everything_is_automatic tender square it is believed that the average person makes 35,000 decisions per day, which translates to about 2,000 decisions per waking hour. decision fatigue, a term coined by roy f. baumeister, describes the taxing emotional and mental strain that can result from too many choices. what do i wear today? what do i eat for lunch? should i do the laundry or put it off until tomorrow? making decisions can be onerous and tiresome, and when we’re depleted by that process, it can cause us to make choices that run contrary to our well-being. for years (years!), i have tried—and failed—to establish a schedule and a series of habits that will allow me to produce my best writing. i’d start my plans with the best intentions, but somewhere along the way i’d sabotage my progress in the name of rejecting rigidity and embracing variety, and the whole cycle would begin again. however, my recent experiences with discipline over the past few weeks have led to me believe that i may have finally turned a corner, and hopefully for good. the secret? eliminating needless decisions. what time do i wake up? 5 am. no matter how tired am. no matter what day of the week it is. what do i do between 5 and 6 in the morning? in this “variety” hour i can listen to music or a podcast, i can take notes on a book i’m reading, i can interpret my dreams, or i can write my ideas if the mood strikes me. it’s different every day and is based on my whims. what do i eat for breakfast? two pieces of whole wheat toast with natural peanut butter and chia seeds, and a glass of almond milk. every. single. day. what happens after breakfast? i write my morning pages longhand, a ritual that i have somehow managed to carry with me for seven consecutive years now. what happens after morning pages? yoga and meditation for about a half hour. by that time, it’s nearly 8:30 in the morning and michael gets up. we’ll spend a half hour or so chatting while he makes breakfast, then i wash my face and brush my teeth. i don’t even bother getting dressed or wearing makeup anymore, i wear the same uniform every day: leggings, a band tee, a zip-up hoodie and my tigers ball cap. by 9ish, i’m in my workplace (which these days, is outside on my porch while i still can), listening to music to get me in the mood for writing, sipping my tea and eating my granola bar. from 9:30 to 11:30, i work, hoping to get into the zone of “deep work” that cal newport talks about, this state where time ceases to exist and i can sink into the creative well, hoping to bring back something tangible. sometimes i’ll write beyond 11:30 if i’m on the cusp of finishing something. other times, michael and i will take our half hour walk around the neighborhood. around noon i make the same lunch: spinach salad with shredded carrots, english cucumber, cherry tomatoes, and red peppers, wasa crackers slathered in hummus and a cheese stick. every. single. day. i used to waste so much time watching tv in the afternoons, needless episodes of the same shows i’ve seen hundreds of times. now i’m reading four or five different books at once, rotating between them as the mood strikes. i have discovered that closing myself off from the overwhelming images on television has allowed me to establish a deeper connection with the inner images within; my dreams are vivid, my imagination is active, and i don’t feel as though i’ve taken in energy that i don’t want in my psyche. michael and i plan our meals with each grocery trip, determining what will be made each morning and we get to work on prep around 2:30 or 3. sometimes i nap in the afternoon if i’m tired. i often spend the afternoon doing stuff around the house or reading, or both. at 8:30 pm, i complete my moon salutations, i wash my face and i brush my teeth. at 9, we watch an episode of the office (or sometimes, downton abbey) and i go to bed at 9:30 like i’m an old granny, instead of playing solitaire on my phone until my eyes burn. i realize that all this sounds extreme, but it’s working for me. instead of feeling restricted, i feel free, unburdened. making the same breakfast and lunch each day eliminates the decision of what to eat, and i’m making choices that support my health which allows for the writing. waking up at the same time every morning, regardless of how i feel, ensures i complete my morning rituals, a centering practice that allows for the writing. reading voraciously rather than watching television allows me to replenish the well and be inspired by all that’s around me, all in service to the writing. eliminating needless decisions allows me to preserve those decision-making faculties in service to the writing, giving me more power behind my artistic choices. i’m not coming at all of this with a “should” perspective like i used to anymore but rather one that is based in “need.” it feels like a religious awakening. 210907 ... tender square michael thinks i’m turning woo-woo; he’s said it to me a couple times. he doesn’t like the smell of burning sage; he gets a bit miffled that he can’t leave the bedroom when i’m engaging in my conscious breathing work in the living room. “you’re really getting into all this spirituality stuff,” he’s remarked. i mean, i guess so? he said i was on a similar trajectory like this seven years ago and that, with time, i learned to tone it down. “this isn’t like you,” he’s been saying. “you’re generally more balanced than this.” i don’t feel unbalanced, but i can sort of see where he’s coming from. i view that prior time in my life as an attempt to find discipline with creative work, yet it resulted in me sabotaging my progress, as i’ve always done. now i’ve reconfigured how i approach my vocation each day—obviously that’s going to bring about changes that feel destabilizing to what we’ve known before. “the discipline is what i’m interested in preserving,” i’ve clarified. michael’s worried because i have not been sleeping well for weeks, but he only knows this because i’ve told him so. i also started spotting daily, which is not like me, and it got me wondering what the hell was going on with my body. turns out a lack of sleep can mess with your hormones, and i’m sure it’s also impacting the receptiveness my third-eye chakra. luckily, the spotting stopped a few days ago. i’ve also been sleeping later into the night than i had been. small steps. i’m surprised i haven’t been more exhausted as a result of this, and i know it can’t continue indefinitely. i’ve been taking good care of myself throughout it all, i’ve been assuring michael and my therapist of that. “are you stressed out?” michael keeps asking me. “no, not at all.” which is not *entirely* accurate; i can’t tell him that i’ve been working through some intense feelings and realizations—those are for me. and honestly, i find the lack of sleep issue has less to do with stress and more to do with eustress—i’m excited by possibility; i’m often kept up with ideas for writing as i lie in bed. the spirituality comments were starting to rub me the wrong way though, and i asked michael for more context about what he meant by them. “i just mean you’re really invested in your creativity right now.” ah! and yes, the sheer volume of writing i’ve been producing over the past couple of months is the most productive i’ve ever been; i know this flow cannot last not forever, but i’m riding the wave for as long as i can. my creativity typically comes in three cycles: generation, editing, and then rest. “you keep telling me how frequently you’ve been in contact with your guides, that you’ve been asking for dreams every night; it could be that you have too much unconscious material coming in which is keeping you awake,” he offered. a-ha! this is all true; he’s got me there. what i can’t say to him: all that unconscious engagement was necessary for me to untangle the crisis i was confronted with. now that i have a name for what i’m going through, i don’t need to keep that channel to the unconscious open as widely. i know where i am. “i mean, i’m sitting here thinking through all the practical matters of getting us to windsor and you’re burning incense in the other room like you’re marie laveau,” he joked. “i guess that explains why you’re having such a hard time writing,” i said. “maybe there is an imbalance, but the imbalance is between you and i; i’m so far off on the creative track that it’s leaving you to do all the grounded work that you’re not accustomed to doing.” “yes!” he said. i’m still holding fast to my schedule and all the little things i do daily that help prepare me for the writing, but i sense an imminent shift in energies soon: we’re going to start looking for homes in windsor in a week or so and michael wants me to be more involved than i was for our house in ann arbor; he took on the bulk of the work then because of my grad school commitments. i’m ready to take on whatever he needs me to handle. 211008 ... raze (just posting here in the hope of fixing the funny symbols blather decided to substitute for your quotation marks for some reason, when they were all normal before) 211008 ... raze (nope. i failed. sorry. i don't know why this happens sometimes with "quotation marks" and —em dashes— that come from word documents and the like, and then other times it's fine. phooey.) 211008 what's it to you? 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