Tending the Garden of Indulgence

Day 17 of my 100 day challenge. To review, the first 7 - 9 days were amazing, I tapped into my natural flow and enjoyed my new routines. After the clocks changed everything was knocked out of whack and I floated around in turbulent waters for the next 7 days. The routine was washed away and I tried to swim back to shore, members of pure indulgence firm in my mind.

Today I reached the shore and managed to once again get up and meditate at 6:30 AM setting a strong foundation for my day. What the storm has taught me is that I like the calm waters. Pure indulgence is something I want and enjoy. Even in the choppy water that heightened sense of awareness kept me afloat.

One thing I am curious about from this experience is

how to tend my garden of indulgence?

In order for me to have the freedom that pure indulgence requires I need to have balance so that I can take care of the other things, the white noise, unfinished projects and shiny metal objects I desire. Creating order around these things I believe will give me a firmer foundation for my challenge. It seems that part of my challenge too then is to designate time to bring things to order is that I can have 100 nights of indulgence. I think one of my priorities this month will help me to create order...

Finishing unfinished projects.

This month I have been bringing my focus back to this priority and holding it in the forefront of my mind. Yesterday when I received a much desired new book in the mail, a shiny metal object glittered at me. I held strong a resisted the temptation to dig in and a wonderful idea blossomed in my mind. What if I used this to categorize and organize the white noise around me. Most clutter is simply a physical manifestation of a descion that needs to be made. What will this look like you ask? I'm picturing a sorting process for all the debris in my life all those things on a holding pattern circling the airport.

Sorting the Clutter

• One basket, box or whatever you like for bright shiny objects - things you really want to do, start or enjoy right now.
• One pile of things you have started subdivided perhaps into 1) Urgent things that need to be accomplished 2) Things you really want to finish 3) Things you don't want to do 4) Things that would take 2 minutes or less to complete 5) Things to throw away/abort/give away - come up with whatever works for you.

The beauty that seems apparent to me in this system is you are taking back control and forced to be honest about what all the stuff around you is. If you have all the shiny metal objects in perhaps a closed hamper, that you get to open and indulge in like a treasure chest when you choose, to it is much more empowering than being caught off gaurd in the middle of another tasks by the glint of a shiny metal object and thrown completely off course. If you wanted to take this a little further you could also explore why a certain object or task, such as facebook, has such a lure for you. What need is it satiating and then perhaps you could design helthy ways to feed that need. By categorizing you are also being honest about the things in Yuri life. Above all this process requires you be conscious about your life and the things in it, instead of leaving things to chance you are being proactive and take responsibility instead of reacting to things.

Maintaining the garden and clearing the weeds is an essential part of gardening. Simply eating the fruits of indulgence will quickly deplete my harvest. Today I will be putting on my gardening gloves, digging in and tending to the garden of indulgence so this evening I can have the freedom to indulge.