100 Plans?

 Thinking about the hundred plans you want to accomplish,

With never enough time to finish them,

Just weighs down the mind. 

You're completely distracted

By all these projects, which never come to an end,

But keep spreading out more, like ripples in water.

Don't be a fool: for once, just sit tight...

Patrul Pinopoche: Advice From Me to Myself...

(As found in Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening, page 310-311)

I am a pathological doer in recovery. Though I write about being over doing, I still find myself, too often, thinking about the hundred things I want to accomplish.  I have so many projects on the go and can not even see the end of any of them. Like ripples in the water, they keep spreading and spreading.

For example, wanting to help my kids out, especially those with new babies, I decided yesterday morning to make some lasagnas for everyone. Between the vegetarians and the meat eaters... that's a lot of lasagna.lol. I went to the grocery store with the intention of quickly getting what I needed and returning home to make many offerings.  I assumed, though I never before made that amount at one time,  it would be an easy chore and that I would be able to get them all ready and delivered before supper.  Hmm!

On top of that I wanted to get back to my blog here and get an entry in.  I wanted to work on my novel. I wanted to clean and even begin the heavy  fall cleaning . I wanted to make bread and banana muffins to drop off as well.  I was also planning on a yoga class and knew that meant getting my studio ready.  Through out all this planning and doing I was supporting my daughter via text while her son was being admitted with hyperbilirubemnia ( severe jaundice). I thought I could do it all.

 As I texted and spoke to my daughter throughout it all, I got my entry in.  I got the groceries. I got the dishes soaking in the sink  and the counters cleaned enough to work on.  I rolled my bread and made two dozen muffins and then I began making the lasagna. 

I had the lasagna prep all broken down into subtasks but these little steps, for some reason, kept spreading and spreading.  I didn't have enough hamburger for the meat eaters...so I had to find away around that.  I ran out of cottage cheese and realized I bought the wrong type of mozerella. My counter space kept shrinking as my tasks kept spreading.  There were extra trips to the grocery store required. I didn't have enough of someting else...had to reinvent the wheel there. There seemed to be so much to do for this one task that I could not see the end of it. I wondered if I should  cancel yoga.  I wondered how I would get all that lasagna delivered. And the mess...man...I couldn't keep up with it.  It all became very chaotic around me and I could feel myself reacting to that chaos.  Messy.

I had to pull myself back . When a friend/yoga student  told me in a text that I had too much on my plate and advised that I look after home matters before worrying about yoga...I let out a big sigh of relief! I think she even may have used the phrase "just sit tight" lol.

"Thinking about the hundred plans" I wanted to accomplish was definitely weighing on my mind.  These things did not have to get done.  It was ego that was making me into a fool with all this planning and doing.  What I needed to do, I realized was stop it all, and just sit tight.

I cancelled class. I delayed delivery until today. I finished what I was doing, focusing on one step at a time.  I cleaned up and then I sat. I just sat tight. 

Sigh! It takes a while doesn't it, for all this wonderful learning to sink in? 

All is well!

Joseph Goldstein (2016) Mindgulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening. Boulder: Sounds True