Phoenix Touch

Easeful Completion For most of my life, I have had difficulty with the actual completing part of the completion process. When I would take on a project, I would feel all gung-ho and excited in the beginning. I would go at it full steam ahead and sail through the first part of the project as if it was easy as pie. Eventually, I would realize that I had been giving it a go for quite some time and, suddenly, it wasn't fun anymore. It had become old news, an old game, an old project. The excitement of the newness had disappeared. I usually went forward for a bit longer after my spirit deflated until my energy for the project petered out to nothingness and the project remained incomplete. That was my standard mode of operation and it resulted in a lot of mess and, truthfully, exhaustion because what I saw around me all the time were mountains of stuff that I needed to get done sometime. As I got familiar with this pattern, I made commitments to create healthier completion patterns and my pendulum swung in the opposite direction. When I was presented with a new project, I would look at the entire project beginning to end, all the steps in between and the desired end-product and would freeze in my tracks. I knew the result of my old pattern was that nothing was ever finished and that scared me. So, to be safe, I did nothing. Whew! Problem resolved. But not really. That track was getting me nowhere fast, as you can probably imagine. And it was completely defeating my purpose when it came to getting my book published. I recently completed a mentoring seminar with Dr. Gay Hendricks that focused on publishing a book. About halfway through, he offered us a tool by supplying us with an example of a highly-successful, professionally-formatted book proposal and topped it off with the advice: follow this example to the tee. I opened up the file. It was over thirty pages long! I promptly closed it. For weeks, I did this. It got to the point that if I even looked at the name of the proposal's file I would break out in a cold sweat and get nauseated. I was so scared and fully certain that I wasn't good enough, would never get it done in time and if I did, it would be all wrong. But, I really wanted my book published, so I decided to take it step by step, paragraph by paragraph or even word by word, if that's what it took. I sat down one day, opened it up and breathed a really big breath. I placed my fingers on the keyboard and started typing. Each time I would start looking ahead at what was next and then what was after that and then after that... I would stop breathing and I would freak myself out so I would save and close the file and go on to something else. It went on like this for several weeks, accomplishing tiny tidbits at a time, yet fearing that I would not accomplish the task prior to the deadline. Then about ten days ago, I got sick. An interesting thing happened during this illness. My creativity levels sprung to new heights and I couldn't sleep - not from the illness but, instead, from my overactive creativity. In addition, my energy levels were amazing. It was the most bizarre thing I've ever experienced. Between the catnaps and the sneezing and feeling utterly and completely horrific, I was working on the proposal until... all of a sudden it was done and sent off for the competition. It happened so easefully that I didn't even realize I had completed it! It was about a half hour after I had sent the documents off that it dawned on me. I DID IT! MY PROPOSAL IS DONE! MY BOOK IS ON ITS WAY TO BE PUBLISHED!!! Not only is it done, but it's done done! It's done and sent in, even several days early. I am appreciating myself for finding the way to accomplish a task that I was utterly terrified to complete. I'm appreciating that, by taking it in tiny tidbits of doable chunks, the task practically finished itself. I'm appreciating that I now understand what it feels like to be fully complete... and it was so easeful! Yay me! © Angie K. Millgate 3/2/09