Proaction

I've been working on Proaction for many years, but I think now I have a new handle on my dilemma - It's a battle of needs: My deeply ingrained need for justice and fairness, which I often respond to in a childish, reactive way, and my need for equanimity. It's a battle between red and blue parts of my personality, and my inner child and grandma.

Agenda:
1. Love cycle
2. Ongo journal
3. New narrative

4. Days of passion flow plan

1. Love cycle:

Years ago I wrote this month-long meditation on love, with a daily reading and work. Day 18 is Be Proactive.

I tend to let other people’s actions and words sway my mood. I often go through my day reacting to things as they arise; I am affected by what ever comes my way- if someone appreciates me, I feel good. If someone criticizes me, I feel crummy. I want to be less reactive and more proactive and independent. 

I remember that I have the freedom to choose my behavior, and I must take full responsibility for my choices. When something happens I can pause-- and there between the stimulus and the response is my greatest power- I can choose what to say and what to do, and how to feel about it. Every moment, every situation, provides a new choice, and a perfect opportunity to do things differently to produce happier results. Nothing anyone can do or say has control over me.

“If you are an effective manager of your self, your discipline comes from within; it is a function of your independent will. You are a disciple, a follower, of your own deep values and their source. And you have the will, the integrity, to subordinate your feelings, your impulses, your moods to those values.” ~Stephen Covey

2. Ongo journal:

I'm going back through this book by Catherine Madden and Jesse Weiss Chu (2022), focussing on the solo practices. Day 5 this week is Requests, a follow up to the section on habits and choice. "The impulse to act in a habitual way can also be understood as a request to fulfill a need. ... Knowing what needs our habits are attempting to serve helps us to decide which habitual requests we want to keep saying yes to."

I can also change the request, so for example I can ask myself, "Would I be willing to slow down and seek justice in a calmer and more analytical way, which would serve also my need for equanimity?" 

Practice: Choose one need that is asking to be fulfilled, and think of an action I can do to nourish it. Make it a small and tangible request.

3. New narrative:

One of my weekly Creative Perspective tasks is to define a new narrative to re-frame a mind-set and expand my thinking. This week:

"Justice can be served with non-violence."

 

4. Days of passion flow plan:

The next few days are the best block of time I have to obsess. Today I make a plan for Nature-Culture flow and writing through the next week. My Nature-Culture theme this month is late winter regeneration and awareness. Today I am brainstorming the next topics in my Winter chapters, and also some garden, advocacy, and community tasks to support that work:

• Today: Order seeds, coir, squirrel baffle. Set up new grow lights.
• Attend third "Return to the Earth", and write about how de-colonization connects to Earthcare.
• Sun-M: Write Awareness: Imbalc, signs of spring
• Collect Superfund info to share: How to sign a petition, write testimony, and sign up to attend (anyone want to go with me??); Also who to contact in state legislature.
• Begin to plan questions and a blurb for Water Talk with discussion of how to bridge the gap; season with others.
• T: Write Natural Living: Lent study and practices
• W: Write Reciprocity: Network with neighbors; plant library 
• Write next Earth Action News
• Th: Begin to plan how to blog my book to share. 
• Make potting soil
• Order more worms
• Plan watershed watercolor class
• F-Sat: Write Sanctuary: Prepare for planting (potting soil); Plan native plantings 
• Clean pots. Plant peppers.