Remembering not to Fold the Towels
So last week I had the wonderful opportunity to join my husband for his leadership graduation in San Francisco, as well as attend a dear friend's wedding down in Newport Beach. It was a short crazy little trip, but well worth it and led me to some incredible insight in the process. I was moved to write about my experiences right away, but decided rather to take moment and chew on them, absorb them, and bring the full perspective out later rather than rushing through them right after they occurred.
Before I begin a HUGE congratulations to our dear friend on his marriage, and more importantly major kudos to my incredible husband on completing his nine-month leadership development program, I am incredibly PROUD of you!
So Thursday I attended the graduation ceremony for my husband and it was a really warm, joyous event with friends and family as well as supervisory support of some of the participants. There were several speakers for the event, 4 of which were actual class members going through what is often termed "capstone" or a crowning achievement or culmination of things learned in process. All speakers had incredible points made, however one that stuck out in my mind and has continued to do so over the past 5 days was that spoken Dr. Caroline Hines. Dr. Hines touched on the importance of this achievement and what should be occurring going forward from it. She said something that hit me so strongly I instantly teared up...pretty powerful stuff. She was talking about how its important to clear clutter in life and that it is important to focus on what is the meaning or use of something rather than the steps one goes through to achieve what they think is "correct". Her example was a towel. She indicated that there is "no wrong way to fold a towel, for the way the towel is folded does not impact its purpose". This had to have been one of the most striking things I have ever heard...and yet it made absolutely PERFECT sense. Why should you care about the way your towels are folded when you are at some point going to unfold them and use them for the same purpose...to dry something. She went on to say that clearing clutter in ones life is of utmost importance because clutter (both physically and mentally) holds you down. The purpose is to make sure that you are keeping your focus on the things that bring joy to your life, not all the minute things that can tie up your time and suck you into a black whole. She called it conscious decision making, thinking about things before acting to ask yourself do I really need this, does it bring me joy, or is it just another "thing" to add to my list. We are all busy trying to get in what we need to do in the same 24 hours per day, why waste time on things that are not important.
Whats somewhat interesting is I had actually started working on getting the clutter out of my life and trying to get more organized back around beginning of January. My husband has been travelling a lot lately with work, and with trying to work full time and train I wanted to get things organized in my life to allow for more time to spend doing the things I "wanted" vs. always being a slave to what "needs" to be done. I have been making progress thanks in part to a wonderful book I just stumbled upon at the fabric store one day (random yes...but I believe I found it for a reason, when I was least expecting it but in the most need for it).
This handy little book has been such a helpful read and has put insight into organizing and de-cluttering not only physical spaces, but also mental de-cluttering. It breaks things down by weeks, and you can go in any order that you want, but the main focus that Jennifer Ford Berry has is to determine the function of an item and place it accordingly to that function. If you can't figure out a function...it doesn't have on in your life, and you can get rid of it. Same concept that Dr. Hines touched on, but in a little different way.
So I had started on this quest to get things organized, and made some significant progress, however in the insanity of life over the past month, lost a bit of focus. Before I left for San Francisco I said to myself that upon my return I wanted to get back to the progress I had made as I have actually been able to stick with a lot of the things that I implemented, which is a big deal for me as I tend to get bored and just stop doing things after a while. It was funny when I ended up having a guest speaker remind me of what I had been internally partially committed to, and it just set things in motion, however it also brought to light the importance of removing emotional and mental clutter as well to really focusing on what brings JOY to my life.
Now I know that I have said this frequently, but I don't find training to be a chore, I actually find it to be an outlet, a release, a time for myself, and as I thought about it more I really began to concrete the notion that this really does bring me joy. I have also noticed lately that by bringing myself joy in this area of my life I find that I am able to share that joy with others especially my family. So my goal is to continue trying to clear the clutter in my life so that I can carve out the time that I need to bring myself joy in training, joy in competing, and joy in being a good wife and mother. I still have some work to be done in home life scheduling and also with some chores around the house that need tweaking (yes honey I know I am terrible with ironing...) but the intent is to not be a slave to my schedule or the things that need to be done in my life, but rather work them in such a way that I can complete them more easily to allow for more time for the fun things I enjoy doing with my family. I will stop focusing on doing things perfectly all the time, and try to really keep myself from falling into an all or nothing mindset, after all, there really is no wrong way to fold a towel.
Before I begin a HUGE congratulations to our dear friend on his marriage, and more importantly major kudos to my incredible husband on completing his nine-month leadership development program, I am incredibly PROUD of you!
So Thursday I attended the graduation ceremony for my husband and it was a really warm, joyous event with friends and family as well as supervisory support of some of the participants. There were several speakers for the event, 4 of which were actual class members going through what is often termed "capstone" or a crowning achievement or culmination of things learned in process. All speakers had incredible points made, however one that stuck out in my mind and has continued to do so over the past 5 days was that spoken Dr. Caroline Hines. Dr. Hines touched on the importance of this achievement and what should be occurring going forward from it. She said something that hit me so strongly I instantly teared up...pretty powerful stuff. She was talking about how its important to clear clutter in life and that it is important to focus on what is the meaning or use of something rather than the steps one goes through to achieve what they think is "correct". Her example was a towel. She indicated that there is "no wrong way to fold a towel, for the way the towel is folded does not impact its purpose". This had to have been one of the most striking things I have ever heard...and yet it made absolutely PERFECT sense. Why should you care about the way your towels are folded when you are at some point going to unfold them and use them for the same purpose...to dry something. She went on to say that clearing clutter in ones life is of utmost importance because clutter (both physically and mentally) holds you down. The purpose is to make sure that you are keeping your focus on the things that bring joy to your life, not all the minute things that can tie up your time and suck you into a black whole. She called it conscious decision making, thinking about things before acting to ask yourself do I really need this, does it bring me joy, or is it just another "thing" to add to my list. We are all busy trying to get in what we need to do in the same 24 hours per day, why waste time on things that are not important.
Whats somewhat interesting is I had actually started working on getting the clutter out of my life and trying to get more organized back around beginning of January. My husband has been travelling a lot lately with work, and with trying to work full time and train I wanted to get things organized in my life to allow for more time to spend doing the things I "wanted" vs. always being a slave to what "needs" to be done. I have been making progress thanks in part to a wonderful book I just stumbled upon at the fabric store one day (random yes...but I believe I found it for a reason, when I was least expecting it but in the most need for it).
This handy little book has been such a helpful read and has put insight into organizing and de-cluttering not only physical spaces, but also mental de-cluttering. It breaks things down by weeks, and you can go in any order that you want, but the main focus that Jennifer Ford Berry has is to determine the function of an item and place it accordingly to that function. If you can't figure out a function...it doesn't have on in your life, and you can get rid of it. Same concept that Dr. Hines touched on, but in a little different way.
So I had started on this quest to get things organized, and made some significant progress, however in the insanity of life over the past month, lost a bit of focus. Before I left for San Francisco I said to myself that upon my return I wanted to get back to the progress I had made as I have actually been able to stick with a lot of the things that I implemented, which is a big deal for me as I tend to get bored and just stop doing things after a while. It was funny when I ended up having a guest speaker remind me of what I had been internally partially committed to, and it just set things in motion, however it also brought to light the importance of removing emotional and mental clutter as well to really focusing on what brings JOY to my life.
Now I know that I have said this frequently, but I don't find training to be a chore, I actually find it to be an outlet, a release, a time for myself, and as I thought about it more I really began to concrete the notion that this really does bring me joy. I have also noticed lately that by bringing myself joy in this area of my life I find that I am able to share that joy with others especially my family. So my goal is to continue trying to clear the clutter in my life so that I can carve out the time that I need to bring myself joy in training, joy in competing, and joy in being a good wife and mother. I still have some work to be done in home life scheduling and also with some chores around the house that need tweaking (yes honey I know I am terrible with ironing...) but the intent is to not be a slave to my schedule or the things that need to be done in my life, but rather work them in such a way that I can complete them more easily to allow for more time for the fun things I enjoy doing with my family. I will stop focusing on doing things perfectly all the time, and try to really keep myself from falling into an all or nothing mindset, after all, there really is no wrong way to fold a towel.
I really enjoyed this. LOVE that towel analogy!
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