Sabbath for Synergy

Today is my sabbath, a day to step out of the fray, and regroup. My perfect sabbath is a celebration, a holiday. I keep it holy with my attitude: I don't rush, complain, or worry. Everything I do has a flavor of peace. I schedule some work, but it's work I find fulfilling, or uplifting. Simple is a great word to describe my ideal activities for the sabbath: Simple tasks, simple foods, and an undemanding schedule.

I'm celebrating synergy today - the ability to seek unity, embrace teamwork, live holistically, and work tirelessly towards a better end. Synergy is the eternally active primal force of creation: No matter what the conditions are, they will change.

Stephen Covey says, "Fulfilling the four needs [spiritual, mental, physical, social] in an integrated way is like combining elements in chemistry. When we reach a "critical mass" of integration, we experience spontaneous combustion -- an explosion of inner synergy that ignites the fire within and gives vision, passion, and a spirit of adventure to life." 

I'm going to create some synergy today, here at home, all by myself.

Agenda

1. Read Kurashi at Home

2. Create inner synergy for paper

3. Engage my mind

4. Engage my heart

5. Engage my body

6. Engage my spirit

7. Light a fire

1. Read Kurashi at Home:

This new book by Marie Kondo is a look at lifestyle (Kurashi means lifestyle) and the joy of tidying. Kurashi is the art of living each day; how I spend my time.

I've been working on papers: what my collecting of so much paper says about me, and how to manage my feelings of overwhelm about how much I have to sort through. And no matter how many bags of papers I recycle, I never seem to make a dent.

In chapter two she talks about how my possessions feel: Can they breathe? Are they suffocating in that pile? Maybe that's why my papers make me feel anxious! She suggests listening to what they are trying to tell me about how they want to be stored or if they are ready to leave my life.

"Everything you own wants to help you. So, think about how you can make the space for each more comfortable."

This actually makes sense to me (even though it sounds pretty odd). When I stopped stacking my shirts in piles in my dresser, and started filing them horizontally the Marie Kondo way, it made me very happy and it still does today. And it seems like my clothes like it too! Marie says storage is a "process of enhancing your communication with the things in your life".

Show can I apply this idea to my papers?

2. Create inner synergy for paper:

Inner synergy is when your body, mind, spirit, and heart are all cooperating to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects. I love the image of "an explosion of inner synergy," and I've experienced that passion spontaneously, but I wondered if it was possible to harness that energy when I want it and need it.

Years ago I asked myself, "Can you create inner synergy purposefully and on demand? Can you build it intentionally, for a particular project or task, in order to infuse that project or task with vision and passion, and engage with full effort?"

I thought it was possible and designed an experimental plan, which I've been testing for a few years now to good effect: 

Step one is to choose any project or task that is a priority, that connects to your values and principles, something you want to do soon; something a little challenging but within your abilities (such as clearing papers).

Each step below has multiple ways to engage, and you don't have to use them all. Take as much or as little time with the steps as you like - you might want to stretch the process out over a few days, repeating each step a few times in different ways, building a little more energy each time. Or you can speed shift through the steps, and explode into action today!

3. Engage my mind:

• Write about the project or task in your journal, and why it's important.
• Create a clear vision with a visualization.
• Gather all the information you need to do the project.
• Make a beautiful chart and color code it!

I decided to engage my mind by making a calendar chart of all the papers I need to sort. I quickly took photos of all the files, notebooks, drawers, and piles of papers, then printed them, cut them out, and used my (super fun) magnet tape to put them onto my whiteboard calendar. Took half an hour and my mind is (super) engaged!

4. Engage my heart: 

• Identify the love component. Write about and visualize who this project might benefit, and the people skills you might need to develop for this project.
• Focus a Love Meditation on the project: Send the "pink light of love" to yourself and the people who will be impacted by the project.

I'm clear that the heart component is: I don't want these papers to be a burden, to me now, or to my family when I'm gone. Also, each category of papers is a different kind of burden, so I need to touch in with the particular emotion for each before I tackle it.

Today I plan to spend time with a stack of notebooks with notes from books I read over years. The emotional burden is one of information. I plan to light a pink candle and give attention to releasing my need to know everything. 

5. Engage my spirit:

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  Choose a mantra, the word or phrase that will remind you of the deepest reasons for the project.
• Light a candle, repeat your mantra, and carry the words with you all day.
• Use the mantra as a focus for your daily awareness practices.

My mantra is "Let Go".

6. Engage my body:

• Get prepared - schedule time to physically do the project or task.
• Gather all the supplies you need.
• Prepare a space for the project.

I set a timer for 12:45, and moved the notebooks and my candle to my lunchtime table.

7. Start a fire: 

My paper synergy plan is a sequence that begins when my timer goes off:

1. Mentally review my vision of fewer papers.
2. Engage my heart by lighting a pink candle, and releasing my need to know so much information.
3. Engage my spirit by reciting the mantra "Let Go."
4. Engage my body by picking up the top notebook, and beginning to rip.