Super Powers

I spent more than four hours today trying to restore my video display monitor. My husband finally helped me schlep my 24″ monitor and my MacBook Pro to the Apple store. There we spent more time waiting at the Genius Bar (I love Apple Land!) than we have spent in an actual bar together in years. But in the end, Jon the Genius identified my problem. It all boiled down to a $66 power brick. An inconspicuous looking white box that functions solely to deliver power to the monitor. And it had gone from working intermittently, to not working at all.

Now by the time that relatively simple problem was identified, I had already worked through all sorts of internal emotional and intellectual calisthenics to get myself to the calm and healthy place where I could kiss my huge, but perhaps superfluous, display monitor goodbye. I knew there was no way we could afford to replace it at this point in our lives. I spent a great deal of my time today talking myself back from the edge of disappointment. And of course, disappointment wasn’t mine to wrestle today.

I have had a week like that. I’ve over-complicated the simplest of issues while rationalizing away worst-case scenarios that aren’t even a blip on the radar screen of my life. I have rendered myself helpless and I’ve blamed it on everything imaginable but the true source…my own faulty power supply. I’ve spent a lot of the last seven days finding ways to justify curling up in a corner.

That’s a stark contrast to my attitude leading up to last Wednesday, I had one goal—to put on a stellar workshop where my new book Blooming Where You’re Planted, would be available for sale along with other Goodness Grows® merchandise. I had a lot of firsts to roll out of the bag and I knew just what to do to get it all done well. The workshop was a great success. Afterward, I went home and took a nap…and woke up in a stupor (sometimes naps leave one far worse off than just pushing through the day) that stuck with me for days. And guess what crept in with my foggy state…fear. I didn’t know what to do next because I didn’t have anything I had to do. No deadline was motivating me…no “do or die” incentive. Apparently, my power brick is tied directly to the last minute by which things must be done. No urgency…no juice flowing to my brain to make a logical progression through the days swathed in the suffocating worries that the phone will never ring with a legitimate business offer—the “full fee” speaking engagement or consulting contract to which I’ve pinned my hopes.

These in between places are horrible. For me, it is much more difficult to see to the routine than the bodacious. Give me a good crisis to manage over inventory control and bookkeeping any day. And I don’t mind working really hard if I know what for…but working hard to make “cold” calls (maybe I’ll do better if I rename them!) or waiting for a response on a proposal is much more difficult for me. I like the series of events that begins with creativity, mixes in some big time effort and ends—tah dah—with results!

So, here’s my plan and I’ll let you know how it works out. For the next few weeks, I plan to apply myself to the ordinary full throttle. I want to see if I—Queen of the Dramatic—can see to the mundane and the ordinary with a sense, not just of empowerment, but with superpowerment. (Note that I can add the drama back in.)

I always tell my children, “if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well…” and so I must get myself out of my little cocoon of “this isn’t fun and nothing is going my way” into life on the wings of “I can bring joy to each task every day!”

When we find ourselves in a rut, we can slowly claw our way back to the top and into the light; we can stay in our rut and hope a good-natured friend will pull us out; or we can strap on our jet packs and jettison ourselves back to productivity. Guess which one I’m choosing? Will someone please hand me my cape?

Onward and Upward to Goodness!!

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