Are You a Renaissance Soul?

Are you a Renaissance Soul? According to Margaret Lobenstine you are if you have too many passions to pick just one. I imagine blog readers to be a bit like me, flitting from blog to blog, drinking deeply or just sipping from lots of different sources. And if you are a Renaissance Soul AND a perfectionist, Lobenstine has a great antidote. She suggests you perfect perfectionism by scoring your level of perfection for different projects. Here is an example from my own life. I am willing to weed around the giant sunflowers in my backyard at 50% perfection. I will tackle clearing our our car port at 75%. Maybe 10% for clearing my mind of all thought during meditation (some mornings it could just be .01% perfection! LOL).

My daughter, son-in-law, two adored grandchildren plus son and daughter-in-law are arriving this afternoon. I was surprised to find that, along with my excitement and anticipation, I felt a vague fatigue. Since I had no physical reason to be tired, I decided to do a self-guided Focusing session to see more about that. By listening more deeply to myself I discovered this: I could enjoy their visit 100% IF I would just do the hostessing at 25% perfection. Plus, I'd feel more present with them if I finished and published this post. Energy back on line. Blog post underway. Anticipation flowing.

Would you like to learn Focusing? For a limited time, I am offering one free session per week as part of my training to be a Certified Focusing Professional. Contact me from this site.

BFF* - No Need to Choose Just One

Friends are very important to me. Have you ever taken the Myers-Briggs Typology test? If so, you may have been frustrated by the forced choice of some of the questions. One question really annoyed me: Would you rather have a FEW DEEP friendships or MANY SHALLOW friendships. I always wanted to answer, "I would rather have MANY DEEP friendships!" But the test didn't allow that answer, so it seemed life didn't either. Recently I attended Treasure Maps to the Soul, a retreat which artfully challenged that limited belief.

Ann Weiser Cornell and Barbara McGavin teach Inner Relationship Focusing and have developed Treasure Maps to work with places in our lives where we tend to feel stuck - old patterns that have not given way despite therapy, affirmations, fire walking, or church. It was a fascinating week over-all, but one concept in particular grabbed me. Barbara and Ann claim we live in a BOTH/AND world. We can have our cake and eat it too.

Driving home from Calistoga to Ashland, I mused about that idea of BOTH/AND and remembered the "few deep" vs "many shallow" friendship question. As I drove the curving road leading out of the Napa Valley I realized that I had, indeed, created a life in which I have many deep friendships. In my case it happens that a lot of these friends live elsewhere. We don't have regular quality time. In some cases we only get together every few years, but each visit is extremely meaningful. In this important area of my life I have, indeed, been able to have my cake and eat it too. Yum.

(Could it be that we rarely, maybe never, have to choose between things that really matter to us? If your life sometimes feels like important needs are being overlooked, abandoned, or buried, you might want to consider Focusing.)

The picture with this post is a SoulCollage card honoring Ann and Barbara. More SoulCollage cards at SoulCollage Talkabout.

* Best Friend Forever