But I don’t have a boss. And I don’t have a schedule, except for the one I create. And I get to spend all day doing work that I love, with people I love, in a place that I love. Life is sweet.
Over the past nineteen years, I must have written out Louise Hay’s sentence “In the infinity of life where I am, all is perfect, whole, and complete,” five grillion times. Finally, one day, I noticed I could really feel it was true. And now I know it’s true with my whole heart. No matter what is happening, there is an infinity of life, and it is perfect, whole, and complete. My body and mind are perfect, whole, and complete. Even at the moment of my death (and I like to imagine especially at the moment of my death), all will be perfect, whole, and complete.
All of this is to say that this self-help stuff actually works. You, too, can be calmer, more creative, more loving, and more compassionate with yourself and others. You can feel more confident in yourself, and you can be more prosperous. You cannot escape the pain of life — no one can. Everyone gets the same amount of pain. (We’ll talk more about that in chapter 33.) But you can increase your joy.
So that’s what this book is for: to help you make the little changes that will lead to big joy. And big joy can make a big difference. It could even change the world.
Since the changes I suggest are so small, you might want to try each of them at least once, and then you can keep doing the ones you like and jettison the rest.
As a preview, here are a few of my favorite “little changes” that we’ll be exploring in this book:
1. Get your cell phone out of the bedroom. Permanently. Give yourself back the gift of a morning stretch, a dozy cuddle, and the lovely liminal thoughts that come on waking. This is a good practice for everyone, and especially for those of you in the “frustrated overachiever” category.
2. Feel the Net. You are an inextricable and essential part of an Infinite Net of energy. You are one intersecting element in the larger picture of the whole universe. You are both much less significant and much more powerful than you may have been led to believe. If you fall into the “overwhelmed procrastinator” category, and you often catch yourself thinking that there’s “not enough time,” you might find this image of the Infinite Net quite calming.
3. Schedule some Happy Grown-Up Naked Time. Whether you are in a relationship or not, start making time to just be nude and play. Spending a goal-free half-hour rediscovering what makes you giggle, tingle, and thrill is a terrific way to reconnect with the wisdom of your body and also have a little fun. If you have ever applied your “perfectionist” self to your body image or sexuality, you might find this practice particularly freeing.
4. Acknowledge that feeling overwhelmed is a choice. Overwhelmed is an overused word that can mean a lot of different things. We’ll work on identifying the actual source of your overwhelm in chapters 8, 11, and 16, and take specific steps to mitigate it. Nothing good ever came from the curious inaction caused by the mental chaos known as overwhelm. You might want to read the previous sentence aloud: see if you can feel the truth of it for yourself.
5. Turn your complaints into requests. Quit complaining. Permanently. If you have a request, make it. If you have a suggestion, offer it. If you want things to change, then be the instrument of change. Approach the troubling elements of your world with a gentle and courageous spirit. If you want to change your life, you’re going to have to start taking 100 percent responsibility for it, and complaining is the hobbyhorse of a victim mentality. You’re better than that. Part of the recovering in recovering perfectionist has to do with finding new, more productive ways to channel your discernment, your good judgment, and your meticulous attention to detail.
Nothing good ever came from the curious inaction caused by mental chaos known as overwhelm.
6. Release that which no longer serves you. Clutter is the residue of old decisions, and it just plain takes up too much room. Free yourself from your old stuff so you have space to become your new self. We’ll even clear the mental clutter from your “Dream Closet” in chapter 49. You’ll be amazed at how much more energy you have when you — and your stuff — have some breathing room.
7. Stop having imaginary arguments with other people. It’s so tempting to replay key moments from your life in your mind, usually with the dialogue rewritten. Or to imagine future events in which you not only look fabulous but manage to say the perfect thing, every time. Your “overachieving” self flaunts the vision of this more perfect version of self at you and makes you believe that you should be better, smarter, quicker than you are (or were). Start using your imagination in more self-supporting ways.
8. Make some 5-Minute Art about it. Creativity — it’s not just for artists anymore. This 5-Minute Art concept is one of the most flat-out useful ideas in this book, so let’s talk about it now.
Here’s the plan: The next time you feel upset, sad, frustrated, furious, or trapped by the past, take five minutes and make some art about how you are feeling. Draw a picture, write a poem, do a little dance, sing a little song. This art does not have to be good. In fact, I think it’s better if you make it deliberately bad, and you have permission to throw it away as soon as you’re done. Why am I suggesting that you make some bad, disposable art? Because feelings just want to be felt.
Once a feeling knows that it’s been felt, the energy of it is released and can transform into a different feeling. You’ve had that experience — when a good cry is followed by a feeling of deep peace, or when an angry outburst transmogrifies into a fit of the giggles. On the other hand, when you keep your feelings locked away, they often grow stronger, darker, and more powerful. Worse yet, whatever steps you take to avoid your feelings will end up sabotaging you. So making some 5-Minute Art is a quick, easy, and even delightful way to activate the pressure-release valve.
Feelings just want to be felt.
Externalizing your feelings also gives you a new perspective on them. Using color, rhythm, images, and melody to give form to your emotions allows you to understand them in a new way. And it can allow others to better understand you as well.
My indispensable team leader at the Organized Artist Company, Leonore Tjia, once found herself feeling completely swamped with demands from our students and fearful that she was about to let everyone down. The anxiety was paralyzing her. Luckily, she had the presence of mind to go to the whiteboard in her office and sketch an image that captured how she was feeling. She texted me a photo of it, with the caption, “This drawing is of me as a sad border collie, weeping by the pond because she let all the little lambs drown.” This little cartoon was so sweet and so melancholic that she started to laugh at herself. In the freedom of laughter, she found renewed energy, and a reminder that what she had been experiencing as stress was really just her desire to do a good job run amok. You can see Leonore’s drawing at www.StartRightWhereYouAre.com.
During one of my three-day events, Marie, a tall woman with a slightly librarian-ish demeanor, raised her hand and politely said, “Sam, I hear you say, ‘Make some art about it’ all the time, and I’m still not sure what you mean. Could you give an example?”
“Sure,” I said. “If you were to make up a little song right now about how it feels to not understand, how would it go?”
She
