"Overwhelm-ment"

I heard this term at an Abraham-Hicks seminar, and I just fell in love with it. This seems to be my perpetual state -- a state of "overwhelm-ment."

Not very Bond Grrlish of me, is it? Yeah, I know.

The thing with me is that I actually know that our time here is time-ended (no pretending on this one!), and so I have a habit of wanting to try out everything that I can -- "right now."

I get a wild hair to try something, go full bore into it, then try something else, try to hold onto the previous one too...you get the picture.

I am lucky, though, in a few respects. I realized back about 5 years ago that life is really way WAY too short for b*tching, moaning, spending time with drag friends, etc. I had a painful "re-alignment" process about this -- but I did it. Though I'm an attorney, I'm a contracts attorney not a litigator -- the idea of "hurting someone's feelings" upsets me. But the thing I kept coming back to is that if, by not "hurting another's feelings" I wound up hurting myself or dragging myself down -- that's just stupid.

I still have people in my life that aren't the most uplifting (or who are big complainers), but in general I have relegated them to a very tiny portion of my time.

I have a habit of taking on new projects and making businesses out of them -- a friend's father said about her recently a phrase that could be applied to me -- "Don't you know what 'having a hobby' means?" She, like me, takes up a new "interest" and tries to at least make enough $ out of it to cover her costs.

This is probably where a lot of my "overwhelm-ment" comes from -- I get overcommitted in things that I want to do -- and then find there are only so many hours of the day. I also wind up then spending hours of downtime watching Oprah re-runs and noshing on food that I shouldn't even have in the house -- not very Bond Grrly of me, either.

The things that seem to fall out of my life are the "non-$-related" things. Like, oh, the gym :-) And these are the things that are supposed to keep you balanced! This is not good. Also in my "overwhelm-ment," I usually eat poorly -- because I'm "nibbling" not making meals. Also not good.

I have a very VERY scary period of time coming up -- all my schedules are doing the tsunami "thang" and BANG -- I have a month coming up with 2 weeks of 9-5 training (for the real estate agent gig), 2 speaking engagements (law gig), a trip to Austin and to Yosemite (with my fiance -- one to look at real estate, one "for fun"), my birthday, assorted theatre dates.....Oh. My. God. I started filling all this stuff out in my Outlook and literally started to panic. YIKES.

If you have a habit of overcommitment (maybe I just BE "committed"), then you might benefit from having one of those big, one-month-at-a time desk/blotter calendars. I have one -- I just have stopped using it, because I am now commuting between our two homes and my two home offices, and so I've kinda given up. Oh yeah -- did I mention moving out of my beloved home? And trying to rent it? Did I mention that part? And then trying to get a closer home for my two beloved horses, who I never get to see because I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off? Oh and the fact I can't move "right now" because the gal for whom I have "babysat" 2 cats for the past couple years (who was supposed to come home in August) has gotten "re-extended" and so isn't coming home until October...and I can't move into my fiance's house until the cat situation is resolved?

Why don't I have hives? I guess nosh eating and a little overwhelm-ment might be in order after all (laugh!)

Anyway -- on that desk blotter thing -- if you have one, it's so much easier to see when you're schedule is completely insane. You can "block out" times on the blotter -- use different colors, and be sure to include "personal" time in there (and, like, sleeping). For me, graphically SEEING this is immensely critical -- and I know that I'm in the current panic/time jam because I haven't been doing this. Once you can assess your life in this way, you can really get clear with where your time is going -- and whether you want it to go that way.

I actually have two different colors for "personal" time -- I have the personal time that is kinda "obligatory" (to keep up relationships with the neighbors, placating that squeaky wheel friend who I just can't quite bring myself to shut off, etc.) and then personal time that makes my heart sing. If you have a lot of the "obligatory color" in your calendar, I want you to remember that this is doing NOTHING for you towards drawing in your heart's desire...and in fact, depending on how much you "hate" that obligation and how much the energy surrounding it is negative...it might actually be holding you back. For every second you're resonating out of your "passion" or "joy" mode, you're not bringing those heart's desires toward you.

Oh sure, you have to block in WORK time -- but you know, since that's obligatory (at least for now), you need to look at it as the "glass half full." Trust me on this.

And while you ARE working, are you actually working on getting out of the "Rat Race"? Or are you doing things like placating yourself with a new pair of shoes, a Frapaccino a day, or that "cute purse" or other chachki? Look. What you need to be doing is saving up that $ -- all that "excess" $ -- and first paying off all your credit cards, and then SAVING -- because you need to do something serious to get some cashflow coming in.

I am not Suze Orman here -- but every time you use a "quick fix" (shopping) and then bring that stuff home -- it just clutters up your life more, and that money is not working for you. If you buck up and go through your closet (we talked about this already, right?) and makeup drawer and get congruent with your inner Bond Grrl, you're going to have some classics that you can wear forever -- and then you can concentrate on using that money for something REALLY beneficial to you (and your future) -- like maxing out your retirement plan, or opening up a savings account that you won't touch, to save for a downpayment on a home.

You might not live in that home for the rest of your life -- far from it -- what you're really looking to do is buy a place that, in a few years, you can rent out and at least "make your mortgage" with the rent. A house is an asset that will "force" savings on you -- each mortgage payment you make, you are building up an asset that you can ultimately use to finance another asset -- and another.

(Wow, I'm getting far afield here!)

If you're a Bond Grrl without a James, honey, don't wait "til you get married" to get a house as an asset. I had this feeling -- that by buying my house (which I did a lot later in life) I was "going to be a spinster forever." So once I got kicked out of my umpteenth rental that I had fixed up so well that the owner decided to sell it (sheesh), I bought my "dream" house -- which is proving difficult to rent. It is what I wanted -- a tiny farm house (perfect for a single woman!), hot tub, etc. -- but in trying to rent it, it's not in a great school district, it's not that close to town, etc.

If I had read Rich Dad Poor Dad before I bought -- I would have bought something totally different. I would have gotten my emotions out of the way -- I could have made just as nice a "home" in a suburban house with bigger bedrooms (I opted for land -- which is then hard to maintain and people don't want to do it a renters) and a better school district.

Where is this going?

I was talking about working to get "out of your job." The only way to do this is not to drown your sorrows in shopping and running up your credit cards because you feel sorry for yourself -- it's to get out of debt, and start working on retirement in -- oh, say 15 years. You can meet a financial planner and they will work the numbers for you on this -- I have a fabulous guy at Merrill Lynch, but any company like this worth its salt will do a "no obligation" assessment for you. Living in the "moment" in this respect and not "thinking about tomorrow" -- or feeling "sorry for yourself" so "treating yourself" with chachkis and meals out and mani/pedis is not going to get you out of your job, you know. It's not going to make a life where you have cash flowing in that isn't tied to your own slavery.

You do realize that you really are a "slave" to your "things," right? Because you have to dust them, pay interest "on" them (if you put them on credit that you're not paying off), etc. How's about thinking about taking control of your life, so that you're the master -- so that you have a cushion so that you could actually say "take this job and shove it"? What would it take? Is your "lifestyle" such that you can never, ever do this? Then look at where you can cut back. I bet that things that you think are "mandatory" are just not. Take a month and don't "do" these things -- like, for example, pack your own lunch for a month, and take the money you would have spent and put it in a jar. Or take the bus in, and put the bridge fare/parking/etc. in the jar. Whatever. Stick to it for a month and see what sort of $ you come up with. Then put that $ in the bank and write a check immediately to your credit cards (if they have a balance) -- or start that savings account for your "dream" (whether it's a house, or a trip to Costa Rica).

I think that often we "treat ourselves" with these stupid stop-gap things (Frapaccinos) instead of adding up all the "mini treats" and realizing we could have one huge, satisfying treat (going to Costa Rica). But that's because we usually don't actually have a goal in mind. Part of being a Bond grrl is coming up with those goals -- we'll talk about that later if I remember -- one month goals, 3 month, 6 month, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years. Where will you be in 5 years? Are you doing things right this second to move yourself there?

Why not?