Being yourself online can be the strangest experience. (In addition to, you know, the basic essential weirdness of being a human being.)

Sometimes you want to dip your toe in a certain water without making it a big deal or announcing anything. And then it can feel oddly disingenuous to not share everything with everyone.

I open my mouth sit down to write, but nothing comes out.
So then you just don’t talk at all, because hello, all of your brain matter is occupied by this one thing. Feels a bit like being told something about someone and sworn to secrecy. And before you’ve even absorbed the information, he walks up and you get all blurtey and act like a total dooooofus.

Must have happened umpteen times on Seinfeld: Jerry tells Elaine a secret about George, and then she gets all mumbley and super suspicious. Until George gets her wasted and she spills everything.

A glimpse at the flip side.
Sometimes I feel awkward as a reader/consumer when someone hints at something they’re growing in the background. But now as a writer/producer I completely get it. Because you have this thing you want to talk about, but you also feel a bit protective, and you need to wait until the timing feels right.

Must be a bit like couples feel about telling people (or not) that they’re pregnant?

Nurturing something tiny and sweet is a vulnerable and delicate time. It might start out as just a private glimmer of an idea, a flutter across the screen. And at that point everything is so fragile. You need time to get used to the change. And it needs time to put down some roots and get stronger.

The baby point.
And there’s no reason that setting the stage for a new business venture or product has to be icky or manipulative anymore than it would be with a (real life) baby. Because your business can be your baby. Your next idea can be a tiny, sweet thing.

No one would be like: Oh, gross, she totally hinted at being pregnant – she must be pushing her baby on me. Dude, I don’t want your baby!

So why does it sometimes feel that way when someone hints about their next thing?

It’s like you I want to share a little bit, but you’re I’m scared that it will look like priming the pump or something. (Which in this case is extra ridiculous because part of my thing is for such a teeny handful of people that it would be impossible to game anyone.)

The bigger point?
Part of being yourself online (without wanting to stab yourself in the eye repeatedly) has to do with sharing what you can, being all you in a way that feels genuine and safe.

And if you can’t share everything rightthissecond, it doesn’t mean you’re withholding to be manipulative. And you definitely don’t want to over-share in the name of “authenticity”.

I guess this is me saying that I’m doing some stuff. That I’m crazy excited about. And I’ll be ready to share soon. Then, hopefully, I can stop being quite so super awkward and blurtey.

How about you? Do secrets make you clumsy? Even the exciting ones?

A few weeks ago I noticed that every time I’d see an article announcing someone’s good fortune or sparkly new thing, I wanted to throw up with jealousy. And it wasn’t only limited to celebratory announcements. Reading a kick-ass blog post made me want to chuck my computer at the wall.

A couple gazing lovingly at each other at the coffee counter could knock the wind out of me, too. In fact, they could gaze lovingly at the chocolate rugelach instead and still rock my little boat.

And a pang of jealousy like that almost always lets its faithful sidekick tag along. Hello there, Shame. After all: Can’t I just be happy for people? How petty and shallow am I?

Add pathetic to the mix and stir. Enter: Self-loathing. Bleargh.

So I usually dive head-first into avoidance-mode as soon as I feel that mean little hook. Easier to look away or smack the magazine closed at the first mention of someone’s glowey life.

Unfortunately at that point it’s too late. I’m all triggered and edgy. Then I promptly forget what made me so irritable, and have to comb back through my day to place the source of this sticky angst.

When I’m lucky, the jealousy carries a message. This usually happens when I’m feeling dead opposite of lucky – When I’m lost or totally clueless about what I want. But that’s exactly when I’m most motivated to look for clues in mysterious, and even angsty, sources. Cue the jealousy investigation.

If I can convince myself that there’s something useful here, and step into the curiosity zone, things generally open up. I can peer at the edge of something that made me want to gouge my eyes out before. And maybe even admit: There’s something in there that I want.

Being someone who wants something she doesn’t have is way easier than being someone who doesn’t know what she wants. Or who hates herself for hating someone else for having it.

Still, this is kind of a weird moment, because wanting something isn’t inherently painful.

So there must be some belief that lodges itself in between me and the object of my affection

Something like: You want THAT?! OMG, I can’t believe you want that. That would make you materialistic/indulgent/hopeless. You’ll never get it anyway. Let’s throw down the kibosh pronto.

If I shouldn’t want it, or can’t have it rightthissecond, surely it would be easier to just check out.

And that is always the wrong move. I never feel better until I fess up: Oh. I want this thing. And it might be only tangentially related to the thing that wracked me with waves of nausea.

But it doesn’t matter. Message delivered.

Somewhere deep inside of wanting something I don’t have, there is this little, teeny seed of hope.

And that seed clears space for the jealousy to transform into something lighter. Something like aspiration. Maybe eventually even action.

And it usually only takes one small gesture to step back into the stream. No dazzling daring required. You don’t have to quit your job or buy the farm or move to Paris for pastry school. (Yes, I am talking to myself here. Feel free to substitute your own pie-in-the-sky someday scenario.)

All of the sudden, my blog reader no longer makes me nauseous. Couples are allowed to kiss in front of me now, and that girl’s size 26 jeans don’t make me want to stab myself in the (ample) thigh.

Other times the best I can do is to see someone else’s bright, shiny thing and borrow a line I learned from my improv class.

Yes, AND.

Yes, that. AND this. Where this is a sliver of possibility in my own life.

Yes, that. AND, this weekend I’m moving into my own tiny, funky, charming place at the beach. Yay.

Yes, that. AND…

Do you have a yes, and? Or another technique for dealing with envy-monsters?

I recently came dreadfully close to making a Very Bad Decision. There were a couple of weeks of ruminating and whining and imploring about What should I dooooooooo. Where should I doooo it?

All culminating in my spending an entire day in my pajamas eating chocolate and peanut butter. And also pretzels and ice cream. And a slew of other crap. Phew! Crisis averted. Just in the nick of time.

Of course gorging on sugar is kind of a crisis of its own magnitude, but I’ll tolerate that marathon eating spasm in order to gain a little perspective. I’m okay dealing with some minor nausea and frustration if it will keep me from backing my soul into a corner. That trade is plenty fair in my book.

I thought I was confused about this particular decision, but apparently my essential self was effervescently clear. And one of her favorite strategies for making a point is to highjack my attention by embarking on monumental lust for gooey desserts. Clever, that one.

(However, in order to keep me on my toes, she’s equally committed to manic preoccupation with obsessive attempts at achieving The Perfect Body. You know, to balance things out.)

After centuries of struggle, I’m intimate enough with these delightful quirks to know that whatever thing has her all wound up with cookies and compulsion has about zero to do with body stuff.

I used to be all Why?Why?Why? can’t I just eat like a normal person who is effortlessly slender???

Not a useful question. It just kept me from noticing that insistent tap on my shoulder and buzz in my ear. The one saying Ah ah ah, you are heading in the most incredibly wrong direction, Dearie.

Now it might take experiencing the rare junk food frenzy. But if I get very attentive and willing to go deeper than bittersweet chocolate (um, hypothetically speaking), and if I get curious about those impulses instead of critical, my essential self is happy to feed me clues about the state of my spirit.

And she ends up being right an infuriating percentage of the time.

Does your essential self have a favorite way to make you crazy command your attention?

Somehow I’ve managed to extricate myself (at least for now, knock-knock-knock) from the incessant maddening loop of check-check-checking.

Either by way of the much-needed decaffeination project, my sailboat construction process, Grace, or some combination of all three, I am happily navigating a more peaceful, detached relationship with all things online.

Thankfully, I’m spending time on Important Things. And making progress.. oh, sweet progress.

But. I have to admit – I really think that until now I was harboring this incredibly naive belief:
If only I can get all of my time-management ducks in a row, and wash away the more heinous of my time-wasting habits, I will end up riding along a magical swell of unlimited time.

I know it sounds lame and trite and all, but it’s true – I ignored the whole 24-hours-in-a-day thing.

Clearing the clutter has only made me more aware that even if I maximize each moment, I still only get so much time each day to do all the things I love. And sleep and eat and breathe.

It has thrown the inevitability of choice into stark relief. Saying yes also means saying no.

If I spend time I this, I don’t get to spend time on that. Gulp.

I thought if I was perfectly efficient and productive and engaged, I wouldn’t have to choose. Because, you know, once I get There, time will be boundless. I can’t believe I thought that either, but it’s true.

When I was wasting time, I believed (and definitely acted accordingly) that I had all the time in the world. Now that I’m milking it, time has transformed into something precious and viscerally finite.

(Note that for me, milking it doesn’t mean work-work-work and isn’t measured in productive output or anything crazy. It absolutely includes time for open space and play and following certain whims.)

Which in a roundabout way, only makes it easier to avoid the most egregious time wasting. Unfair somehow, like you have to stop procrastinating to discover how wonderful it is to not procrastinate.

And it only makes me more grateful for this process of evaluating the activities that fill my day, what I commit to, where I choose to give my time and attention and energy – which ideas, which people.

Do you ever think if you just put all of the puzzle pieces together just right, you’ll be able to do it all?

Last weekend I was waiting in line at Trader Joe’s with my basket full of stuff. An older man lined up behind me, and he was just holding a quart of milk so I offered to let him go ahead.

Right away I felt this surge of cheer and goodwill and community. Oh happy day, isn’t everything wonderful? Which made me think of the concept of paying good deeds forward. But I’m not as interested in whether a small gesture like that will cause him to be more charitable with someone.

I’m wondering how much it encourages me to be more charitable. Because, you know, it feels good.

And before I give you the (wrong) idea that I’m always so gracious — Last week I was waiting in line somewhere else, and a woman lined up behind me, then gestured to her few items and asked if she could cut ahead. And while I let her, I’m not proud to say –  I felt some mild irritation that she asked.

And of course my irritation with her was ultimately irritation with myself for being irritated with her. And so obviously stingy. Not to mention irritable.

And now I’m wondering: Is that what made me more generous this time? Remembering how icky it felt to be so miserly last time? And um, how does that relate to the whole pay it forward idea?

Like… She annoyed me by asking me to be charitable, which then encouraged me to be more voluntarily charitable with someone else? Oh bleargh, my brain just scrambled.

Which means: Warning, I’m about to oversimplify things.

And why does being generous provide that surge of cheer? I’m guessing something to do with affecting the way we see ourselves. Which reminds me of something I remember being surprised to learn in college social psychology: People are more inclined to like you if they do nice things for you.

Not, If they like you, then they’ll do nice things for you. Other way around: If they do nice things for you, they’re more inclined to like you. Something to do with justifying our behavior to ourselves.

Counterintuitive, because I’d always assumed (people pleaser!) that the relationship went the other way. That it was my kindness on someone’s behalf that most affected the way they felt about me.

When really those gestures are affecting the way I feel about them even more. And apparently, the way I feel about myself. So back to the pay it forward thing… Who gets more out of it? Definitely me.

I would love to hear your ideas, because I’m obviously just figuring this out making this up as I go.

So yeah, I’m structure-resistant. And it’s not just about that pendulum swing of rigid productivity versus slacker rebellion. I think it also has to do with thinking I shouldn’t need help.

Because I want to be one of those people who is perpetually mindful and productive. And since I think I should already be there, I’m not allowed to ask for directions on how to get there. Not a helpful cycle.

So instead, maybe I can be someone who creates a safety net, like a sailboat, while I am mindful and grounded. Something I can turn to when I’m scrambling around all bijigetty and overwhelmed.

Instead of Structure: The rigid plan required to keep my attention-challenged inner slacker in line, I’m trying to build A structure, like a container. One that can hold space for the things that are important to me. And one that can remind me what those essential things are.

Because even when I’m doing something I’ve decided is important, I pretty much always have some nebulous sense that I should be doing something else. Some whispy guilt hanging around regardless of which action I choose.

Like, I know my day goes so much better when most of my morning is spent doing things that don’t look much like work. Things like journaling and Dance of Shiva and meditating and hiking.

Everything flows so much better from there. Stuff gets done. Things jive happily. Except…

Ozzie. Scary, right?

It doesn’t stop Lizard Brain Ozzie from unleashing a cacophony of frantic shrieking:

What do you think this is, Leisure World? We have a LOT to do. Hiking doesn’t pay the bills or save the world, you know. Sheesh.

(Once he got a load of how hilarious I found the coolest puppet on Earth Kelly’s assistant, Ozzie demanded his online debut. Not to be laughed at… No, no, no. To terrify all of you.)

Anyway, this vague, wispy, annoying sense of guilt is so counterproductive. And so widespread.

I know a guy who wants to spend more time reading. So he lets issues of The New Yorker and Atlantic pile up around his house. And, as a guiltifying reminder, actually carries heavy stacks along on his commute. To encourage himself to spend more time doing something he already wants to do.

There’s got to be a better way.

I think for me, it means stepping back and building my structure from way up high. While I’m centered and thinking clearly and have the perspective to say “this, this is important.”

And when Ozzie freaks out and yells: You shouldn’t be blogging, you should be working! You shouldn’t be hiking, you should be blogging! I can ban him from the bakery offer him a cookie.

And then maybe I can turn to the mindful part of me (the one who built the sailboat/bakery) for directions. Hmmm. Any ideas? Do you ever think you “should” be doing something else, even when you’re doing something that seems perfectly “legitimate”? How do you deal?

Even if you’re prone to seasickness. Or, erm, emphatically structure-resistant like me.

Maybe I should back up, yes?

One of my prevalent life-sized patterns is to swing wildly from one end of a pendulum to another. Back when the main hitch in my giddyup was food and body-related, it looked like this:

Deprive self of favorite treat. White-knuckle it. Watch “helplessly” while grand mal gorge ensues.

And repeat. Ad nauseam. (Oh, and quite literally, add nausea.)

So when I left my corporate career, the one where I tracked my billable time in six minute increments, I abhorred the idea of enforcing a rigid structure to my work schedule.

In some wildly illogical diva moment, I decided I couldn’t be creative on demand. I needed boundless space and freedom to allow inspiration to strike. (Cue laughter. I know, Twyla, I know. I’ve seen the light. I’m getting to that part.)

Plus, I was still carrying some issues with the whole concept of productivity. Because when you’re doing work you don’t enjoy, ramping up your productivity just means doing more of it. Gag.

But then! When you start doing work that jazzes you up with energy and enthusiasm, there is so much you want to do! You wonder if maybe there’s something to this time-management brouhaha.

Because the lack of structure wasn’t really doing it for me. I had a swirling sense of time passing without anything concrete to show for it. Not to mention a swirling task list where Urgent, Trivial, and Important things got all tangled up until I couldn’t tell them apart. Recipe for dissatisfaction.

And that’s where having a sailboat is coming to my rescue. A wha?? A sailboat: A gentle, flexible structure to my day. Actually, Eileen’s time-management plan is a sailboat. My business is a bakery*.

(Cryptic much? Sorry. *Adds to list of eight jillion things to blog about in order to link to in order to blog about other stuff.*)

I’m happily discovering that creating structure is the exact thing that gives me freedom to create. Ah, darling paradox. And it’s not that I always follow the schedule perfectly. At all. But that’s okay.

Because while I’m immersed in some kind of flailing procrastination (check-check-checking perhaps) I know that I’m not doing something else. And, even better, I know what that something else is.

And, this is the important part, I know which activities I deemed essential back when I decided to craft this recipe for productivity in the first place. Ahhh, satisfaction.

Okay, more on this sailing, baking, producing stuff next time. Are you a structure lover or rebel?

I went hiking one morning last week after rain had left the canyon slippery and sludgey with mud. After ten steps, my tennies were caked and heavy and I was sliding and clomping. Um, anti-graceful.

And I had this fleeting thought that it was ridiculous to be hiking. Like I was doing something wrong. Guilt attack. Apparently I was going to somehow break nature or something by walking in the mud.

I’m familiar with this (little) girl in trouble gig. And since I’m playing with the idea that every little thought yanking at my attention isn’t unconditionally true, I wondered what this one was all about.

Because really, Monkey Mind? Break nature?

And what eased the wave of guilt was to play this thought all the way out. What if I had stayed home because of the mud? Then what would I be telling myself?

I’m pretty sure that if I had stayed home, the tune would sound more like:
What a baby. A little mud? Good one. Pathetic excuse for your laziness. Please.

Lovely. So the Guilt Monger will fight either side. And realizing that I can’t dissolve the guilt by choosing to act differently is counterintuitively freeing.

Fine, guilt. If you’re going to hang around either way, might as well do what I want.

So I went on another hike this morning, again after heavy rain. (Dear Divine Meteorologist, I live in Southern California for one very sunny reason. Thank you.)

Anyway, three minutes in, my foot sunk so deep you could hear slurping as I yanked it out of the hole, muddy to my ankle. Gross. And so funny. Funny because, again, not so graceful. But also because I had already out-philosophized some of that guilt.

So I feel guity when I hike in the mud. Dirty shoes and fragile nature. I feel guilty when I use mud as an excuse to skip my hike. And then noticing both dissolves the guilt so that I get to laugh.

Do you ever notice this teeter-tottering? Does it help you ignore the irrational resistance?

I’ve been obsessing thinking more about this check-y-loo habit. I’d love to bump creative time earlier and push checking e-mail and stuff later into the day. (Later than the second my eyes pop open.)

And I’m trying to be patient with myself. (Ow.) And curious.
The end of my corporate career was bad. Bad like Sunday night blues that start early Saturday afternoon. Bad like epic anxiety with occasional panic and tearful frustration thrown in for kicks.

Looking back now, I think it probably needed to get that bad in order for me to walk away. For a million reasons. Because change is scary. Because I was “successful”. Because I had a very specific, technical advanced degree only applicable to this one field. Because I was making a lot of money.

Because I didn’t really have a clear idea what I’d do next. Yeah, there was that.

At the end I was letting projects slip and letting people down. Including myself. Bleargh. But I couldn’t be bothered to do anything about the slipping and slacking. I was too busy panicking.

A pattern is born.
I used my Blackberry for an alarm clock. Cozy, right? Every morning my alarm would ring and before I brushed my teeth or wiped the sleep from eyes, I’d check my e-mail.

Really, I was checking to see exactly how awful the day ahead promised to be. I was checking to see if some partner was mad, waiting on me for something, or annoyed that I hadn’t gotten back to them.

I never checked my e-mail and then felt happy or grounded. Today’s going to be just fantastic! Pffft.

Even when my inbox was free of bombs, I didn’t feel any relief. Just a sense of borrowed time. If it wasn’t e-mail, it would be the ominous red light indicating voicemail. Or a file on my chair.

All just a bunch of symbols. Tell me inbox: How should I feel today? How will my day go?

And here we are.
Wouldn’t you know, the pattern stuck. Because it’s been more than a year, and I still want to check in with the outside world first thing in the morning.

And now, even though my inbox is a pretty jovial place, I sometimes find myself checking with a twinge of apprehension. Like there might be a shoe or a request I don’t want to honor. Or I really don’t know what. Something. Something that could wreck me with the anxiety of the old days.

And these days, my e-mail is more like a festival of fun. Whee! Notes from friends! Client appointments! Thoughtful blog comments! (Oh, love those!) But it doesn’t really matter what the content is. I still don’t like this impulse of first looking out there to see how I should feel in here.

Curious. And experimenting.
For me, just noticing what’s underneath this impulse is huge. And I think I could start a series on these former-career-related heebie-jeebie patterns and habits that are still lurking. Maybe I will.

Anyway, I’m curious… Anyone else have these lurker patterns? Or thoughts for unwinding them?

Here’s what happened this morning: I drank my coffee and wrote a page in my journal, which goes something like: fjwiefjoweijfwijfwhgw. And also, oweijfoweijfwei. Incoherent. Just as it should be.

And this morning, as is the case when I’m lucky, the owerowjfkwfwwe gave me a bunch of ideas for other stuff I’m excited to write about. So I opened my computer eager to write about all of that.

Except.
That adorable Mail icon dinged. And I couldn’t ignore the sexy little red announcement. Impossible!

So I thought, I’ll just check my e-mail really fast and then: Onward with the writing! But. There was an interesting e-mail message in there. Another coach asked a question that was relevant to something I’m working on. So I got all hyper and fired off an excitable response! An exclaimey one!!!

And I got hooked.
The e-mail was serendipitously related to the thing I wanted to write about this morning. And serendipity = cool! But it would have been much cooler if I’d done the writing I wanted to do first.

Because then I would have had actual insight to share, instead of the more frantic: Oh oh, me too!

So my attention got all scattered and focused somewhere ‘out there’. And I figured, Hey, I may as well check in everywhere else, right? Check it all! Head spinning with check, check, check! Aaaaaa!

And spewed out the other side.
Now I’m too hyper to write about what really needs writing about: The juicy stuff that floated into view when I was connected and reflective earlier this morning. Nope, I’m writing about this instead.

And I guess I can be a tiny bit grateful that I’m writing about anything at all. It could be worse: I could still be off maniacally looping through the online madness. So I am grateful for whatever pause compelled me to look away from all of the glitter and check back in with myself.

But instead of processing the stuff that felt important to me this morning, I’m processing this. Again.

The bright spot.
Things are shifting. I know it doesn’t sound like it. (At all.) But this loop was shorter. I’m aware and I’m picking up clues. So fair warning to my “Let’s Check Stuff!” pattern: Your days are numbered.

The sticky note goes back on my computer: Want to check something? Check yourself. Write first.

(And also, note to self: Remember to log out of Mail every night. Actually, re-remember.)

Thoughts or ideas? What helps you stay grounded enough to focus on the good stuff? So curious.