EVERYONE LIKES A LIST

Everyone likes a list.  Lists are just a kind of freeform journaling.  

1. What about listing your achievements?  A kind of reverse bucket list.  A way of making you feel proud, satisfied, accomplished.  I bet it will be a long and highly personal list for you.  I went to law school.  We successfully raised our children.  We saved enough money to retire.  That has been huge.  When you're young and working so hard, it hardly seems possible--to be old enough and have enough wherewithal to stop working.   For all of us we've had to conquer the odds. 
2. Or places you've been.  We all like to travel.  Instead of thinking about where we haven't been, how about where we have?  Two falls ago we flew to Iceland and loved it.  Then on to Glasglow and the Scottish Inner Hebrides.  As you list where you've been, the memories come back.  I'm thinking about those Icelandic horses, stout and sturdy.  Did you love New York or DC, Spain or Africa?  Was your best vacation fly fishing?   Is there a spot in the mountains you adore?  I mean, we have the whole world to choose from. 
3. What are your favorite things to do?  This list is a prompt to do them more.  Takes only minutes.  Swim, read, do crafts, bike.  But also, I love napping--how embarrassing! But I love waking up refreshed before the evening meal and other chores I haven't finished.  I guess I love not being tired, a leftover from working fulltime.  That stage is so much of our lives. 
4. What about helpful thoughts?  We need a stash of these for those times we're down or uncertain.  Some of us chose words from the Bible, some have favorite sayings.  I like the one, "Nothing is missing; you are already whole."  Remembering what we're grateful for is always helpful.  Remembering that we're loved.  Acknowledging that we are survivors.  
5. Sometimes I want to remind myself how I'd like to be, Goals so to speak.  More loving, understanding, helpful.  Less judgmental, lazy, self-centered.  Closer to God.  This list too is a prompt.  

Think of your own lists.  Part reminiscence, part planning and taking stock, but useful and enjoyable.     Nina Naomi

LOVING A LISTICLE

2007: the year the word listicle started appearing.  Not that lists haven't been around forever:   Homer lists every captain involved in the Trojan war and a Catalogue of Ships of the Achaean army.  The Beatitudes are promises of blessings for the meek, the poor, the righteous, the merciful, the peacemakers; many of us try to live according to the Ten Commandments; and we (at least I) skip the genealogies listed in the Bible. 

As school children we all learned by lists.  They are finite.  This can be a comfort. But listicles are a bit different.  A nice combination of list and article in what some have called a snackable size.  Befitting something, for the most part, casual.  

The ones I like are inspirational. I was given a workbook of list-prompts.  One is "List the Reasons Why You Should Feel Proud of Yourself."  Isn't that affirming?  I wish I could list, "I've gotten better at keeping promises to myself," but for now that's something to work on.  What I love is the thought behind an interesting listicle, how you can see that the writer felt a sense of accomplishment thinking of each item. Plus how getting to know a writer, even a bit, is always really a way of getting to know yourself. 

So here's my short listicle of things I'm loving as these hot days of August creep along.

. . . the way the Canadian geese sound as they squawk back and forth across the evening sky.  They have no sense of camouflage or survival and yet there is never any shortage of geese.

. . . that all I have to do is listen to my intuition to know what's true.   Our intuition is our friend and to deny it is to take the long way 'round.

. . . when someone compliments me, often a stranger.  Or when I do the same and a conversation starts up, two women finding a transient connection that pauses an ordinary moment.  Women are good at this and it's lovely for children to witness.

. . . when a downpour cools the asphalt and awakens the trees.  The car hoods steam and water pools.  For awhile the humidity shifts, a breeze takes hold and we notice the change in the day.

. . . doing yoga in my 1977 mid-century modern home.  Doing most anything by an open window if the temperature allows:  reading, watching the birds, looking for the chipmunk family, working.

. . . the smell of wild mint and orange lantana.  The fragrance of almond or lavender or vanilla.  The smell of peach camomile tea with honey and how it tastes in a bone china cup.  The feel of fresh sheets, bleached clothes, clean hair, warm skin, shea butter sunscreen, my dog Mr. Wiggles after his shampoo and conditioner, and how good they smell. 

. . . whatever opens our senses: to feel, to taste, to touch, to be enfolded, to snuggle, to envelop, hug, love and then fall asleep. A fine day and night. 

INVESTING IN YOURSELF

So many things to write about.  I've got lists upon lists.  All these blog post themes I keep thinking about, such as: 

Soothe Your Soul

Turn on Your Creative Brain

Find Your Flow

Making Space

Investing in Yourself

The Best Time for New Beginnings

Finding Fresh Headspace

Time to Grow 

All fertile subjects, what I'd like to ponder, look for, find or do and I bet you would too. Who in this world wouldn't?  Hoping to share, to inspire just a little in return for all the inspiration I've received.  To pass on what, over the years, has been given to me.  Such a common goal.  

Lately lists have taken on new meaning in many of our lives.  This is new for me.  Outside of work I haven't been that much of a list maker.  My teenage Diary is more narrative, marked by overstatement and hyperbole. My Prayer Journal has no lists. 

My husband, on the other hand, has kept a red-covered paper date book for each year of his adult life. Everything he's ever done or meant to do--edit a chapter, call the plumber, walk with (name)--is listed, crossed-off or moved forward, a timeline of his existence.  He has a standing order for the same red book every December. The mundane and the private, who he has spent time with or is thinking about, hour after hour, all there revealed.   

But what about lists where nothing has to be scratched off.  I've seen some as writing prompts, some as self-care advice, some in mindfulness workbooks.  These kinds of lists are there for us to retrieve and do with as we will.  Like "Places I want to See" or "Where My Best Memories Were Made" (Ok, on a porch swing--marriage proposal; in Paris--honeymoon; in London--young marrieds; in Blowing Rock, NC--another honeymoon.)  Or "My Favorite Places and Why."  All individualized ways to appreciate our past or plan our future. 

Then there are the more difficult lists, but still helpful.  Lists like "What I Fear" or "Traumas in My Life."  "My Survival Tactics" or "This Helps Me."   I like this last one best.  I'd like to make this list carefully so what helps me will be on mental speed-dial when I need it.  

All these Not-To-Do-Lists not only solidify our memories, but also help us understand ourselves better.  What about this one, "How I Do NOT Want to Be" followed by "How I Want to Be?"  My responses are almost instantaneous for the first list.  I Do Not Want to Be:
Depressed
Anxious
Thoughtless
Unkind

The happier list by far is "How I Want to Be."  This list too comes readily. Because we know how we want our lives to unfold.  For me, I Want to Be: 
Aware
Creative
Peaceful
Grateful
Mindful
Loving
Healthy
Valued
Kind

Helpful
Hopeful

This list is far longer for most of us because it is probably the way we actually are, more often than we always notice.  So, let's pick what we want to list.  If it's not the time to list fears, don't.  If it is the time to list achievements, do.  If it's not the time to face the bad times, don't.  If it is, remember that you are brave, loved, healthy and strong.   

Well, this has turned out to be my Investing in Yourself post.  I didn't know that when I began.  So, I've added the title.  That's what lists can do; help us arrive somewhere. How nice.                                                                                                           Nina Naomi