Business Yoga Writing

Much to talk about. Little energy. Let's see what I come up with.

Work was busy. Really, really busy. The most "busy" making thing was people needing to talk to me over and over again about the same things. Toward the end of the day, someone came into my office without greeting me, sat down in a chair, and, before he could say anything, I said "*****, I'm sorry, but I don't have time to talk to you right now." This person had actually come to the shelter that day to volunteer, not to receive case management services, which makes it more annoying. But I can't really stay upset at the guy, ultimately. He's just needy. But it takes up so much of my time and energy to deal with everything.

I'm not writing this so much to gripe as to focus on this as an issue. This is a draining part of my day, the talk that doesn't go anywhere, that doesn't need to happen. It takes away from what I can give to the people I'm supposed to be focusing on. How do I deal with it better? I guess I could more aggressively do what I waited until the end of the day to do - politely set boundaries. Not just assume that I need to address everyone's problems all the time - or, to phrase it more accurately, to babysit everyone all the time. If it were genuine, clearly defined problems that were coming at me all day, it would be something different. What I am encountering is fundamental, unconscious neediness. It is everyone's responsibility to deal with this neediness in a careful, mindful way that both satisfies their needs and respects the needs of others, but this is difficult shit, and saying that people could deal with it better is not directly addressing the problem of my energy drain.

I am learning. It's not that I don't know what to do. I need to trickily walk the razor-thin line that is kind and humane boundary-setting. Just remarking, is all. Observing and remarking. It's not gotten to the point of being a crisis yet. It is something to watch out for.

Yoga was good. It will be a shame that I won't have class for two weeks. I really need to work on my hip area. Whenever I do a forward bend, I feel like I am tensing a spring. My body wants to spring back. This is, as far as I can tell, what muscle tightness is all about. But it feels weird not really being able to relax into the poses. I don't remember having this issue when I did yoga back in 2003 / 2004. Is my body tenser (probably)? Is my understanding of the poses getting deeper and richer and causing me to reconsider how I do them (most definitely)?

Other than that, I felt very strongly today, at one moment, how important it is for me to do creative writing in a comfortable way. By comfortable, I'm excluding writing exercises. I mean, real gutsy writing, which to me means its something I not only enjoy writing, but I think about the piece all day long - it holds my imagination captive. Something like this is important to me; something like this is intrinsic to my self-esteem. But how to get back into it? I need rest right now. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. Just writing one line is not it. I wrote a couple pages like 2 months ago as part of 30 days of feeling - it did not jump start. I guess just thinking about it is engaging with it to a certain extent. It will come. I want it. It will come.

Good night.