Whenever I get an email notice of a new post on the blog “The Sophia Project,” written by Cyndi Briggs, I feel myself jump inside, kind of like when my grandpa would pull some candy from his pocket, or the Bookmobile arrived at our country school once a week.
Today I got a Cyndi fix, who describes her Sophia Project as follows:
“This blog is for women and the men who love them, so you can truly manifest all the greatness you’ve got living inside of you.”
Most recently, Cyndi is taking her own advice (one of her five ground rules, by the way) and changing her life. Her post today is about her transition between her old home in Minnesota to her, well, old (childhood) home in North Carolina, where she is looking for an apartment and “not living with my parents. I am staying with my parents. The qualitative difference between those two words is profound and important.”
Part of her transition is setting new “ground rules for living,” such as “#4. Work just enough and make friends with my money”:
“I am tired of worrying about money. I am sick of doing things I don’t care about in the interest of having a job. This year, I want to work just enough, on projects I am passionate about, in order to sustain myself. And I want to finally, totally get that I always have enough, and I am resourceful and hard-working enough to support myself. Seriously. This lesson is important and I want to get it.”
Her thoughts couldn’t have come at a better time for me, as I am creating new ground rules for writing, which are, of course, also about living. My ground rules aren’t nearly as well thought out as Cyndi’s, although I’m beginning to see that, in addition to my morning writing hour, they will include something about crochet and cooking. I definitely want to emulate Cyndi’s clarity and simplicity. Five is a good number, so much better than fifty.
Maybe you want to use a term other than ground rules, such as guidelines, manifesto (in the style of E. Paul Torrance), or agreements (ala Don Miguel Ruiz). Whatever you call them, do you have ground rules? Or maybe, like me, are you in the process of creating them? What works for you?
“OK, Let’s get this straight: Ground rules for living…” is a great post! These are great stepping stones on the path to truely living and even rules that anyone could really build upon as they discover themselves and who they wish to be. Just after reading this post, I realize that I’m currently working on rule 3. I was very shy as a child and now I’ve been going out and trying new things, meeting people, etc…Thank you for sharing this post, Lisa.
Thanks Lisa! The feeling is entirely mutual :-). Here’s to living out loud, my friend!