I’m not listening anymore… (and neither should you.)

I was looking at a class brochure for the local parks department. I admit that I laughed out loud when I saw the class “Yoga for the Young at Heart – for over 50.” Whoa. So now at fifty you’re relegated to the “young at heart because everything else on you is old” category?

Yes. I’m fifty. I don’t feel it, and I’m not sure what it’s supposed to feel like exactly. If fifty means that I have unbounded energy, new ideas, willingness to try new things, and a happy outlook, then I guess I feel fifty. What I am sure about, is that there seems to be a coordinated effort by marketers and others to stuff fifty into a special category, one that isn’t good for our mental well-being. I could buy into the constant pressure of “over fifty,” and decide to scale back, take fewer risks, and view myself differently than I have my entire life. Or I can refuse to let outside voices define me.

But it’s not just age. There are messages out there that seek to limit all of us in some way. Maybe it’s the message from friends that starting a business or making a big move is too risky, or that it’s too late to go back to school. The limiting messages could be from family and friends who fear that if you change, you’ll pass them by and no longer need them. A common limiting message is “there are already too many ____,” filling the blank with whatever your passion might be.

The media, which is rife with clichés, limits us by using a type of shorthand to classify us into groups so they can market to us more easily. They literally show us our supposed limits by always portraying life according to stereotypes. You know the clichés, the beautiful but stupid woman; the 50+ man as a boss; the clueless husband; and of course, the forgetful senior.

It’s easy to buy into exterior limits when you haven’t taken enough time to examine what you truly are capable of. Is the forty-nine year old more computer-savvy, more active, and more vital on the day before their fiftieth birthday? Is every single new start-up doomed to fail? Are there really “too many” people doing what you’d love to do? Isn’t there always room for another talented person to bring something new to that field?

So who are you listening to? Who has your ear? Are you willing to let others define you? I’m not. If you’re ready to inoculate yourself from limiting messages, then start here: Set aside time for this reasonably-quick, but effective exercise. On a sheet of paper, or in a journal, number two lists 1-10. Title the top 10 as “I am…” and the next 10 with “I want…” This is really helpful if you’re feeling a disconnect between what you want, and what you’re accomplishing.

With your “I am…” list, write down your strengths, your values, anything that you feel strongly about regarding yourself, and is a positive factor in achieving your goals. Your “I want…” list is the place for goals, desired personal qualities, and positive outcomes.

Looking at both lists, think about the messages you’re getting, directly and indirectly, that support your “I am…” and “I want…” Write below your lists the things and people that support who you are, and what you want to accomplish. You can list people who have been supportive, shows you watch, groups you belong to, books and blogs you enjoy.

On another sheet of paper, think of messages that you may be internalizing that tear down the best of you. Look at the goals you’ve written, and examine the messages you’re getting that are keeping you from reaching your goal, or those that reinforce the negative stereotypes and clichés that hold you back. The exercise is quite simple: You are stating who you are and what you want, and then identifying the influences and believes that stop you. Overcoming or resisting limiting messages is about simple awareness, and refusing to be deterred from your mission.

Okay, so here is the fun part of the exercise. Take your “I am…” and “I want…” lists and tuck them away to refer to often. A reminder of who you are, and who you want to be, can help you identify and resist the messages that limit your thinking. Now, take your second page, with the limiting messages, and RIP IT UP! You’re signaling to yourself that you’re done with negative messages that don’t define you, and won’t keep you from being who you really are, and what you want to be. When you hear someone tearing you down, or feel yourself doubting your path and abilities, imagine you’re ripping those negative thoughts up. You don’t need them anymore.

I don’t know why, but don’t we always take to heart the most negative messages about ourselves? Twenty people can tell us that they loved our blog post, or book, or song, but the one person that criticizes it gets our attention and focus. By looking at your own beliefs about what you’re capable of, being aware of messages you’re internalizing, you can filter the negative messages and write your own story. And you can listen to yourself for a change.

Hello, Goodbye, Hello…

This is a farewell of sorts, but also the beginning of a happy ending. But I’m jumping ahead…

To say that this past year has been complicated would be an understatement. I called upon my stores of zen to fashion something workable and useful in the mdist of enormous change.  It’s been a year of self-discovery and of letting go of old ideas about myself and my work, and my future.

Last night, while leaping into another seat-of-my pants DIY gift project, I made a realization.  That is what I truly love.  It’s the process, not the product or industry that I love but how we create within any industry, interest, or lifetime, that captures me.

I realized that I am more MacGyver than Gandhi. (And frankly more Charlie Brown than Charlie’s Angels.)  I love interiors, but I love helping someone create a space that is one part style and two parts inspiration, more.  Clients and friends more than once have commented on how it’s as if I’m channeling something when I get into the flow of creating a room, an art piece, or elements for an event design.  I can feel that.  My heart races a bit, and suddenly without conscious thought, I am recalling bits of ribbon tucked away in a box marked “books,” or a scrap of fabric at the bottom of a bag in the closet. My interiors clients know me as someone who does not give a static recommendation for a couch or a chair, but instead we collaborate on pulling together an eclectic mix of pieces that reflect their vision (again, MacGyver at work.)

Creating something out of nothing, inspiring others to live their true lives through creativity, is really who I am at the core — this is where the Queen of Zen comes from, and my book for home sellers. It’s about seeing things as only we can see them, and what we do with that vision.   This is what I want to do. Always.

Keep Your Zen, and Queen of Zen, will remain, but my inspiration is to use that connection I’ve made to help others connect with their creativity, whether it’s in their home, their work, or their avocations. My zen is creativity and inspiration.  I will also be focusing on my own creative projects in photography, accessory design, event design and entertaining, and art.

So my farewell is really a welcome to creativity for each of us.  My Facebook page, my blog, and my writing, may be changing, but I’m still here.  And, I’ll be announcing new avenues for creative inspiration as the year progresses.

Thank you so much for your support as we adjust the sails and continue the journey.  Stay tuned!

 

10 Ways of the Gift-Giving Ninja

Shop like a Ninja!

I was introduced to someone recently as the “best gift-giver, ever.”   It’s true, I may be the “best gift-giver, ever.” And you can be too, just follow the ways of the Gift-Giving Ninja:

1.  Listen. Your biggest gift successes will come from ordinary conversations.  Listen for clues, and start building a gift list in your mind for that person.

2. Organize. I have a bookmarked file of “gifts,” that I add to all year. If I see anything that might work for a gift, I save it. Don’t bother trying to organize any more specifically than that.

3. Move. The worst thing you can do is go into a giant store with a list of people to buy for, and expect to find it all in one store. I restrain myself from lecturing strangers in a big box store who are grabbing stacks and stacks of generic sweaters on sale, saying “well, that takes care of my list.*” The Ninja never stays in one place too long.  *this really happened.

4. Freelance. You generally don’t want to go into a store with just a list of names, but if you choose wisely, you can do that in specialty stores and sites (like museum, cooking, art supply, stores.)

5. Be Present. On Cyber Monday, Amazon.com reported 1 Billion dollars in sales. It’s so tempting to shop exclusively online now. The Ninja knows that sometimes you must be present to win.  Reconnect with the shopping experience by hitting some local businesses in your search.

6. Give Dreams. A G-G Ninja gives dreams.  What are your friends and family’s dreams? What are the things they talk about wishing they could “get back into, once life calms down.”  You’ll find “dream” gifts in art supply, sports, cooking, and book retailers. Whatever their passion is or was, there is a store or a site for that.

7. Surprise! The legend of the Ninja is the unexpected.  Sometimes the gift itself is not as important as the way it is given.  Meditate on that.

8. Divide and Conquer. The best gifts I’ve given, are a collection of gifts. Wrapped individually, a box of little gifts is way more fun than one big one.

9. DIY Ninja. Don’t be afraid to give DIY gifts. We’re living in a DIY culture, work it.  Handmade gifts are the ones that endure.

10. Give Experiences. Most of us would much rather have  a great experience, or a new memory, than a new jacket. One of my best G-G Ninja moments was giving the experience of swimming with the dolphins to my stepdaughter.  While she loves the other things I’ve given her, that experience changed her life and will stay with her forever.

the Zen of House Guests.

The holiday season is here, and it’s time to think about house guests again.  Whether they’re here for one night, or one month, the joy of seeing loved ones for an extended period of time is tempered with an inevitable disruption of our routines.   Though the disruptions are inevitable, there are things that you can do to preserve your zen (and the zen of your house guests) no matter the length of their stay!  Here are some of my favorite ideas for the care and feeding of house guests.

If you have a dedicated guest room, you’re way ahead on the zen scale for hosting.  When guests have a space to set out their belongings, and can close the door behind them during their stay, the stress level goes way down.  It’s the equivalent of putting out the “do not disturb” sign when staying in a hotel.  Offer up fresh towels and toiletries during their stay, but otherwise you don’t need to attend to their room until they leave.  This is double-zen*, neither of you have to worry about making the bed every day or straightening up their space.

Not everyone is fortunate enough to have a separate guest room.  Many of us have a dual-purpose guest space.  The space could be an office, a sewing room, a den, or other non-essential room.  If your guests will be housed in a dual-purpose room, take the time before they arrive to remove anything you’ll need for the duration of their stay.  Though the room regularly services another purpose, the room should belong to your guests while they’re here.  If your children normally watch saturday morning cartoons in that room, you’ll have to relocate them while a guest is staying in there — believe me, I’ve witnessed incidents where guests were (trying to) sleep in, while the host family watched TV on the floor near the bed.  Is it easy to imagine the tension level during the rest of the visit?

And if you have no guest space at all, but your guests will be crashing on a couch, futon, or portable bed, in a living area, you have the biggest challenge of all in maintaining a harmonious visit.  When your guests arrive, let them see where they’ll be sleeping, and allow for a nearby closet for their belongings during the visit.   Let your guests know if it’s okay to leave the bedding on the couch, or the futon unfolded throughout their stay, of if they can just fold up the bedding each morning. If you don’t address this when your guests arrive, your guests will feel uncomfortable wondering if they need to return the space to a living room every morning.  Be sure that you have at least one luggage rack, or ottoman, in the room so that suitcases can be opened (just as any guest in a hotel would like.)

The key to keeping the zen regardless of the sleeping arrangements is to allow your guests to feel as if they have some privacy, and are not left guessing about what’s expected of them during their stay. We’ve all been house guests before, and have all had that feeling (even with family members) that we’re in the way, or not doing enough.  Being clear about how the guest can contribute (or not!) is much easier than several  “you don’t have to do that” each day, when the guest tries to guess what you’d like them to do.

Once we get the sleeping arrangements figured out, the next stop is the bathroom arrangements.   Again, if you’re fortunate to have a separate bathroom for your guests, you and your house guest harmony quotient just skyrocketed.  If you have a private bath for your guests, you’ll need only to furnish it with fluffy towels, a locking door, and basic toiletries, to make them happy.  I enjoy adding special soaps, shampoos, and lotions, to the guest bath.  I strive for that “she thought of everything” review of the stay in my house.

Your guests may be sharing a bath with others in your home, and that doesn’t have to be a source of stress.  Last summer, we rented a small beach house with only one bathroom for 2 adults and 2 teens.  I’ve been spoiled by having a separate guest bath in my home, but found ways to work around it.  I purchased small plastic toiletry baskets with handles, the type you see in the “Dorm” section of household stores.  I filled each basket (one per guest) with small sized toiletries, leaving enough room for items they brought with them.   You’ll want to purchase the baskets in different colors, to help identify them.   Put the baskets out for the guests in the area where they’ll be sleeping.  The guests can carry the basket into the bathroom and either leave it in there or take it back to their space. I also let them know that they’re free to take the baskets and contents home, if they’d like.

For all house guests, regardless of the bathroom situation, I have a set of towels folded and stacked up, and tied with a ribbon.  This set of towels stays with them throughout the visit, except for laundering if needed.  This relieves so much concern in the minds of a guest wondering which towels they should use.  Often guests would like to do their laundry during their stay, so be sure to show them the laundry room after they’ve settled in.  Doing your own laundry while on the road is a silly little luxury that many house guests enjoy.

One thing that I enjoy the most about preparing for house guests, is putting together welcome packets for them.  I keep a supply of local brochures and maps, and stamped local postcards, for my guests.  In the designated guest space, I put these items with pens and paper, along with a few books that they might enjoy.   My guests appreciate the sampling of local chocolates, bottled water, and mints, I have waiting for them when they arrive.  It’s that “she thought of everything” approach, again.

Keeping your zen while entertaining house guests really boils down to planning ahead, consciously creating privacy for you and your guests, and giving your guests the comfort of knowing exactly how they’ll fit in during the stay.  Oh, and the chocolates go a long way to zen.

*double-zen, that makes me smile every time I write that.

Me: Unplugged

Could going backwards really mean I’m going forward?  For months, I’ve been thinking about upgrading my Blackberry.  It’s a great little device, keeping me apprised of all my emails, social media apps, and everything else.  I used to laugh at people who talked about their “Crackberry addiction.”  I figured I’m not the type to get so dependent on 24/7 communication.  Apparently, I was wrong.

The need for a 24/7 connection to communications happens slowly.  First you add one email account, then innocently you add a few more. Then there’s Facebook next.  Pretty soon you find yourself in the grocery store reading emails from some company, about some product you couldn’t care less about.  Every morning you wake up and look over at your Blackberry (before even getting out of bed) to see what emails you missed while you’re sleeping.   I found myself outside playing with the dogs, and carrying the Blackberry with me, setting it on the grill, a birdhouse, or a fence post.  What did I think i was gong to miss?  In every instance when I received life-altering information or call for help has always been in a phone call.  If something is truly urgent, do you think anyone would leave it to an email and hope you’d check your inbox in the next 24 hours?  Of course not.

So for the past few months I was thinking about upgrading the Blackberry to something slick, like an iphone or Droid. I reasoned with myself that I could not only get all my emails, my social media apps, but I could also add a ton of really useful stuff to the phone.  Until the day saw my Blackberry sitting on the grill outside and realized I don’t need to be that connected — I’m not a brain surgeon or an obstetrician.  I can still stay on top of my client’s needs, respond quickly, without sacrificing my zen.

The constant need for streams of information that follow us in the car, in the store, in the bedroom, are just distractions.  I’m going for quality work, and the kind of care and attention to my work, as that of a craftsman.  How can I possibly write well, assist my clients, and focus on my work, if I’m fielding emails all day?  Perhaps it’s my love of the architecture, fashion, and culture, of the 40s and 50s, but lately our culture is looking to me to be something like squirrels on speed. I’m ready to slow it down, deliver the kind of quality work and service that can’t be done when you’re “multi-tasking” (which is a polite word for doing too much, badly.)

My big upgrade for my Blackberry arrives today.  It’s what they call a “feature phone.” The features being: a phone with texting and a camera. Period.  There’s an option to add emails to the phone, but I’m not going there. I have my Macbook, and a netbook — I am wired enough.  Wonder how long it will take me to stop checking the new phone for emails every five minutes?

You: Unplugged.

Phones, PDAs, texting, Facebook, all these technological advances were supposed to make our lives easier.  Is anyone else questioning that premise right now? I know I am.  Used to be that I’d excitedly await new applications and gadgets, now I find myself dreaming of ways to pare down what I have already.   There is a a definite appeal to getting away from it all, unplugged, on a vacation.  Have you noticed that you’re seeing less and less ads with people sitting on the beach with a laptop while touting the idea of a working vacation?   That used to be a selling point, but now it makes us cringe at the sight.  Restaurants and stores are removing wifi in an effort to bring back engagement and a social atmosphere to their businesses, and people are cooking and entertaining more at home.  I think it’s a trend that is about more than just the economic climate — we’re getting back to the basics. 

I was able to witness the effect of being hyper-connected on my stepdaughter.  She is an admitted serial-texter, with much of her time spent either checking her phone, or having conversations via text.  And then horror! The phone snapped in half. A replacement phone had to be mailed out, then activated.  This meant five days without texting.  Five days unplugged. 

The first day was spent reaching for her purse automatically checking to see if anyone had texted, but then realizing there was no phone to check.  The second day was the realization that she would have to find a way for people to contact her. After a misguided post on Facebook to her 200 friends with our home phone number, we settled on telling them to leave voice mails on her cell phone so she could check them remotely (which resulted in zero voice mails.)  By the third day unplugged, the phone was set aside in her mind, and we talked about the benefit of living in the present, and focusing on herself and the people who she was with at the moment.  

The true moment of zen came when she took an overnight trip before her new phone had arrived.  Shopping with her sister for bridesmaid’s dresses, being unplugged allowed her to focus on the joy of the trip, the significance of the event for her sister (the bride), and experiencing it fully.  We talked about how the trip was different unplugged when she came home.   The experience was made so much better by her being completely present.

Today the new phone arrived and my stepdaughter activated it. She found nineteen texts from her cell phone exile, waiting for her when the phone was turned on.  I asked her if any of the texts were important, life or death, or if they were pretty unremarkable.  They were all pretty unremarkable, all things that could have waited for a phone conversation or visit.  

Like the person in the grocery store having a personal conversation on the cell phone while in line, or the children watching DVDs in the back seat while the family drives around town, or the armies of people walking downtown with ear buds in or texting as they walk down the street, are we better off plugged in 24/7? Or is unplugging the new luxury?

Pretty Little Categories.

I think it’s human nature to have this desire to categorize things, or label everything we think, do, or love.  I’m totally guilty of this. I can’t just say I don’t like peanut butter, I say “I’m not a peanut butter person.”  I don’t just love the beach, I’m a “beach person.”  The need to label our style is really huge now. The trend has spawned magazines, blogs, shows, and fan groups, of specific styles.   As a designer, my favorite style may be different depending on the day you ask.  I think it’s more zen to recognize what it is about a particular style that you like, and take bits of what you do like from a variety of inspirations.  

Right now I’m defining a new style, and perhaps even labeling it,  based on two seemingly incongruous loves: Vintage and contemporary. Maybe I’ll call it “Vintemporary.” Or does that sound like something you’d find in the wine country?  I love the clean lines of contemporary design, and I love the trend toward more natural materials.  But.. I also love vintage and junque styles. 

So, it’s like I’ve drawn up this little chart of the two styles, picking and choosing the elements I like and leaving the rest.  I’ve been disappointed in the direction of contemporary interior design lately because frankly, you can only have so many rooms with beige walls, dark wood, and white trim with a bit of black lacquer pieces thrown in for good measure. The design images I’m seeing seem to be interchangeable from house to house, from magazine to magazine.  I love color and personality in my rooms.  I also love recycled and vintage pieces.  That creates “vintemporary style.”  I’ve put together a quick illustration of the style:

Vintage Contemporary by Diana-Tangerine featuring Tory Burch shoes

Do you have a few styles you’d like to blend? What would be the new name for your style?