaltation, or eternal life, which is described as the life of God, being with Him and like Him is what God wants for each of his daughters and sons. This is not an easy thing, even with the atonement of Jesus Christ which makes it possible to repent and return to God we need help in this life, but God has provided support along the way to get us there, specifically the family. He says:
“Individual progression is fostered in the family, which is “central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.”9 The home is to be God’s laboratory of love and service. There a husband is to love his wife, a wife is to love her husband, and parents and children are to love one another.”
I love this idea of the home being a lab. I recently wrote about iterating on personal plans. Iterating, or doing something several times in order to improve it is one of the basic things that people do in labs. We try different things and see what the result is. We write down what works and what doesn't and why. we keep careful track of things and see results whether they are what we expect or not. I actually work in a research laboratory, and although there are a number of people in my group who mix chemicals, create new lighting and electronic concepts, I do not. Instead I study people, and some of that is based in a laboratory setting. Even though none of us wear white lab coats like you see on TV we're all trying to find out laws and principles of how things work so we can apply them.

So what could it mean that our home is a laboratory of love and service? For me it means much the same thing. Experimenting with love and service to each other. So often with our children we are faced with tough questions. When one is hitting the other or us, what is our reaction? When they are kind and give each other hugs and hold each others hand as we walk around together what can our reactions be? So often we revert to a kind of default setting with our children and try to motivate and change behavior with anger, unhappiness, (fake) sadness, or other things like that. It's pretty easy when your child hits you to ignore it, until it actually hurts, then often I feel like hitting back, or yelling at them. Just to be clear sometimes we do get angry, or yell, put them on tie out, or even hit our children. What we have noticed though is that anger only creates more anger, using hitting is only showing them that hitting works to stop someone for doing something you don't want. Using unhappiness to get your kids to do something seems encourages whining and tantrums (a form of unhappiness) until they get their way. Yelling similarly encourages raising your voice when you want to get your way. We've tried these things, not intentionally mind you, but as a kind of natural reaction (perhaps you've heard of the natural man?)
Instead of this kind of default setting we're experimenting with love in our family.  We started doing this a few months ago explicitly.   We have family rules, and if anyone breaks them there are consequences, this includes us the parents. They are:

1.We listen to mommy and daddy.
2. We are kind to each other.
3. We use words to express our feelings.
4. It is OK to be angry. It is not OK to hurt anyone or our stuff when you’re angry.
5. We use a nice voice to speak.
6. We wait our turn and share.
7. We ask permission before taking something.
8. We use happy voices when we want something.
9. If you need help, ask and pray.
We choose how we want to feel!

We are trying different approaches with our children seeing what love can do for them and for us.  Discipline, of course, is necessary, but doing it in love instead of anger or just wanting things our way totally changes how it feels for both us and for them.  Finding ways to serve and help each other is fun, and brings us together as a family.
The powerful part that we have only done partially is iterating on our plans.  We do make plans for what we want to do as a family.  We talk about them together as part of family councils and family home evenings.  I look forward to the day when we can create our family rules together and have us all decide together what we want to create for ourselves.  Keeping track of the results of not only the rules but how we apply them with each other will help us to see more clearly what kinds of things we are creating for ourselves.
I firmly believe that this life is what we make it.  Given our choices and thoughts we can create a heaven in our homes, or we can create warfare and hell.  So we're experimenting to see what will create heaven in our home.  We'll iterate, and keep trying.  I think we're going to keep better track of our successes and failures and let both of them teach us so we can make things better.
We're tinkering with love, seeing what service brings.  I just love saying that.

So what do you think playing and experimenting with love and service could do in your home, your office, and your life?

Iterating your personal plans

Iteration is the process of repeating something deliberately to improve whatever was created initially.  It's like giving it another try.  One could also see iteration as deliberate practice, i.e. doing something again and again in order to gain some kind of mastery.  It's like a directional spiral like this one that you may have seen if you have kids who like to play on playgrounds.

What is a personal plan? I just made up this word a while ago, but a personal plan is the system of actions, steps, or attitudes to be carried out, or cultured in order to bring about a desired outcome.  Personal plans aren't goals per se, though they may include them, but rather they way you will achieve a goal.  It's a series of measurable or at least trackable actions that can be taken on a daily or weekly basis, and this is all in service of achieving something that will take months or years to accomplish.  I haven't had much luck with things that are done on a monthly basis because it's just too easy to lose track of what you've done in a month.

One of the key success points is not only tracking parts of your plan is to review your plan regularly.  I currently have a recurring task in outlook to review my personal plan with a link to the plan (it's in a google doc) to pop up every other weekday.  This means that some weeks I get MWF and then the next week I get TTh.  I like this method.  I have an alarm associated with it so it pops up at a preset time where I tend to be less productive (around lunch time).  If I am in fact busy with other things I dismiss it, but the task itself shows in my list and when I get to my tasks for the day (or a day late if I'm quite busy) I open the task and then click the link and review the points on my plan.  I currently have 9 points.  Here are the kinds of questions I ask myself.

• Am I doing this?  
• Is it just the action that I've written down or am I really doing it wholeheartedly?
• Is this thing really contributing towards the goal of this whole plan?  (you gotta give it time though at least a couple of months)
• Is there a way to modify this that will make it more like that I'll do it?
• (If I'm not doing something) what is my belief the belief I'm choosing to hold that prevents me from doing this?

Sometimes I just read through them and ask myself the first question or two, but if I have time I do all of them.  When I make a change I copy the current version and then paste it (so all the past versions go down the page) and then I modify what I have.  Going back and looking at what I used to do is helpful.  Sometimes I look at what I'm doing and go back, or realize different ways of accomplishing one of my points that I had forgotten about.  The other thing I am doing is looking at how effective my plan is in terms of results on my moodscope scores or how many times behaviors or thoughts that I want to eliminate are showing up in my life.

So why iterate?  So often we set new years resolutions and drop them, or we start a new exercise program and it's too hard. Or we set ambitious goals and make a big part of them or all of it and then you're looking for the next thing.  Instead of just floating along, iterate.  Find the daily or weekly activities that really make you the person you want to be.  Find the principles on which they operate and then get that as part of your plan and iterate on it, see what works best for that.

Here's an example.  One of the things I've noticed makes an impact on my life is reading the scriptures.  What is the principle here though, is it simply reading? no it's being involved with and understanding God's will for me in my life, and how he deals with his children.  Do I get that just from reading? No not exactly.  One part is being consistent, and the other is spending time and getting into a state of flow, really getting into the word.  So now I have two separate parts to my plan on this.  One is being in there everyday, another is taking extended periods of time a few times a week.  

Have you ever iterated goals or plans? How has it worked for you?

Update: I've reread this post and it really lacks clarity and that certain something.  This post was something I've noticed in my life, but the actual personal plan I wanted to share was extremely personal. Yes I want to open up my inner life a lot more, but this would have been quite over the top in some cases.  Without the concreteness of my example this post isn't what it could be.
I would like to report however that I've updated my plan again after writing this post to explicitly include the principles/purposes of each point of my plan.

Is there such a thing as a "healthy obsession"?

I posted a link a while back on what an obesity expert has to say about "the secret" to losing weight.   I posted it on facebook so maybe you missed it.  One of my favorite quotes towards the end is this one:

"It shouldn't take up your whole life," he says. "Imagine if you had another medical condition. You do the treatment and go home, you take the medicines if needed and you avoid things that might aggravate the condition but you don’t necessarily make your whole life revolve around it…in fact just the opposite--you live life to its fullestwithout letting your condition take over your life." Read the whole thing here.

I've made quite some progress on my journey to health.  Over the last 3 years I've lost about 50 pounds (22kg) and kept it off, varying in weight in a 10 pound range or so.  I've done this doing a few things, none of them will be shocking to you.

• Being more active
• Tracking calories
• Weighing in regularly
• Deciding I wanted it
• Figuring out why I wanted it
• Figuring out what beliefs are stopping me

I could write a post on each one of these, but briefly I've been using SparkPeople.com for a few months and it's helpful, I recommend it.  Being more active is easy when you can bike to work every day.  Thank you to living and working in the Netherlands.  You can't stay in denial if you weigh yourself and then plot it on a graph.  This is about having "hard" data, I posted a bit about this last time, and what I mean by hard data is that it's stored outside yourself and can be recalled without the current mood or emotion coloring it.  So I can't lie so easily and say I'm not doing that bad.   The last three things are all mental, deciding, having a reason, and also figuring out some of the reasons that I haven't done it in the past.  

For example one of my reasons that was stopping me is that if I were in shape then I would be attractive and then I would then attract attention sexually from those other than my wife and put myself into temptation.  As soon as you say out loud or write things like that down they become quite silly.  Just naming them takes almost all the power from them.  Of course it's possible I may become more attractive to others, but what I would do with that is strictly up to me.  I have my values, I've my my promises and covenants and I know where I want to go with my life and afterlife.  I'm not perfect, but I've decided, so then all of a sudden something that was lurking in my mind stopping me becomes a silly passing thought, something to be discarded.  I spent some time going to overeaters anonymous, to some extent that was helpful.  I spent time attending my church's addiction recovery program, that also had some good points to it.

All of this is showing though how much energy I've focused on this whole area of my life.  The point I really wanted to get to though is that I've put quite a lot of time and energy on losing weight, or my relationship with food, or becoming more healthy.  So I'm changing my life, the way I live, the way I feel, but at what cost?  I'm becoming obsessed with all of it, letting this thing take a lot of my time focus and energy.  One may say that this is a good thing, and to some extent I agree, the changes are positive, but I can truthfully say I've seen some people do very well winning the battle in their own journey to health, but the result is they replace one obsession with another.  I'm not looking to do that, I'm looking to do away with obsession in my life, everything in moderation and in its season.

I can see that there are some phases to this whole thing, in somewhat logical order, but it's different for everyone:

1. Realize there's a problem (some kind of wake up call)
2. Figure out how big the problem is (tracking)
3. Start changing it and tracking the difference
4. Achieve real change
5. Make the change permanent

I guess the fear I have is that I'll then become obsessed with the whole thing and let it continue to eat of significant portions of my energy.  My underlying belief here, the way I see it now is that "if I don't focus on it, then I'll relapse into bad habits" and that for me, who tends to not do things half-way that focus will be relentless, or that I need to stay in a permanent state of fear in order to stay healthy.  In this case I'm essentially motivating myself with unhappiness (fear).  

My conclusion now is that obsession, at least for me, is driven by fear.  This is just one way I use unhappiness to motivate me to do things.  So in this definition is there such a thing as a healthy obsession? no, no there is not.  

What are my alternatives? The belief that I'm a healthy man, that I do and eat those things that keep my happy and healthy naturally is a good one.  I'll play with that one and report back.

Be in the world what you want to see in the world

Have you ever been frustrated, depressed, or outraged by something, a seemingly small something that someone else did?  I think we've all been there.  A little something can make a big difference to some people.

I've talked about personal leadership, and this is the same theme.  I used to just hate when people at work left a big mess in the kitchen there.  I used to be sad (and still am sometimes too) how we make some things taboo to talk about in our society when talking about them would make so many people's lives better.  These are two examples of thing I wish were different in the world.  I used to complain about these things. I would perhaps do something about it, but complain ("I'm cleaning this kitchen but I'm gonna post a sign telling people off about keeping it clean" is a good example).  What I've found to be so much more effective, and satisfying is to be in the world what I want to see in the world.

These are two examples of what I'm changing in my life, because I am being what I want to see.  So at work I clean things up, wipe up that counter, and even wipe down the coffee machine where all the spills happen near the dispenser.  Sure we have a cleaning crew who comes along and does a great job, but they get to the kitchen area about 1x/week.  That's totally ok, but I like a clean counter.  That's about what I want.  So I'm doing it.  How long does it take an extra 45-75 seconds of my day.  My satisfaction goes way up knowing I made a difference to me at least and maybe someone else will like it too.  I feel good because I'm doing something.

The next is about so-called "mental health."  That's not my favorite term, but I'm talking about depression here.  I've dealt with it many times throughout my life.  It comes and goes.  I've been on anti-depressants before, and while it helped rather quickly (within weeks) I didn't like the feeling of being dependent on something.  Of course this is not a bad lesson to learn, but I didn't really want to learn it then.  So these days I exercise intensely each day, it makes a world of difference in my mood and my health.  When I don't the results are quite immediate, when I do the same is true.  When I eat crap, I feel like crap.  When I eat too much (yah I can get compulsive with food), I tend to feel down, and of course it works the other way too, if I'm down I tend to eat.  That's called a vicious cycle/downward spiral.

Enter moodscope into my life.  In April I started tracking my moods, sporadically at first, but then much more regularly.  It is a test you can take daily to measure your mood.  It's a "validated" questionnaire which means that some psychologist out there made it up and a bunch of other psychologists also agree that it's measuring something that is worth measuring in a way that is clear and helpful.  To be honest the test isn't my super favorite, but the point is that it's a good one and it's available at moodscope.com for free.  By tracking it and reflecting on it I can start to see patterns.

Here is what I've learned so far, and because I have "hard data" or at least more objective data, it makes it so much easier.  This is because when I get down everything seems awful and always has been awful.  When I exercise I feel better.  Low moods don't last forever, it always comes back up.  When I get my stuff done at work I feel better.  Tracking it everyday helps.

In order to get it out there I even volunteered to be an alpha tester for connecting my moodscope scores with twitter, and of course I have twitter connected to Facebook so quite a few people now can know how I'm doing.  Do all of them care: no, but some do.  If I can help one person feel like they can turn somewhere for help, or help one person know that feeling depressed happens to someone else then I know I've done some good. (PS click to see my moodscope graph directly )

Be in the world what you want to see in the world.  What don't you see that you can be? What is one small thing you can change/add/delete from your life that will make the world a better place?  Choose one, just one and change it this week.