UNPROCRASTINATION

 

 

Sometimes my living space gets messy. Sometimes very messy.  Piles of paper are my bug-a-boo — organizing, filling, tidying things up.

Why am I  so resistant? Why am I lured into avoidant thinking, excuses, rationalizing, distractions, and even self-medicating behaviours like fb, TV, unproductive work, unneeded food & sleep etc.  Procrastination is usually uncomfortable; ergo, self-medicating. Or we can take the possum approach and just numb-out | feel nothing | play dead… for a long time | until  we    actually    are…      dead.

 I’m thinking most of you have some version of piles-of-papers in your life? If not actual piles-of-paper, then likely you are procrastinating around money, health, family/friends, work, partner(s)  or other miscellaneous relationship(s).  Did I miss anything?

Organizing and tidying are things most of us – at least those of us without staff – have to do on a fairly regular basis. I can say the same about keeping my emotional ‘house’ in order. And, regardless of my financial status, I cannot pay someone to do this for me. I can hire someone [like a therapist] to help me with my resistance to doing it – and with discovering the source of my resistance / procrastination [if that’s of interest or of use] – but in the end it is something I must actually DO for myself. Often with significant, if not downright painful, struggle.

I’m not averse to a little work or discomfort along the way to unprocrastination. That being said, the shortest distance between A – B , and the better I feel when I get there are  priorities.

There are many ways and approaches to keeping our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual environments tidy.

Not ‘perfectly’ tidy — but tidy enough to be manageable, balanced, liveable

We’re not going for perfect here. Perfect to me is very subjective. Alright, Alright …you can shoot for your, personally satisfying version of perfect. Just be sure you are not efforting to live up to someone else’s standards of perfection {this can happen quite unconsciously}  — you’re not here to please anyone (except yourself).

Note to self: I really do need to do a post on how selfishness has gotten such a bad rap. And also one on perfectionism. Selfishness should be one of The Ten Commandments and Perfectionism should be listed as one of the 7 Deadly Sins

.

oh, him again…pay him no mind

Minor Caution:  There might be some struggle / balking / hurdles / obstacles / frustrations / cursing / deaths  / injuries / tantrums / fidgeting / brutalities/ alcohol + other various substance abuses and the like along the way but we will get there — and it will feel good in the end. Whew

—–

Here are some things I do to unprocrastinate
I have found them quite useful — hope you do  too!

MY

3Rs | Steps
{Not you grandma’s  Readin’,  Ritin’  &  ‘Rithmetic}

To

UNPROCRASTINATING

______________________________________________________________

So, let’s begin with   R # 1

Resistance

I think it helps to name, label, define, [and sometimes even to know the original cause] and understand what we’re dealing with. Right?

  SO…

Resistance is what? Futile?  Bad?  Wrong?  Good? Avoidable? Unavoidable? Hard? Uncomfortable? (Un)Desirable? Useful/Useless?

Or how about this? — Unhealthy Resistance / Procrastination is when we avoid and try to ignore activities that are often good & healthy for us because they evoke the same negative Thoughts|Beliefs|FEELINGS that we experienced sometime in our past.

Or maybe resistance/procrastination is ‘The Saboteur’  within? I’ve never been big on this self-sabotage  theory so let’s just scratch that off the list before going any further. Saboteur to me implies ‘bad guy’ / problematic / something that we have to ‘fix’ or fight against   ~ Y A W N     ~ ~  I’m a lover | not a fighter.     

SO…

I say,

|Resistance to resistance is FUTILE
– Unknown
|Who said that? Someone with great emotional
intelligence, insight and integrity most certainly!|

Let’s FEEL it, become more fully aware and conscious of it, name it, identify it, discover and explore it, feel it some more, know it, befriend it, embrace it, own it, learn from and with it, say Yes to it ~  Thank it ~ LOVE it!!

Do Not fight it – – b/c as you know: What you resist persists

So,
Maybe: What you procrastinate about persists?

|| Know it as a necessary part of your development and survival ||  

At one (young & vulnerable) time in our lives resistance served a very useful function.  It may have been trying to keep us from something scary, uncomfortable, hurtful or even painful. If so,  that was the best we could do at the time at saying NO! to something unwanted. We were doing our best to protect ourselves…

||  and that is something worth appreciating and loving!  ||

 

Oh For Heaven’s sake!  Just ignore him,
he  just wants attention..

The problem arises < and can eventually turn into Procrastination > when we keep habitually repeating this Negative, Resistant Reaction over and over again at times that seem  ‘similar’ to (because of our unpractised awareness), but may in fact be quite different than, the original, scary 1st time experience. You can see how the unconscious pattern builds. By the time we reach maturity [and if you are reading this this applies to you] we have practiced a behaviour that was appropriate as children, but not at all useful for us as adults.

In fact it has now become the opposite of useful because we have turned it into an extreme belief  which we [unconsciously] use haphazardly and inappropriately.

We are complex beings, both collectively and individually. We do all kinds of weird and wonderful things as we co-create and co-perceive this reality that we all [kinda|seemingly|maybe?] share.  We’re much too complex for a single, simple post like this to sum up — however, being the fool that I am, here’s my 2 cents worth in a nutshell —

My personal understanding/interpretation:  it’s a mish-mash unfolding (as opposed to a linear unfolding) of the following experiences/feelings (or variations thereof),

Fear<–>Resistance<—->Unhappiness<——>Procrastination<—->Fear<—–> Unhappiness<—–> Resistance <—> Procrastination <—-> Unhappiness <—-> Fear <—-> Procrastination<——>Resistance<— … etc.

Although I think the cycle begins with fear < and is perhaps continually fuelled by fear > the sequencing  from there is not necessarily a repeating, patterned one. Although it could be | at times | now and then… or never.

Clear as mud. Right?  Good, glad I could help.

AND furthermore, since

Beliefs are just repeated thoughts, over time – thus becoming solidified into Beliefs…

  we can convince ourselves of anything — really, we can!

This all makes for some good news. That goodness being that we can monitor, and choose and change our thoughts  (thus changing our beliefs and feelings) and overcome our procrastination.

 

So,

our previously  unpractised awareness can be practiced, honed and heightened so the choices we naturally begin making for ourselves change; they become less habitual and reactionary and we, in the process,  become more UNPROCRASTINATING
🙂

Of course this takes

Practice | and, like building a muscle, it’s not done in just 1 trip to the gym

Which will segue us nicely into our next post where we…..

WHAT the H!*%?! OK, that does it. ENOUGH! Call Security

____________________________________________________________________

My apologies dear readers. Some ‘people’, really!!  Completely devoid of any substance, moral fibre (or fibre of any kind for that matter]!  

This will not happen again I assure you. Please do not let it dissuade you from returning for my next postal  offering, which should be within the next few days. As I was saying, we will segue nicely from  Resistance  into the next   2 Rs | Steps   of our

3Rs | Steps

TO UNPROCRASTINATING

Looking forward to honing our awareness and finally being on track to vanquishing our procrastination once and for all — Here’s to us All Being…

UNPROCRASTINATED
____________________

 

 

for most of the time anyway 🙂