Ask Parvati 40: Distractions - Keeping Your Eye On The Prize - Part 1: Focus, Discipline and Courage

Dear Parvati,

Thank you for your posts. I found last week's particularly useful as it spoke to the way I want to make changes in my life this year. Though I love pursuing my life as a creative writer, I find I too often get pulled into listening to other people's problems. I can literally spend hours a day helping people. I am happy to help, but then I feel drained, with little energy left after my day job to pour into my creative pursuits. Any words of wisdom?

 

Thank you for this question. I understand the situation and often find myself needing to be quite ruthless with my time and how I spend it. Distractions always present themselves throughout the day. We must consciously choose how to spend our time and where to place our energy.

 

Whether you are pursuing the life of an artist, are making life changes or wish to start a creative venture, you must have focus, discipline and courage. If you have not yet read Amma's New Year's message, she addresses this to some extent by reminding us that our most valuable asset we have is time, which we too often squander. Keeping focused on the purpose of our life is paramount, especially as we move through the day and encounter seemingly small things that become large obstacles and that take us off path.

 

If you are not familiar with Julia Cameron's book "The Artist's Way", check it out. Her work helps keep artists on path and stay true to their calling. Her practical and straightforward exercises help bring people's life into authentic alignment with their soul's creative voice.

 

Last year, I had a long chat with a friend of mine about this very issue, how to remain focused as you follow your dreams. At this point, this friend of mine has become quite famous and is now a mentor to many about how to make it on your own terms. She told me how she focuses on her goals like she is shooting a water pistol at a ballon. It requires focused aim. She also noted that as soon as she loses her focus, she immediately sees it reflected in her success rate, her popularity and her income. To counter this, she has a personal policy that she calls "knife for life", not being afraid to 'say it like she sees it', fiercely choosing where she places her energy and with whom she spends her time.

 

This is her way to keep her eye on the prize. Because of her focus, clarity and determination, she now does not easily get entangled with people with needy energy, but has, nonetheless, created a life where she helps those in need. Her books, public appearances and media presence touch many more people and inspire them to find their way, far more effectively than if she got lost in in daily distractions that pull her from her path.

 

That is the wonderful thing about life. When we say yes to our highest purpose, ultimately, everyone wins. The person with whom you get entangled on the phone for hours that you allow to pull you away from what you love, could perhaps be better helped by someone else, or perhaps by reading the book you really want to write. Getting entangled in situations that make us less than we are and pull us off path, are a lose-lose dynamic. It is like jumping into the water to save a drowning person. When we allow ourselves to stay on path and stand our solid ground, we can be of far greater service to ourselves and therefore to others. From that solid footing, we can extend an helping hand to those in need without losing ourselves.

 

Today, ask yourself, the following questions:

1) What in your life drains your energy?

2) Why do you feel you are attached to it?

3) What do you feel your ego gains from being attached to it?

4) What would your life look like and how would you feel without it?

5) Are you totally open, ready and willing to get it go?

6) What do you need to realign within yourself to let it go?

7) What practical steps do you need to take in order to do so?

 

Now, get going to make those changes. If you want it, you got it. But do you really want it? We need to regularly ask ourselves this sobering question. We often stay stuck playing it small because it feels easier and safer to let life slip by. But at what cost? The cost of your deepest joy and true heart desire? Are you really willing to let that go in exchange for fear and temporary comforts? Think long and hard about that. What is the cost of not following your dreams? When we bring our full selves into what we are doing and free ourselves from limiting beliefs and hindering habits, we find the life we had been hoping to find.

 

Continues tomorrow with "Is It An Opportunity Or A Distraction?"

Ask Parvati 27: Addiction - Part 3: Hitting Bottom

PART 3: HITTING BOTTOM

(Continued from What Is Addiction?)

Pot smoking and drinking are just things people do. Most people my age don’t question them. They are often at parties. We can smell pot walking down the street. The fragrance wafts from the windows of my neighbours’ house. Many people partake, in some form or another. We often don’t question what is really going on when someone is drunk or high. We accept that they are doing that as a way to blow off steam and loosen up. But is it?

Though I have never been into it, I have been around many drugs and alcohol for most of my adult life. Growing up in the art scene and being in the music industry, I have seen how often what we praise as radical or brilliant behavior, is often creativity induced by drugs and fed by addiction.

I think most recently of the tragic death of the talented British singer Amy Winehouse who struggled with the power of addiction. What would her life have been like with different choices? If people around her understood more about the nature of addiction, would she have died so young? As was the case with Elvis, were there social, fan and business pressures that fed her addiction?

In the creative arts, it is easy for people to turn to alcohol and drugs for inspiration, as the alternative reality provides temporary fresh insight into their creative works. In a recent 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper, Lady Gaga is quoted as saying, "I still smoke a lot of pot when I write music. So I'm not gonna, like, sugar coat it for '60 Minutes' that I'm some, like, sober human being, 'cause I'm not.” But soon, users find themselves trapped into dependency and in need of new means to escape the escape. The cycle continues. Drugs and alcohol are not the solution or even a stopgap.

I am fond of the work of award-winning poet, playwright, and filmmaker Julia Cameron whose groundbreaking book The Artist’s Way opened the door to help many find an authentic creative voice, free from drugs and alcohol. The book was the result of her sobriety as she faced her addiction, which had fueled her creative works.

Addictive patterns develop in those with certain tendencies as a means to avoid pain. Part of sobriety is developing the humility to understand that we are powerless over the force of addiction. In accepting powerlessness, we come face to face with the pull of the addiction and begin to let go of the seduction of its power. We begin to find space between the addiction and ourselves.

It is common for addicts to think they are the addiction, but in fact they are not. That is part of the problem. The habit has become their identity. They cannot see the forest for the trees, so to speak. They cannot see their light because they are so focused on their darkness. They cannot see that it is just a habit that has become an identity, but is not in essence who they are.

If you are an addict, it is a lifelong path to maintain sobriety. It is not something that just goes away. Once an alcoholic, one is always an alcoholic, even if that person has not touched a drink for 30 years. The tendency towards addiction remains.

When addicts begin to admit they are powerless over their addiction, they begin to let go of its power. They begin to step backwards, away from the edge of a black hole that can only consume, and move towards personal choice and the ability to manage destructive habits.

There is only one way to face addiction, and that is to have the humility to admit that you have a problem.  Addiction has a gravitational pull that will draw to it other energies in an effort to consume. Addiction is selfish, because the nature of addiction is to consume, to pull, to feed, to take.

The need to consume comes from the identification with lack, with emptiness. Only when the addict has consumed so much that the pain gets too great, will he stop and realize that there is a problem, that his way of avoiding pain is only causing more pain. Then, the desire to change begins.

EXERCISE:

1) Everyone has problems. Everyone has habits. Addicts have made habits into an identity. Ask yourself, if you struggle with addiction, what is your personal bottom? How far are you willing to go before you realize that you have a problem and are willing to get help?

(Continued tomorrow with Getting Help)