I’m spending the summer again in New York City with my son. Here, amidst the constant noise and motion, I find it difficult to focus. More than that I see how I am torn in too many directions each day. Because of that, nothing gets accomplished.

Let me rephrase that last sentence. Things get accomplished…little things. The big things don’t get done.

I finish articles when given a deadline. I write blog posts. I handle client work. The big projects–the stuff of my dreams and the visions for my business and my life–these get tabled or started and not finished.

I could focus upon these things, but the small things would likely fall to the wayside. And the small things are not unimportant. They just take less focus, less time, to accomplish.

Somehow here in the city, this all become so much more obvious so me as I watch the people moving quickly in so many different directions–much like my thoughts and my actions. Do you ever feel that way?

I think sometimes we have to stop and focus our days or our hours. I’ve been told over and over again to schedule my time better–to give each task, each project, a day or a time so I can focus upon it. I know that would work. I’ve struggled against this, feeling that I prefer to be lead by my muse and my spirit from task to task.

Starting next week, I will try to schedule my time better so the large and the small task receive equal focus. Maybe this will also open up more time to allow spirit and my muse to guide me.

What about you? Are you struggling to focus, and what will you do about it?

The other day a friend of mine told me I’d missed an opportunity. I told him he was wrong. Well, maybe it did represent an opportunity–an opportunity for me to lose focus.

Right now my life seems filled with distractions from my true goals. It’s difficult for me to remain focused on those goals and to accomplish them. So, while this friend felt he had offered me an opportunity–a chance actually to make some money doing something fairly easy–for me it would simply have ended up one more To Do item on my already too-long list. It would have made me take time out of my already too-busy day to concentrate on taking advantage of this opportunity.  I would have had to stop focusing on my goal and accomplished this job instead. And all I want to do is focus on accomplishing my goal.

Don’t get me wrong; I like to make money. (I could stand to make a lot more.) I appreciated the offer from my friend as well. However, the way to achieve goals lies in focusing upon them. When we know what we want, we must diligently work towards creating or achieving it. We must keep the end in sight at all times.

It’s a well known fact that successful goal achievement techniques include focused thought and visualization. Thus, you want to minimize distractions and anything that stops you from keeping your goal at the forefront of your mind.

Sometimes that means pairing down what you do each day so you can focus on your goal not only with your attention but with your time and energy. That’s what I realized when my friend offered me this job. His opportunity actually would have become an obstacle for me–an obstacle to focus. I wouldn’t have been able to keep my goal at the forefront of my mind. I wouldn’t have been able to focus my thoughts upon it or to visualize it as often. I’d be too busy working on his “opportunity.”

Today, as you look at the opportunities presented to you, evaluate them well. Ask yourself if they help or hinder you on your way to achieving your goals. If they hinder you, maybe they aren’t opportunities after all. Then recommit to focusing on your goals, and then do it–focus, focus, focus!

Today I weeded another section of my extremely large garden. Every spring it becomes totally overgrown with weeds. If I’m not quick, they become shoulder high or taller and go to seed. This year, I got to the job too late.

Actually, I have way too many other things going on in my life to worry about the garden. I won’t even be around most of the summer, so I don’t plan on planting anything new. I just wanted the weeds gone and the sprinklers set up.

Besides, last summer the sprinklers went on the fritz without me knowing it and many plants died. Also, the gophers found a lof of other plants extremely tasty and ate them while I wasn’t watching.  That’s what happens when you are too busy to tend to a garden. Gardens need care and attention.

As I was pulling weed after weed and bemoaning the loss of so many beautiful plants, I began thinking about Shavuot. I was asked to teach during the all night learning session at Chadeish Yameinu, my Jewish Renewal community, but I declined. I had been up until 2 a.m. two nights in a row, and they wanted me to teach at 2 a.m. I couldn’t do it. So, I didn’t even attend.

Shavuot marked just one more holiday I have missed, one more Jewish event I have not attended, one more day when I have not been able to focus on my spiritual practice or on my spiritual or religious studies. It marked one more day when I was too busy to pay attention to the garden of my soul.

Like any garden that goes untended, the garden of my soul also has begun to grow weeds and the plants ahve begun to die. I’ve forgotten some of the lessons I once knew, and bad habits, like gophers, have begun to live there and kill off the good habits. This has happened because I’m not paying attention; I’m not focusing on keeping the garden healthy and thriving.

It’s time for me to make time to weed, till, fertilize, plant, water, prune the garden of my soul. It’s time for me to take time — make time — for the spiritual side of my life once again.

For it’s the soul that actually gives us life. Without that, we become like a plant a gopher has eaten. The unseen part – our roots – are gnawed away, and the seen part – our body — withers away and dies.

Yes, it’s time to begin weeding the garden of my soul and then tending to it with love and care. How about you?

I feel my life swirling somewhat out of control. Sometimes out of control seems like a good thing, like when you can let go and enjoy a water slide, experiencing the speed and the excitement of simply seeing where you end up. Other times it’s a scary thing, like driving down a mountain with no breaks or no way to steer the car. I seem to have a bit of both going on in my life. In once case, we give up our need to control the situation and in the other we fight for a way to regain it.

The scary part comes with overwhelm, a sense that I can’t regain control of the amount of events and situations that “take over” my life or the speed at which I must move through my days and weeks. The exhilarating part comes with the sense that God’s hand is directing me, pushing me-shoving me, forward faster and faster so the force of my forward movement will be too hard to stop. This will ensure that I arrive at my destination.

What is that destination? The fulfillment of my soul’s purpose.

Yet, every day I struggle with all the little things I’m doing or have to do that pull me away from the bigger things I feel I need to do to fulfill my purpose. They take up my time and energy and focus.

I was telling a friend about this when he said something interesting. He said, “You sound as if you think you have failed, because you have yet to achieve your largest goals. Do you think that the only way to fulfill your purpose is with the larger accomplishments?”

I thought about his question. “No,” I responded. I can see that I fulfill my purpose in lots of little, even some big, ways.”

But until that moment, I had not looked at it that way. I had been focused on the end result rather than on all the little steps along the way, those things that are making me move faster and faster down the path to my end destination.

Now I see, though, that the more speed I pick up the faster I get where I am going. I need to both enjoy the ride and learn to control the speed and direction even when it seems I have no brakes or steering wheel. To do this, I need only focus on where I want to end up; this controls my direction and movement. And I need only take a deep breath to slow down a bit, or simply take time for God to have Divine breaks applied and my forward movement slow a bit. (Isn’t that why we have the Sabbath-to find sacred time away from the rush forward every day?) And with that sort of focus, I can actually reaffirm my purpose and get more Divine support for my journey.

Now, if I can just remember this as I step back onto the water slide, back into the car, back into the every-faster, ever-stronger energy carrying me forward…

Do you notice when the spirit moves you? I found myself pondering this question about a week ago amidst a pile of work I was trying to get done at almost midnight. Everyone else in my family had already gone to bed, even the cat, who is supposed to be nocturnal by nature.

I realized that I notice spirit moving me all the time, giving me information, inspiring me to act. What do I do in response? All too often, I do nothing at all.

What’s my excuse? I don’t have the time right now (and I don’t really know when I’ll have the time). I have to get other things done first. I can’t start yet another new project. That won’t bring in any money. That activity (such as prayer or meditation or exercise) feels like I’m really not doing anything at all. I feel guilty doing that instead of something I should be doing.

On that particular night, however, I felt spirit move me to return to a project I had once started and to which I had never returned. I had often thought of completing it in a shortened version – in the meantime, and on that night I began doing just that. I thought to myself, “Spirit is telling me to do this, and I’m going to do it. I could go to bed, but I’ll stay up for a little while longer and follow the call of my spirit.”

I was compelled to do so by a conversation I had had with a fellow writer earlier that day (well, by then it was the previous day). We had been walking and chatting and she said to me, “The thing I love to do the most – sleep – I wish I never had to do at all. I could get so much done if I only didn’t have to sleep.” I realized, there have been numerous times when I have foregone sleep to finish work for clients – magazine editors and authors whose books I’ve been editing. However, I never treat myself like a client that has imposed a deadline on me. I rarely stay awake just to work on one of my manuscripts or to begin a new writing project.

I decided that spirit had called and wanted a job done. And who was I not to heed that call and finish the job on time? In fact, I worked on that job for three nights this week until the wee hours and only after I had finished my other work. I have a few more hours of work to do to complete the job. (And I already have one order for this product, an ebook based on Rebbe Nachman’s words about moving through fear. It’s not posted on the website yet, so if you want one, send me an email at namir@purespiritcreations.com. They cost $5. Like most of my booklets – this will be a printed booklet, too – and ebooks, its a shortened version of what iwill one day – soon – be a full-length book.)

Spirit calls to me often. It speaks loud and clear. Normally it doesn’t give me a deadline. I guess I’ll have to self-impose that, because I definitely get more done when I have a deadline. (Too many years as a journalist are taking their toll on me, I think!) But from now on, I’m going to try and make spirit my Number 1 priority client. I might not sleep as much, I’ll be living my life more fully, fulfilling my soul’s purpose and achieving my goals.

How about you? Do you notice when spirit moves you? And if you do, how have your responded in the past or how will you respond in the future?

[I'd love to hear your thoughts on my blog postings. Please leave your comments! If you have trouble doing so, let me know by writing to me at namir@purespiritcreations.com. I've had a few people tell me they aren't able to comment, and I'd like to know if there actually is a problem. Thanks!]

Shabbat ends ends and the week begins. It seems like time starts again.

We finish reading the Torah and we begin again with the first portion, the first words of Genesis: “In the beginning.” These thee words been translated many ways, but scholars seem to argue that the words tells us something about the creation not only of the world but of time. Some say, time must have existed before God created the world. Others say time began as the world was created…as creation began.

No matter, it seems each year as we begin rereading the Torah from the beginning again, as we read those three words again, time speeds up just a bit more. The hands on the clock move a bit faster each day. The days on the calendar pass just a bit more quickly. The months go by like days. And before I know it, we are reading the last portion of the Torah and beginning again.

Does a way exist for us to go back in time to a time when we had more time? That’s what I’d like to know. I surely don’t have enough of it any more. I don’t have time to sit in my tent waiting for visitors or to wander anywhere for 40 years let alone 40 minutes (not even on a walk).

If in the beginning there was time, I’d truly like to go back to the beginning.

This summer my son suffered from an undiagnosed illness. For six weeks I had to juggle not only my work, which required meeting a variety of deadlines, but his needs and the other household duties I have, such as paying bills, cooking, etc. When my daughter was home, I also had to try not to neglect her and to address her needs. And I had to try to support my husband, when possible, who was trying to help while also dealing with enormous stress from his job adn the need to work very long hours.

As my son’s illness, including two hospital stays, came to an end, and we finally received a diagnosis – after the fact, I turned my attention to keeping him healthy enough to pursue a goal that would affect the coming 12 months. He needed to make it through a full week of dancing. By completing this dance intensive and an audition at the end of the week, he would set the course for his whole year of dance. And he had to do this after being sick for six weeks and not dancing for eight weeks. I also turned my attention to getting my daughter to art lessons and myself to a writer’s conference.

All this to say, in the midst of this I realized there are many ways to live your life fully. During this six- or eight-week period in my life, I couldn’t exercise, visit with friends, have new experiences, or try exercises that would allow me to live my life fully in a variety of ways. I could only be in the moment as fully as possible. I could handle a deadline that loomed over me. I could be present in a hospital room or at a doctor’s appointment or with my feverish child. I could put aside my stress over work to talk with my son while driving to yet one more visit to the lab to draw blood. I could handle paperwork and bills at 1 a.m., because this was the only time to do so. I could put aside my own stress and fear about the future and talk to my son about his current upset over missing camp, not being able to stand, feeling his illness was unfair, and generally being stressed about being sick and wanting to be healthy so he could have a normal life and pursue his dreams.

Living fully meant being totally present for my son and for myself during his illness. It meant putting other things on the back burner – including the next assignment for the Living Fully Challenge I run and author each month. It meant prioritizing, and realizing that nothing was more important than being in the moment – each moment – with my family. I meant reminding myself that now – this moment – is all that really matters, and the rest can wait. It meant putting aside my fears about the future, my anger about what had happened, my mullings over the causes or reasons. It meant making choices now, now, and, again, now. And choosing now, not then – whether then meant a time to come or a time that had passed.

Know that when you can’t do it all, when you can’t live fully in the way you think you should or desire, you can live fully simply by being in the now. Knowing I can do this – and continue to do this – brings great peace into my life. I hope sharing this with you will help you find that same peace.

It’s been over a month since I last blogged. I should be flogged! But I won’t dwell on the negatives of why I haven’t blogged. Suffice it to say, I’ve been busy.

Too busy to write. Too busy to bicycle. Too busy to read. Too busy to relax. Too busy to garden. Too busy to clean my house. Too busy to do yard work. Too busy to do some of what I want to do and some of what I need to do. To busy to live my life the way I’d like to live it.

Which brings me to my point. Last month on my website I began a challenge: The Living Fully Challenge, 12 Months to a Fully Lived Life. The idea behind it is simple: Not living our lives fully costs us something. What is that cost? It’s different for each of us. Some might pay with peace of mind, leaving them with worry and stress. Others might pay with happiness, leaving them sad or depressed. For one person the cost might be health and for another connection; these people end up holding only illness and loneliness when the day is done. For someone else, the cost might be their dreams, leaving them empty and without hope of ever achieving their potential or their desires. No matter the cost, not living our lives fully costs us something. And each day, each moment that we don’t live to the fullest extent represents one more payment we don’t want to make, one more payment for which we can’t ever reimburse ourselves.

I’ve had to really look at this idea very closely not only because I had the bright idea to pose this challenge, which meant I had to write the assignments to go with it (and do them as well), but also because my husband has been out of work for a few months now and my income has been pretty minimal as well. Lack of money always seems to make living life fully a bit problematic. Maybe that’s why the first Living Life Fully assignment I posed involved having fun with finances…

Plus, I don’t ever seem to have the time to do the things I want to do. Lack of time and money are real show stoppers when it comes to doing things you want to do, and it often seems like living fully revolves around doing things we enjoy.

That said, it seems to me that there are some very small ways in which we can begin living our lives fully every day (even with little money or time). The point is to go to bed each night and to be able to acknowledge and feel grateful about at least – at the very least – one thing we’ve done that day that made us feel happy and alive. And we can fit that thing into our busy days and into our work and into our driving kids here and there and into our paying the bills and into our conversations with others. How do we do that? I hope to explore that a bit in my blog over the next 12 months – maybe not in each blog but at least once each month as part of my own challenge.

And as part of living more fully myself, I’m committing to writing my blog more often. Writing makes me feel more alive. Writing represents my life’s purpose. When I write, I am on purpose, enlivened and energized. I want to write more! So, I can live more fully each day by committing to write more – even if it is simply by blogging.

Some small things I know I can do include walking out to my garden to see what’s growing or to pick a flower or pull a weed (or two or three); lighting a candle and incense and putting on music each morning before I begin work; taking even five minutes in the morning to write in my journal and even less in the evening to write down the things for which I’m grateful; reading even a few pages of a book each day; and saying something nice to someone I care about. These don’t sound like they’d contribute much towards living my life fully, but with the little I’ve been doing most recently they’ll make a huge difference, I’m certain.

Here are a few larger things I’m committing to do – maybe not every day but every week – so that I go to bed more often able to acknowledge that I did, indeed, live more fully:
ride my bike or walk with a friend
– spend time in conversation with God
– do something I simply want to do
– communicate honestly
And, I’ll continue taking the time to do the challenge exercises! Who wants to join me?

What’s the point of living if you aren’t living fully? God didn’t place us here on this earth in these bodies to not experience life on this plane to the fullest extent. We are meant to experience all that live has offer and that this physical plane has to offer. (Yes, that means the good and the bad.) We are meant to experience all that we can spiritually and metaphysically as well. We are meant to experience it all!

Even people in wheelchairs and with terminal illnesses can live fully in their own way. I know a woman just about the same age as I am who was recently diagnosed with terminal cancer. I look at her and wonder if she regrets now not having lived her life more fully. I wonder if she is living it to the fullest extent that she can now. We must all approach our lives as if today could be our last, as if this moment could be our last. By that I don’t mean we should focus on the negative, on the possibility of death being around the next corner, but rather that we should focus on doing all the things we want to do now (if we can). We shouldn’t wait.

Now, I’m not necessarily going to choose to get into more debt by taking an expensive vacation that I can’t afford, but I might take a trip to a local park for a walk. I might wear that expensive shirt that has been hanging in my closet waiting for just the right occasion to be worn – but that has only actually been worn once in 10 years (because I haven’t wanted to ruin it). I might actually write that letter to that person I admire and ask for an interview. And I might actually send out that book proposal to that publisher. And I also might talk to my husband about how we can move to the next level in our relationship. And I might actually stop work early today and go for that two-hour bike ride (rather than 30 minutes) I always wish I had time to take.

Those are all things I can do now, this moment. I don’t have to wait. And then I won’t regret not having done them. And I can go to bed knowing I lived a little more fully by doing so.